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Title: Anglo-Saxon Literature

Author: John Earle

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The Dawn of European Literature.

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE.

BY JOHN EARLE, M.A.
RECTOR OF SWANSWICK,
RAWLINSON PROFESSOR OF ANGLO-SAXON IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION
APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
26, ST. GEORGE’s PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER S.W.
BRIGHTON: 133, NORTH STREET.
New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.

1884.

PREFACE.
The bulk of this little book has been a year or more in type; and, in the
mean time, some important publications have appeared which it was too
late for me to profit by. Among such I count the “Corpus Poeticum Boreale”
by Dr. Gudbrand Vigfusson and Mr. York Powell; the “Epinal Gloss” and
Alfred’s “Orosius” by Mr. Sweet, for the Early English Text Society; an
American edition of the “Beowulf” by Professors Harrison and Sharp;
Ælfric’s translation of “Alcuin upon Genesis,” by Mr. MacLean. To these I
must add an article in the “Anglia” on the first and last of the Riddles in the
Exeter Book, by Dr. Moritz Trautmann. Another recent book is the
translation of Mr. Bernhard Ten Brink’s work on “Early English Literature,”
which comprises a description of the Anglo-Saxon period. This book is not
new to me, except for the English dress that Mr. Kennedy has given to it.
The German original has been often in my hand, and although I am not
aware of any particular debt, such as it would have been a duty and a
pleasure to acknowledge on the spot, yet I have a sentiment that Mr. Ten
Brink’s sympathising and judicious treatment of our earliest literature has
been not only agreeable to read, but also profitable for my work.

15, Norham Road, Oxford,
March 15th, 1884.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.— A Preliminary View 1
II.— The Materials 28
III.— The Heathen Period 59
IV.— The Schools of Kent 79
V.— The Anglian Period 98
VI.— The Primary Poetry 119
VII.— The West Saxon Laws 150
VIII.— The Chronicles 169
IX.— Alfred’s Translations 186
X.— Ælfric 207
XI.— The Secondary Poetry 225
XII.— The Norman Conquest, and after that 243
INDEX 259

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.
A PRELIMINARY VIEW.

Anglo-Saxon literature is the oldest of the vernacular literatures of modern
Europe; and it is a consequence of this that its relations with Latin literature
have been the closest. All the vernacular literatures have been influenced by
the Latin, but of Anglo-Saxon literature alone can it be said that it has been
subjected to no other influence. This literature was nursed by, and gradually
rose out of, Latin culture; and this is true not only of those portions which
were translated or otherwise borrowed from the Latin, but also in some
degree even of the native elements of poetry and laws. These were not,
indeed, derived from Latin sources, but it was through Latin culture that
those habits and facilities were acquired which made their literary
production possible.

In the Anglo-Saxon period there was no other influential literature in the
West except the Latin. Greek literature had long ago retired to the East. The
traces of Greek upon Anglo-Saxon literature are rare and superficial.
Practically the one external influence with which we shall have to reckon is
that of Latin literature, and as the points of contact with this literature are
numerous, it will be convenient to say something of the Latin literature in a
preliminary sketch.

The Latin literature with which we are best acquainted was the result of
study and imitation of Greek literature. But the old vernacular Latin was a
homely and simple speech, much more like any modern language in its
ways and movements than would be supposed by those who only know
classical Latin. The old Latin poetry was rhythmical, and fond of
alliteration. Such was the native song of the Italian Camenæ, unlike the
æsthetic poetry of the classical age, with its metres borrowed from the
Greek Muses. The old Latin poetry was like the Saxon, in so far as it was
rhythmical and not metrical; but unlike it in this, that the Latin alliteration
was only a vague pleasure of recurrent sound, and it had not become a
structural agency like the alliteration of Saxon poetry. The book through
which juvenile students usually get some taste of old Latin is Terence, in
whose plays, though they are from Greek originals, something is heard of
that rippling movement which has lived through the ages and still survives
in Italian conversation. Reaching backwards from Terence we come to
Plautus and Ennius, and then to Nævius (B.C. 274-202), who composed an
epic on the first Punic war. He lamented even in his time the Grecising of
his mother-tongue. He wrote an epitaph upon himself, to say that if
immortals could weep for mortals, the Camenæ might well weep for
Nævius, the last representative of the Latin language.

The splendour of classical Latin was short-lived. The time of its highest
elevation is called the Golden Age, of which the early period is marked by
the names of Cicero and Cæsar; the latter (the Augustan period) by the
names of Virgil and Horace. There is a fine forward movement in Cicero,
who studied the best Greek models; but gradually there came in a taste for
curious felicity suggested by the secondary Greek literature. This adorned
the poetry of Virgil; but when it began to spread to the prose, though the
æsthetic effect might be beautiful in a masterpiece, it was apt to be
embarrassing in weaker hands. Æsthetic prose appears in its most intense
and most perfect form in Tacitus, the great historian of the Silver Age. As

new tastes and fashions grew, the oldest and purest models were neglected,
and, however strange it may sound, Cicero and Cæsar were antiquated long
before the end of the first century.

The extreme limit of the classical period of Latin literature is the middle of
the second century. The life was gone out of it before that time, but it had
still a zealous representative in Fronto, the worthy and honoured preceptor
of Marcus Aurelius. After this last of the Good Emperors had passed away,
the reign of barbarism began to manifest itself in art and literature. The
accession of Commodus was a tremendous lapse.

The point here to be observed is that the classical Latin literature was not a
natural growth, but rather the product of an artificial culture. It presents the
most signal example of the great results that may spring from the
enthusiastic cultivation of a foreign and superior literature. And it is of the
greatest value to us as an example, because it will enable us better to
understand the growth and development of Anglo-Saxon literature. For just
as Latin classical literature was stimulated by the Greek, so also was Anglo-
Saxon literature assisted by the influence of the Latin. And as the classical
student seeks to distinguish that which is native from that which is foreign
in Latin authors, so also is the same distinction of essential importance in
the study of Anglo-Saxon literature.

The influence of Greek upon Latin literature was so far like that of Latin
upon Anglo-Saxon, that it was single and unmixed. But then the influence
of Greek upon Latin was altogether an external and invading influence, like
the influence of Latin on modern English; whereas in the case of Anglo
Saxon the literary faculty was first acquired through Latin culture; the
Saxons were exercised in Latin literature before they discovered the value
of their own; they obtained the habits and instruments of literature through
the education that Latin gave them.

Up to the end of the classical period the Latin had not yet attained, in
literature, the position of a universal language. It was rather the scholastic
language of the Roman aristocracy. There was but one field in which it
occupied the whole area of the Roman world, and that was the field of law.
To this we should add the Latin poetry, which was also absolute in its own
domain. In every other subject Latin was a second and a subject literary
language, the supreme language of literature being Greek. Greek was the
chief literary language even of the Roman Empire. Of the two languages,
Greek was by far the more convenient for general use. Human thought is
naturally serial, and the language that is to be an acceptable medium of
general literature must, above all things, possess the art of moving forward.
In this art the Greek was far in advance of the Latin, and the curious culture
which produced the Latin classics had, indeed, been productive of much
artistic beauty, but had withal entangled the movement. It is not in Latin but
in Greek books that the knowledge of the ancient world has been preserved.
The greatest works in botany, medicine, geography, astronomy were written
not in Latin but in Greek, even in the most flourishing times of the Roman
power. It is sufficient to mention such names as Dioscorides, Galen, Strabo,
Ptolemy. The greatest works in history, biography, travel, antiquities, ethics,
philosophy were also written in Greek. Such names as Polybius, Plutarch,
Josephus, Pausanias, Dionysius, Epictetus, Lucian will give the reader
means of proof. Fronto could not prevail with a Roman emperor, his old
pupil, to prefer Latin to Greek. Marcus Aurelius wrote his “Meditations” in
Greek. The language of the infant Church, even in Italy and the West, was
not Latin, but Greek. The names of the first bishops of Rome are Greek
names, the Christian Scriptures are in Greek, and so is the oldest extant
Liturgy—the Clementine—which seems to represent the practice of the
West no less than of the East. Not only the Canonical Scriptures of the New
Testament are in Greek, but also those which were partially or for a time
received, as the Epistle of Clement, the Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas.

And a further set of writings beyond these and inferior to these, but
ultimately of great popularity, were in Greek: I mean the legendary and
romantic apocryphal writings, such as the Acts of Peter and Paul, the Acts
of Pilate, and many others.1 This latter set was already growing in the
second century, and reached their mature form in the time of Gregory the
Great.

It is not clear how early Latin began to be used as the official language of
the Church, but everything points to an important change soon after the
middle of the second century. Before that time, Justin, living at Rome, and
writing (A.D. 138), for the Roman people to read, a defence of Christianity,
which was addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius, wrote it in Greek; but
before long another apologetic writer, Minucius Felix, wrote in Latin. This
coincides with other indications to mark a great transition in the latter half
of the second century. Up to this time two languages were in literary
currency, a foreign scholastic language and an æsthetic vernacular. It was
chiefly the wealthy class that sustained these literary languages in Rome.
When in A.D. 166 the Oriental plague was brought to Italy with the army
returning from Parthia, cultivated society was wrecked, and the literary
movement was greatly interrupted in both languages. This was a blow to the
artificial culture of Greek in Italy, just as the plague of 1349 and following
years was a blow to the artificial culture of French in England. After A.D.
166 a check was given to progress, which lasted, in the secular domain,
until the sixteenth century.

Let us spend a moment upon the sequel of the old literature, before we
come to the new, which is our proper subject here.

Under the altered times that now ensued, the continuity of classicism is seen
in two forms of literature—namely, philological criticism and poetry. The
acknowledged model of Latin poetry was Virgil, and his greatest imitator
was Claudian, who had made himself a Latin scholar by study, much as the

moderns do. Claudian is commonly called the last of the heathen poets. He
has also been called the transitional link between ancient and modern,
between heathen and Christian poetry.2 One characteristic may be
mentioned, namely, his personification of moral or personal qualities, a sort
of allegory destined to flourish for many centuries, of which the first mature
example appears in the “Soul’s Fight” of Prudentius, the Christian poet,
who was a contemporary of Claudian. The school study of the classics
produced grammars, and two authors became chiefly celebrated in this
branch, namely, Donatus and Priscian. Their books were standards through
the Dark and Middle Ages.3

There was one department of prose literature in which Latin was
undisturbed and unsophisticated. This was the department of law and
administration. The legal diction escaped, in a great measure, from the
influence of classicism; it kept on its even way through the whole period,
and as it was an ordinary school subject under the empire, the language of
the law books exercised great influence in the formation of the prose style
that continued through the Middle Ages.

We now come to the new Latin literature with which we are intimately
concerned.

By the side of this diminished stream of the elder literature there rose, after
the middle of the second century, a new series of writings, new in subject,
and new also in manner, diction, and spirit. The phraseology is less literary,
and more taken from the colloquial speech and the usage of everyday life. It
seems also to be, in some measure, the return-language of a colony: some of
the earliest and most important contributions come from Africa, where
Latin was now the mother-tongue of a large population, and that country
appears to have escaped the ravages of the plague.

The first of these books is one that still bears considerable traces of
classicism. It is entitled “Octavius,” and is an apology for Christianity by
Minucius Felix. But immediately after him we come upon a chief
representative of this new literature, which aimed less at form than at the
conveying of the author’s meaning in the readiest and most familiar words.
This is strikingly the case with the direct and unstudied Latinity of the first
of the Latin fathers, the African Tertullian, in whom the contrast with
classicism is most pronounced. In him the old conventional dignity gives
place to the free display of personal characteristics, and no writer (it has
been said) affords a better illustration of the saying of Buffon—“the style is
the man.”

Another African writer was Lactantius, to whom has been attributed that
poem of the Phœnix, which most likely served as pattern to the Anglo-
Saxon poet.4 It consists of 170 lines, hexameters and pentameters; terse,
poetical, classical. This old Oriental fable, as told by Ovid, was short and
simple: “There is a bird that restores and reproduces itself; the Assyrians
call it Phœnix. It feeds on no common food, but on the choicest of gums
and spices; and after a life of secular length, it builds in a high tree with
cassia, spikenard, cinnamon, and myrrh, and on this nest it expires in
sweetest odours. A young Phœnix rises and grows, and when strong enough
it takes up the nest with its deposit and bears it to the City of the Sun, and
lays it down there in front of the sacred portals.” Such is the story in Ovid;
and there we know we have a heathen fable. But in the poem of Lactantius,
it is so curiously, and, as it were, significantly elaborated, that we hardly
know whether we are reading a Christian allegory or no. Allegory has
always been a favourite form with Christian writers, and more than one
cause may be assigned for it. Already there was, in the taste of the age when
the Christian literature arose, a tendency to symbolism, which is seen
outside the pale of Christianity. Moreover, the long time in which the
profession of Christianity was dangerous, favoured the growth of

symbolism as a covert means of mutual intelligence. Then Christian thought
had in its own nature something which invited allegory, partly by its own
hidden sympathies with Nature, and partly by its very immensity, for which
all direct speech was felt to be inadequate. But what doubtless supplied this
taste with continual nutriment was that all-pervading and unspeakable
sweetness of Christ’s teaching by parables. The Phœnix was used upon
Roman coins to express the aspiration for renewed vitality in the empire; it
was used by early Christian writers5 as an emblem of the Resurrection; and
in the Anglo-Saxon poem the allegory is avowed.

To Lactantius also has been ascribed another book in which we are
interested. This is a collection of a hundred Latin riddles under the obscure
name of Symposius, which name has by some editors been set aside in
favour of Lactantius for no better reason than because of some supposed
Africanisms. Aldhelm speaks of these riddles under the name of Symposius.

A new literature thus rose up by the side of that which was decaying, or had
already decayed. This new literature was the fruit of Christianity; it was
more a literature of the masses than any that had been hitherto known; it
was marked by a strong tinge of the vernacular, and it was separated in form
as well as in matter from the old classical standards. The spirit of this new
literature was characterised by a larger and more comprehensive humanity.
It was animated by those principles of fellow-feeling, compassion, and
hopefulness, which were to prepare the way for the structure of human
society upon new foundations. This, rather than the classical, is the Latin
literature which we have to follow; this is the preparation for modern
literature, and its course will be found to land us in the Saxon period.

After the triumph of Christianity, this new literature was much enlarged,
and it appropriated to itself something of the grace and elegance of the
earlier classics; and whether we speak of its contents, or of its artistic
character, we may say it culminated at the end of the fourth and the

beginning of the fifth century in the writings of Augustine. In his time we
find that the contrast between profane and sacred literature is already long
established: the old literature is called by the pagans liberal, but by the
Christians secular.

The removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople had ultimately the
effect of substituting Greek for Latin as the language of administration in
the East. On the other hand, the growth of the papal power in the West
favoured the establishment of Latin as the sole language of the West, to the
neglect of Greek. Thus East and West were then divided in language, and
Latin became universal in the West. In Anglo-Saxon, the people of the
Eastern Empire are characterised simply as the Greeks (Crecas).

The heart of the new Latin literature was in the Scripture translations. Many
exercised themselves in translating, especially the New Testament.
Augustine says the translations were beyond number. But the central and
best known of these many versions is thought to have been made in Africa.
In A.D. 382, Damasus, the bishop of Rome, induced Jerome to undertake
that work of revision which produced the Latin Bible, which is the only one
now generally known, and which is called the Vulgata, that is to say, the
received version. Older italic versions, so far as they are extant, are now to
us among the most interesting of Christian antiquities. In the early
centuries, and throughout the whole Middle Age, the Scriptures took rank
above all literature, and their influence is everywhere felt.

The sack of Rome (A.D. 410) drew forth from the pagans a fresh outcry
against Christianity. They sought to trace the misery of the times to the
vengeance of the neglected gods. This accusation evoked from St.
Augustine the greatest of all the apologetic treatises, namely, his “City of
God” (De Civitate Dei). This great work exhibits the writer’s mature and
final opinions, and it may be said to represent the maturity and culmination
of that Latin literature which began after A.D. 166, and continued to progress

until it was half quenched in barbarian darkness. The “City of God” has
been called the first attempt at a philosophy of history; and, again, it has
been called the Cyclopædia of the fifth century. It lays out before us a
platform of instruction on things divine and human, which reigned as a
standard for centuries, even until the theology and philosophy of the school-
men had been summed up by Thomas Aquinas.

To this great work a companion book was written by Orosius, who had been
Augustine’s disciple. This was a compendium of Universal History, and it
was designed to exhibit the troubles that had afflicted mankind in the ages
of heathenism. It became the established manual of history, and continued
to be so throughout our period; and Orosius was for ages the only authority
for the general course of history. This explains how it came to be one of the
small list of Latin books translated by Alfred.

We have no sooner reached the culmination of that Christian literature
which began after the depression of A.D. 166, than we find ourselves in the
presence of another great fall. The sack of Rome in 410 shook the minds of
men as if it were the end of all things. The fifth century was a time of ruin,
but also it was a time of new beginnings. Three great events are to be noted
in this fifth century: 1. The Western Empire came to an end; 2. The Franks
passed over the Rhine into Gaul, and became Christian; 3. The Saxons
passed over the sea to Britain, and remained heathen until the close of the
sixth century. These three events group together by a natural connection; it
was the expiring empire that made room for the Frankish and Saxon
conquests, and these two conquests have been, and are, fertile in
comparisons and contrasts, and reciprocal action, not only through our
period, but till now and onward.

About A.D. 500, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wrote a Latin poem on the mighty
acts of Sacred History—(De Spiritalis Historiæ Gestis); and this book has
been regarded as the original source of some passages in Cædmon and

Milton.6 The poem is in five books, of which the first three—1. On the
Creation; 2. The Disobedience; 3. The Sentence of God—form a whole in
themselves; while the remaining two books, which are nominally on the
Flood and the Red Sea, are really on Baptism and the Spiritual Restoration
of Man. So that the whole work comprises a Paradise Lost and a Paradise
Regained.

We now come to a book which, though not by a Christian author, is so
manifestly influenced by Christianity, and has been so fully recognised by
the Christian public, that it must be included in our list—viz., “The Comfort
of Philosophy,” by Boethius. Gibbon even called it a golden volume, and
one which, if we consider the barbarism of the times and the situation of the
author, must be reckoned of almost incomparable merit. It was composed in
the prison to which Theodoric had consigned the wisest of the old Roman
patriciate; and it is commonly regarded as closing the canon of Roman
literature. It was translated into all the vernaculars, Alfred’s translation into
English being the first, and Notker’s into High German being the second.7
Other works of Boethius lived through the Dark and Middle Ages,
especially his translations of Aristotle, which were standards for the student
in philosophy.

From this time we see a world fallen back into a wild and savage infancy,
and we shall witness the gradual operation of a spiritual power reclaiming,
educating, transforming it. The subject of Anglo-Saxon literature derives,
perhaps, its greatest interest from the fact that it represents one great stage
of this process.

As we approach the Saxon period we must take particular notice of a new
agency that now comes on the scene. The institution of monachism was one
of considerable standing before the date at which we are now arrived, but it
had never yet found any function of systematic usefulness. Benedict of
Nursia is called the father of monks, not because he first instituted them, but

because he organised and regulated the monastic life and converted it to a
powerful agency for religion and civilisation. Benedict was born in 480, and
he died at Monte Cassino in 543. The Benedictine institution is the great
historical fact which demands our attention in the early part of the sixth
century.

An eminent Benedictine was the Roman Pontiff Gregory, surnamed the
Great. He was born in 540, and died in 604. He designed the conversion of
the Saxons. He was a great author, though he was ignorant of Greek. We
will here notice three of his works—the “Commentary on Job,” the
“Pastoral Care,” and the “Dialogues.”

The first of these is remarkable as a specimen of that mystical interpretation
of Scripture which characterised the exegesis of the Middle Ages, and of
which manifold examples occur in the Homilies of Ælfric, who names
Gregory as one of his sources.

The “Pastoral Care” is worthy of its name as a book of direction and advice
from the chief pastor to his subordinates. It is full of grave practical
wisdom, animated by the Christian spirit and the love of souls. For
prudence it is worthy of the pontiff who solved Augustine’s questions, as
we read in Beda’s history. In this book we discover the true and legitimate
source of the power of the clergy, and we verify the words of Joseph Butler,
who said that if conscience had power as it has authority, it would govern
the world. The power of the clergy is sometimes explained as a stratagem;
he who reads this book will see a deeper root to that power; he will see that
if trickery made that power to fall, it was something else that caused it to
rise.

A greater contrast than that between the “Pastoral Care” and the
“Dialogues” it is hardly possible to conceive. We cannot wonder that the
identity of authorship has been questioned, and that the “Dialogues” have

been attributed to another Gregory. The difficulty is, however, lessened if
we consider the widely different conditions of the readers addressed. At a
time when an old civilisation and a crude barbarism were intermingled and
living side by side, the one was written for the highest, the other for the
lowest in the intellectual scale. The “Pastoral Care” was addressed to the
Roman clergy, with whom, if anywhere, something of the old culture still
lingered. The “Dialogues” were intended for the barbarians. The book is
addressed to Theodolinda, the Lombard queen. It is a book full of
wonderful, not to say puerile, stories, in which a religious lesson or moral is
always conveyed, but not always one that carries conviction to the mind of
the modern Christian. It reflects the policy of converting the barbarians by
condescending to their tastes, and belongs to the same system as that
increase of pomp and ceremony which was due to the same motive. This
book far outran the former in popularity. It was among the earliest of Latin
books to be translated into vernacular languages. Gregory’s writings were
very influential on popular religious literature throughout the Dark Ages,
and nowhere more so than in England, where he was honoured as a national
apostle. There exists an Anglo-Saxon translation of the “Dialogues,” but it
has not yet been edited.

The time of Gregory the Great was the time in which, to use Dean Milman’s
words, “the human mind was finally Christianised.” This triumph, as
usually happens, was overdriven. We see a too jealous exclusion of secular
literature, and a too credulous and favourable disposition towards Christian
legends. This was the time when the secondary apocryphal literature
reached its maturity, and was grouped in collections. An active labourer in
this pious work was Gregory of Tours. He contributed the “Miracles of St.
Andrew,” and possibly other pieces. This period, from the middle of the
sixth into the early part of the seventh century, is the period of the greatest
literary activity of the monasteries of Gaul, and the apocryphal collections
seem to have been made in some of these8 If the Christianised Latin

literature reached its highest excellence in the time of Augustine, it
discovered its extremest tendency in the time of the two Gregories.

There is yet one form of literature that claims our attention. The Greek
romances of love and marvellous adventure were probably discountenanced
in Christian families, and we may regard the secondary Apocrypha as a kind
of pious substitute for such entertaining works of fiction. But there was one
of these old heathen novels that held its ground, that can be traced in more
than one early monastic library, and that was translated into every
vernacular—Anglo-Saxon first. This was the Romance of Apollonius of
Tyre, from which comes the story of that Shakespearean play, “Pericles,
Prince of Tyre.”

The books which we have noticed between the second and the seventh
centuries may be allowed to represent that Christianised Latin literature
which is the historical bridge between the ancient classical and the modern
vernacular literatures. The latter had as yet no existence. In Mœsia, on the
shores of the Danube, a Gothic dialect had been immortalised by Scripture
translations from the Greek as early as the fourth century; but nothing of the
kind had as yet appeared under the Latin influence in the West. The
Merovingian Franks left no vernacular literature; on the contrary, they
rapidly lost their native speech, and adopted that of the conquered nation.

The Franks and the Saxons had been neighbours in their native homes,
speaking almost the same mother-tongue; but their migrations led them into
new regions in which they again proved neighbours under altered
conditions. Each was to take a leading part in the formation of modern
Europe, but they were to be divided in that office, their lots being severally
cast with the two great constituent factors of modern civilisation. The one
was to lead the Romanesque, the other the Gothic division. The Franks
became assimilated to the Romanised Gauls, and formed, with them, one
Latin-speaking Church; they raised the standard of orthodoxy against the

Arianism of the other barbarian powers, and the Frankish king was
decorated with the title of Most Christian; the history of that Church was
written in Latin by Gregory of Tours. This work, upon which he was
engaged from A.D. 576 to 592, bears strong marks of literary degeneracy.
Gregory complained of the low state of education in the cities of Gaul. He
became a historian only from a sense of necessity, and for fear lest the
memory of important events should perish. He has been called the
Herodotus of the Franks, and the Herodotus of barbarism. The history of the
Church in Gaul after the absorption of the Franks is not one of quickened
progress but of crime and torpidity. Gregory the Great justified his mission
to the Saxons on the express ground that the Church of Gaul, whose natural
duty it was, had neglected it. The history of the Merovingian Franks stands
in disadvantageous contrast with the early vigour of the Saxon Churches.
The first great elevation of European culture was to spring, not from among
the Franks, but in the remoter colonies of the Saxons.

The English conversion began A.D. 597; and two religious foundations were
quickly established:—1. The Minster of St. Saviour, afterwards called
Christ Church, and now Canterbury Cathedral; 2. The Abbey of SS. Peter
and Paul, outside the walls of Canterbury on the east, which was afterwards
called St. Augustine’s. Of the foundation of schools nothing is heard at this
time; but a generation later, A.D. 631, we find the Kentish schools taken as a
model for schools to be founded in East Anglia by Felix.9 It is an interesting
question whether these were the missionary schools, or whether they were
schools which kept up the traditions of Roman education in a degenerate
form like the schools in Gaul. On the ground that our oldest document is a
Code of the first converted king, it has been too easily inferred, that before
this time the Saxons were wholly destitute of literary appliances. Were the
fact more certain, than it is, the conclusion would be weak. There are in the
Chronicles certain archaic annals which have been thought to be a possible
product of the heathen period.

The second home of culture was in Northumbria. A wonderful combination
of influences met on this favoured soil. In the extreme province of the
empire, there had been a concentration of military force, to keep the Picts in
check; the centre of Roman government on the island had been at York, and
here, if anywhere, something of the civilisation of Rome would naturally
remain.

Another important influence was the Irish, or, as it was then called, the
Scotian. It is true that the first evangelist in order of time was Paulinus, who
came from Kent, and represented the Roman mission. But the savour of the
Gospel was first received through the teaching of the Irish missionaries, of
whom the foremost name is Aidan. Never did any people embrace
Christianity with such entire heart as the Irish; and much of their lofty
devotion was communicated to the Angles whom they converted.

Upon this, when they were prepared to profit by it, supervened the mission
of Theodore and Hadrian, who implanted the seed of learning, with great
ability, at an opportune moment, and with the most abundant results. Under
the warmth of a first love, all these advantages were moulded together, and
resulted in making Northumbria for three or four generations the centre of
European culture. The seat of this culture was York, the old Roman capital,
and its culmination was under Archbishop Egbert (734-766), and his
successor Albert. The great writings of this period are in Latin, and the chief
names are Aldhelm, Eddi, Winfrid (Bonifacius), Danihel, Beda, Alcuin. Of
vernacular prose the chief remnant is a series of Northern Annals, between
A.D. 737 and 806, which have been embodied in some of the Southern
Chronicles. But what specially characterised this period was a rich
development of sacred poetry, some remnants of which are perhaps extant
in our “Cædmon.” But our fullest knowledge of this old poetic strain comes
back to us from Old Saxony, where it was propagated by the Anglian

missionaries, and it survives under a thin disguise in the poem called the
“Heliand.”

In Aldhelm we see that this new learning was not solely ecclesiastical, but
that there was something in it which aimed at recovery of classical learning.
He was distinguished for his elaborate study of Latin metres, and his
commendation of the pursuit. He wrote poems in Latin hexameters, and
among these a Collection of Enigmas, which bore fruit in the later Anglo-
Saxon literature.

The latter part of the Anglian period produced Alcuin, the distinguished
scholar who was engaged by Charles the Great to organise his new schools.
So we see the lamp of culture pass from Anglia into Frankland, shortly
before the time when Anglia was overrun by the Danes and almost all the
monuments which were destructible perished.

We may dismiss the Anglian period with the remark, that its achievements
are all the more distinguished from the fact that they belong to a time when
the whole Continent was in the thickest darkness, that is to say, the seventh
and eighth centuries.

Under Charlemagne a new start was made for the restitution of literature.
He drew learned men to his court, Alcuin from England, Paulus Diaconus
from Italy. Thus he made a new centre for European learning, and France
continued to sustain that character down to the latter end of the Middle
Ages. His chief agent in this great work of enlightenment was Alcuin, who
was educated at York under Egbert, who had been a disciple of Beda. And
so we see the torch of learning handed on from Northumbria to the Frankish
dominions in time to save the tradition of culture from perishing in the
desolation that was near. Among the names that adorn the annals of revived
learning under Charles himself, we must mention Smaragdus, because
Ælfric acknowledges him as one of his sources. The book referred to would

hardly be the “Diadem of Monks,” a selection of pieces from the Fathers
with Scripture texts, worked up as it were into a Whole Duty of Man,
although Ælfric would be likely to know this book; but for the composition
of his Homilies it is more likely that Ælfric would have drawn from another
book by Smaragdus, namely, his commentary on the Epistles and Gospels
for Sundays.

Men who have left their names in history now followed in the work of
sustaining the revival of learning. We must mention Rabanus Maurus,
whose Scripture commentaries were used by the poet of the “Heliand”; and
Walahfrid Strabo, who wrote on plants and had a taste for Greek
etymologies.

The revival of secular learning brought in its train a strong development of
speculative theology. The ninth century is marked by controversy on the
Eucharist, and on Predestination. The former of these controversies had an
effect upon Anglo-Saxon literature, which requires us to record one or two
main facts in this place. Paschasius Radbert, a monk of Corbey, who was
for a short while Abbot of that famous monastery, wrote a treatise (the first
of its kind) on the Eucharist, maintaining the change in the elements. The
opposite side was taken by Ratramnus (otherwise called Bertram), a monk
of the same house. His views were adopted by Ælfric in the tenth century,
and were embodied in a Homily, which was welcomed by the English
reformers of the sixteenth century as an antidote to the doctrine of
transubstantiation. Haymo, bishop of Halberstadt, who had studied at Fulda,
maintained the doctrine of the material change in its most extreme form. He
was also a commentator upon the Scriptures, and Ælfric used his
commentaries, but only “sometimes.”

The Danish scourge beggared the land, as in all other respects, so in
learning and in all the liberal arts. We who had formerly sent instructors to
other nations, were now suitors for help in our destitution. The same

national deliverer who rid us of the destroyer, was also the restorer of
education. If he cannot be said to have effectually restored learning, at least
he laboured with so much earnestness at the task that he may be said to
have bespoken an ultimate though delayed success. Alfred is not more
famous for his great battles than for his great literary efforts.

The literary restoration of his time is supported by the Carlovingian
schools, and in this we may see a repayment in the ninth century of that
help which Charles had received from England through Alcuin in the
eighth.

Different in its origin is the remarkable spring of religious and intellectual
life in the tenth century. Ever since the synod of Aix-la-Chapelle in 813, the
religious spirit in Gaul had manifested itself in the stricter discipline of the
Benedictine monasteries, and this movement reached us in the middle of the
tenth century. The Benedictines had a famous school on the Loire at a place
then called Floriacum, now Fleury or St. Benoît-sur-Loire, and some
leading men in England were in active relations with this house.10 In the
eclipse which the nominal seat of Christianity was under in the tenth
century, the light of the Church shone in France and England. The reforms
of Æðelwold and Dunstan and Odo are the transmission of this movement
to our island.

This great movement has only time to take shape enough to declare itself
when it is again interrupted by troublous times, invasions, and wars, and
changes of dynasty, and before any length of peace is again allowed, by the
decisive and final blow of the Norman Conquest, which brought with it
more than a change of dynasty. It changed the whole body of the governing
and influential classes, not from one stratum to another within the Saxon
nation, but by the introduction of a ruling class from another nation,
speaking another language, and one of a different family.

The new language thus brought in was no barbarous dialect, but the most
cultivated of the Continental vernaculars. It was the other great factor of
European literature. It had begun to be cultivated later than the Saxon, but
then it had ages of culture at its back. The strength of this language was in
its poetry—just the element which had stagnated in England. The French
taught not only the English but all Europe in poetry. All modern European
poetry is after the French model.

After the Conquest Saxon literature had a stronghold in the great religious
houses, and here it continued to be cultivated until far into the twelfth
century. This was due not only to the patriotic sentiment, but also to the
interests of their several foundations. The chief Anglo-Saxon works that we
have from the times after the Conquest are concerned directly or indirectly
with the property or privilege of the religious house from which the books
emanate. This is the time that produced the Worcester chartulary, the
Rochester chartulary, the Peterborough chronicle which embodies the
privileges of the house, and the Winton chartulary. This diplomatic interest
was strong and permanent enough to cause Anglo-Saxon studies to be
pursued until late in the Middle Age, perhaps even down to the time of the
Dissolution by Henry VIII.

But passing from this, which is an artificial continuation of the old
literature, we may observe that it had a continuation which was perfectly
natural and spontaneous. Examples of this are the late semi-Saxon
Homilies, in which we see the gradual decay of the old flectional grammar:
but the most signal examples are the two great poetical works of Layamon
and Orm. These are full of French influence, though not in the same
manner. Layamon’s “Brut” is translated (though not without original
episodes) from the French of Robert Wace: and the “Ormulum,” though
drawn as to its matter from Latin comments on the Gospels, yet is in form
deeply imbued with the character of French poetry. Indeed, the English

language became more and more a vehicle for the reproduction of French
literature. This continued to the middle of the fourteenth century, when the
plague, which altered so many things, altered also this. The supremacy of
the French language was broken, the native language was again heard in
legal pleadings, and the poetry of Chaucer laid the permanent foundation of
modern English literature.

1 A translation of these writings is given in Clark’s “Ante-Nicene Library,” vol. xvi.
Among the “Acts of Pilate” are contained the so called “Gospel of Nicodemus,”
which is the fountain of that favourite mediæval subject, “The Harrowing of Hell.”
2 North Pinder, “Less Known Latin Poets,” p. 486.

3 Donatus was Jerome’s teacher. His name grew into a proverb, insomuch that an
elementary treatise of any sort might in the fourteenth century be called a “donat.”
Priscian was a contemporary of Boethius. His grammar was epitomised by Rabanus
Maurus in the ninth century.
4 Other Latin poets who touched this subject are—Ovid, “Metam.,” xv., 402; Martial,
“Epigrams,” v., 7; Claudian’s First Idyll, a poem of 110 hexameters, is entirely
devoted to it.
5 Clemens Romanus; Tertullian, “De Resurrectione Carnis,” c. 13. See Adolf Ebert,
“Christlich-Laternische Literatur,” vol. i., p. 95.
6 Siever’s “Der Heliand,” p. 18, and references: Guizot, “Histoire de la Civilisation

en France,” 18e Leçon.
7 For the Latin text, and the bibliography, there is an admirable little edition by
Peiper, Lipsiæ, 1871.
8 R. A. Lipsius, “Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden,”
Braunschweig, 1883, p. 170.
9 Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History,” iii., 18.

10 It was destroyed by the Calvinists in 1562.

CHAPTER II.
THE MATERIALS.

The material of an early Literature is, above all, to be sought in written
Books and documents. But, besides these, there are other available sources,
which may be called in one word the Antiquities of the nation; and these are
of great value as illustrations, that is to say, though the information they
severally give may be uncertain and inexplicit, yet when they are put side
by side with the literature, they greatly increase its informing power, and
often draw, in return, a flow of light upon themselves. Accordingly the
present chapter will fall into two parts: 1, of writings; 2, of subsidiary
sources.

I.

There is a famous book that remains in the place where it was deposited in
the Saxon period. Leofric, who was the tenth bishop of Crediton, and the
first of Exeter, gave to his new cathedral about sixty books, and the list of
these books is extant in contemporary writing. One of them is thus
described:—“I. mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum thingum on leoth wisan
geworht.” = One large English book about various things in lay (song) wise
wrought—that is to say, a large volume of miscellaneous poetry in English.
This is the valuable, or rather, invaluable, Exeter Song Book, often quoted

as “Codex Exoniensis.” It is still where Leofric placed it in or about 1050,
and it is in the keeping of his cathedral chapter. The others are dispersed;
but many of them are still well known, as the “Leofric Missal,” in the
Bodleian; and others are at Cambridge.

The general break-up of monastic institutions between 1530 and 1540
caused the dispersion of many old libraries, whose forgotten treasures were
thus restored to air and light. No doubt many valuable books and records
were irrecoverably lost; as it is reasonable to suppose that among the
parchments then cast upon the world, there existed material for a
continuous and complete history of Anglo-Saxon times. This reflection may
make us the more sensible of our penury, but it will not diminish the praise
of those who saved something from the wreck.

Matthew Parker, the twentieth archbishop of Canterbury, 1559-1576, has
been called a mighty collector of books. He gave commissions for
searching after books in England and Wales, and presented the choicest of
his miscellaneous collections to his own college at Cambridge, namely,
Benet College (now Corpus Christi), where it still rests. In this library are
some unique books, such as the oldest Saxon chronicle, which has been
thought nearly as old as King Alfred’s time. There is also a fine vellum of
the laws of King Alfred, with the elder laws of King Ine attached in manner
of appendix.

But the most famous book of this great collection is an illuminated
manuscript of the Gospels in Latin (No. 286), which Wanley thought to be
probably one of the very books that were sent to Augustine by Gregory.
Professor Westwood says that the drawings in this manuscript are the most
ancient monuments of Roman pictorial art existing in this country, and he
further proceeds to say that, excepting a fourth-century manuscript at
Vienna, these are the oldest instances of Roman-Christian iconography of
which he can find any notice.11

Parker had singular opportunities, by the time in which he lived, by the
advantages of his high office and personal character, by his power to
command the services of other men, and by their general willingness to
serve him. There were three distinguished searchers after books who were
of the greatest use to him, viz., Bale, Joscelin, Leland.

John Bale, the antiquary, had been a White Friar in Norwich, then, changing
his party, he became bishop of Ossory, but lived at length on a prebend he
had in the church of Canterbury, where he followed his studies. Bale, in his
preface to Leland’s “New Year’s Gift,”12 says that those who purchased the
monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some to
rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers, and some
they sent over sea to the book-binders,13 not in small numbers, but at times
whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations.

John Leland had a commission under Henry VIII. to travel and collect
books; his Itinerary is a chief book for English topography. Of Joscelin we
shall have occasion to speak below.

With all his advantages, however, Parker was weighted with the care of the
churches, at a time, too, when that care was unusually heavy; and to this, as
in duty bound, he gave his first thought. Though his example could not be
exceeded, his collections were surpassed, and that by a gleaner who came
after him. Of all book collectors the greatest was Robert Bruce Cotton, the
founder of the Cottonian Library. He was born at Denton, in
Huntingdonshire, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. Cotton’s
antiquarian tastes declared themselves early; the formation of a library and
museum was his life-long pursuit. Not that his interests were all confined to
this. He wrote on the revenue, warned King James against the strained
exaction of tonnage and poundage, especially in time of peace; and he
counselled the creation of an order of baronets, each to pay the Crown
£1,000 for the honour. In this way he became a baronet himself in 1611,

having been knighted at the king’s accession. Under Charles I. he was
molested for his opinions, because he dared to disapprove of government
without parliaments; and he was touched in his most sensitive part when his
own library was sealed against him. He died 6th May, 1631, and was buried
in Conington Church, where his monument may still be seen.

His library was further enlarged by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton; and it was
sold to the nation by Sir John Cotton, the fourth baronet, in 1700. It was
lodged in Ashburnham House, in 1731, when a disastrous fire consumed or
damaged many valuable books.14 Annexed by statute to the British Museum
in 1753, it was moved thither in 1757.

Among the books that suffered without being destroyed by the fire of 1731,
is the unique copy of the Beowulf.15 One of the Saxon chronicles was
almost consumed; only two or three leaves of it are now extant. But,
happily, this particular chronicle had been printed by Wheloc, without
curtailment or admixture, and so it was the one that could best be spared.
This library also contains the Abingdon and Worcester chronicles, and,
indeed, all the known Saxon chronicles except two. This collection is the
richest in original Anglo-Saxon deeds and abbey registers.

Among the Cottonian treasures (Vespasian A.I.) is a glossed psalter, which
was edited by Mr. Stevenson for the Surtees Society, in two vols., 1843-7,
as containing a Northumbrian gloss, which is now, however, supposed to be
Kentish.16 A facsimile of this manuscript by the Palæographical Society,
part ii., 18, has a description, from which the following is taken:—“Written
about A.D. 700, the gloss at the end of the ninth, or beginning of the tenth,
and the later additions in the eleventh century. It formerly belonged to the
Monastery of St. Augustine of Canterbury, and corresponds with Thomas of
Elmham’s description of one of the two psalters stated to have been
acquired from Augustine; though the character of the ornamentation clearly

shows that it is of English origin.” It is sometimes called the Surtees
Psalter; Professor Westwood calls it “The Psalter of St. Augustine.”

The book which, to the eye of the artist and palæographer, forms the glory
of the Cottonian Library, is that which is marked, Nero D. iv., and is
commonly called the Lindisfarne Gospels. Other names which it has borne,
are:—The Durham Book, because it was long preserved in Durham
Cathedral, and the Gospels of St. Cuthbert, as having been written in
honour of that saint. It is the most elaborately-ornamented of all Anglo-
Saxon manuscripts; it is quite entire, and tells its own origin and date. Two
entries enable us to fix the date of the original Latin book about 710; the
interlinear Saxon gloss may be of the ninth century.

Locally connected with the Cottonian is the Harleian collection which was
formed by Robert Harley (1661-1724), Earl of Oxford; and it was
purchased for the British Museum in 1753. It contains, without name of
author (Harl. 3,859) the most ancient manuscript (tenth century) of that
“History of the Britons” which now bears the name of Nennius; a few
originals or good early copies of Saxon charters; some abbey registers, and
some Early-English poetry, especially a manuscript of Chaucer’s
“Canterbury Tales” (Harley, 7,334), which some have thought to be the
oldest and best.

A name second only to Cotton is that of Archbishop Laud. He was a
collector of old and rare books in many languages, and we are indebted to
his care for some of the most valuable monuments of the mother-tongue. He
was president of St. John’s College, Oxford, and he had been educated
there. Some valuable books he gave to his college, but his larger donations
were to the library of his university, of which he became vice-chancellor in
1630. These books rest in the Bodleian Library.

THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY

dates from the year 1598; and here we have an admirable guide in the
“Annals of the Bodleian Library,” by Rev. W. D. Macray, whose annalistic
order we will follow.

1601.—The Library bought the copy of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, from
which John Foxe had printed the edition of 1571.17 It is marked Bod. 441.

1603.—Some manuscripts were given by Sir Robert Cotton, and one of
them (Auct. D., ii. 14:—Bod. 857) is an ancient volume of Latin Gospels,
written probably in the sixth century, which shares with the illuminated
Benet Gospels described above, the traditional reputation of being one of
the books that were sent by Gregory to Augustine. It has no miniatures, but
it has rubrication, and it is in a similar style of writing with that splendid
volume. Thomas Elmham, who was a monk of St. Augustine’s at
Canterbury, and wrote a history of his monastery, about A.D. 1414, gives a
list of the books of his house; and there are two entries of “Textus
Evangeliorum,” each being particularly described. Humphrey Wanley (p.
172) identified our two books as those known to Elmham; and Westwood
pronounces them to be two of the oldest Latin manuscripts written in pure
Roman uncials that exist in this country.

1635-1640.—In these years Archbishop Laud gave nearly 1,300
manuscripts, among which there is one (E. 2) that enjoys pre-eminently the
title of “Codex Laudianus.” This is a famous manuscript of the Acts of the
Apostles, which has been variously dated from the sixth to the eighth
century. It is the only known manuscript that exhibits certain irregular
readings, seventy-four in number, which Bede, in his “Retractations on the
Acts,” quoted from his copy. Wetstein surmised that this was the very book
before Bede when he wrote his “Retractations.”18 At the end is a Latin
Creed, written in the same uncial character, though not by the same hand,
and Dr. Heurtley says it is one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of
what he calls the “Manuscript Creeds.” He has given a facsimile of it.19

Another of these was the Peterborough chronicle (No. 636), a celebrated
manuscript, containing the most extensive of all the Saxon chronicles.

1675.—Christopher, Lord Hatton, gave four volumes of Saxon Homilies,
written shortly after the Conquest. These are now among the Junian MSS.
(Nos. 22, 23, 24, 99), simply because Junius had them on loan. Being
among his books at the time of his death, they came back to the Bodleian,
as if part of the Junian bequest. This explains why Hatton manuscripts,
which contain sermons of Ælfric and of Wulfstan, bear the signatures Jun.
22 and Jun. 99.

Other Hatton manuscripts, and very precious ones, have retained the name
of their donor, as—

Hatton 20.—King Alfred’s Translation of Gregory’s “Pastoral Care,” of
which the king purposed to send a copy to each cathedral church, and this is
the copy sent by the king to Werfrith, bishop of Worcester.

Hatton 76.—Translation by Werfrith, bishop of Worcester, of Gregory’s
“Dialogues,” with King Alfred’s Preface (in Wanley this is Hatton 100).

Hatton 65.—The Gospels in Saxon, written about the time of Henry II.

1678.—Franciscus Junius died at Windsor. He was born at Heidelberg, in
1589, and his vernacular name was Francis Dujon. He lived much in
England, as librarian to Howard, Earl of Arundel. He bequeathed to the
Bodleian his Anglo-Saxon and Northern collections. Among these is a
beautiful Latin Psalter (Jun. 27) of the tenth century, with grotesque initials
and interlinear Saxon. This book has been called “Codex Vossianus,”
because Junius obtained it from his relative, Isaac Voss. Among these also is
the unique Cædmon, a MS. of about A.D. 1000, which had been given to
Junius by Archbishop Usher, and of which the earlier history is unknown.
Usher, a scholar of European celebrity, founded the library of Trinity

College, Dublin; and in his enquiries after books for his college he picked
up this famous manuscript. It became a favourite with Junius, who edited
the Editio Princeps, Amsterdam, 1655. Another book (Jun. 121) is a
collection of Canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church, which belonged to
Worcester Cathedral. In this book, fol. 101, the writer describes himself: Me
scripsit Wulfgeatus scriptor Wigorniensis = Me wrote Wulfgeat of
Worcester, a writer. This Wulfgeat is said by Wanley (p. 141) to have lived
about A.D. 1064. Junius 22 seems to be written by the same hand; so does
Junius 99. The former contains writings by Ælfric; the latter, some by
Ælfric and some by Wulfstan. Another book of the Junian bequest, hardly
less singular and unique, is the “Ormulum,” a poetical exposition of the
Gospels, a work of the thirteenth century, of singular beauty, as poetry and
as English.

1681.—This is probably the year in which John Rushworth, of Lincoln’s
Inn, the historian of the Long Parliament, presented to the library the book
(Auct. D., ii. 19) which is still known as Codex Rushworthianus. It contains
the Gospels in Latin, written about A.D. 800, by an Irish scribe, who has
recorded his name as Macregol, and it is glossed with an interlinear Anglo-
Saxon version by Owun and by Færmen, a priest, at Harewood. It is
described by Westwood.

1755.—Richard Rawlinson was born in 1690, son of Sir Thomas
Rawlinson, who was lord mayor of London in 1706; was educated at St.
John’s College, Oxford, of which he always remained an attached member,
and to which he left by will the bulk of his estate. Though he passed for a
layman, he was a bishop among the Nonjurors, having been ordained
deacon and priest by Bishop Jeremy Collier in 1716, and consecrated
bishop 25th March, 1728. He was through life an indefatigable collector; he
purchased historical materials of all kinds, heraldry, genealogy, biography,
topography, and log-books. He was a repeated benefactor to the library

during his life, but after his death his books and manuscripts came in
overwhelming quantity, so that the staff of the library could not possibly
catalogue them; and it was not until Henry Octavius Coxe became Bodley’s
librarian that the extent of the Rawlinson collection was ascertained. This
benefactor founded the Anglo-Saxon professorship which bears his name.

1809.—Richard Gough, the eminent topographer and antiquary, died 20th
February; he had bequeathed to the Bodleian all his topographical
collections, together with all his books relating to Saxon and Northern
literature. The following is from his will:—“Also I give and bequeath to the
Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars, of the University of Oxford, my printed
Books and Manuscripts on Saxon and Northern Literature, mentioned in a
Catalogue of the same, for the Use of the Saxon professor in the said
University when he shall have occasion to consult them, with liberty to take
them to his Apartments on condition of faithfully returning them.”

I close these Bodleian notes with the remark that three of the books above
noticed may be easily seen even by the casual visitor. The late librarian,
Henry Octavius Coxe, devised the happy plan of exhibiting under a glass
case a chronological series of manuscripts written by English scribes, so as
to exhibit the progress of the arts of calligraphy and illuminating in
England. This case is in the north wing, at the further end from the entrance
door. Among the selections for this series occur Alfred’s gift-book to
Worcester, the “Codex Vossianus,” the “Cædmon,” and a fourth book, one
that has not yet been described. It is a volume of Latin Gospels in Anglo-
Saxon writing, of about the end of the tenth century. This book appears,
from an entry at the end of it, to have belonged to the abbey of Barking.20

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,

though not endowed with treasures equal to those of its namesake in
Cambridge, has a few books of very high quality and value. Among these a
Saxon Bede of the tenth century, wanting at the beginning and end, but
otherwise in excellent condition.

A remarkably interesting manuscript of the Rule of St. Benedict, Latin and
Saxon, which has never yet been published.21 Mr. H. O. Coxe, in his
catalogue of the manuscripts of the colleges, assigned this book to the close
of the tenth century. The interest of the volume is greatly increased by some
pages of entries, which also tend to fix the date of the book with greater
precision. It was written for the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, and it
appears to have been still there in the fourteenth century. It was given by
William Fulman, who was a fellow of this college, to the college library.
The same donor gave them their “Piers Plowman” and their famous
manuscript of the “Canterbury Tales.”

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD,

has an important manuscript containing (1) Ælfric’s Grammar, (2) Glossary,
and (3) the Colloquy of Ælfric Bata, in usum puerorum (for the boys). On
fol. 202, the writer calls himself, “I Ælfric Bata,” and says that his master
“Ælfric abbot” was the original author. The writing of (1) and (2) is in the
round, strong, professional hand of the tenth century; the sequel is in later
writing. On the first page is written in a hand of the fourteenth century
“Liber Sci Cuthberhti de Dunelmo” (a book of St. Cuthbert, of Durham);
and next thereto, but in a hand nearly as old as the MS. itself, “de armario
precentoris, qui alienaverit de eo anathema sit” (is kept in the precentor’s
chest; whoever alienates it therefrom, let him be anathema). It was given to
the college by Christopher Coles, who took his degree in 1611. The
grammar has been recently edited by Dr. Zupitza.

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AT CAMBRIDGE

possesses the oldest manuscript of the ecclesiastical history of Bede (K. K.
5. 16). It is supposed to have been written shortly after the death of the
venerable author, which happened in 735. This book came into that library
in 1715, with the fine collection of 30,000 volumes collected by Dr. More,
bishop of Ely. This collection was purchased by George I. for 6,000
guineas, and presented to the University by the king. This invaluable book
is distinctively called Bishop More’s manuscript.

In the Cathedral Library at Canterbury there are some valuable Saxon
charters;22—many more whose natural home was there are in the British
Museum among the Cottonian collections.

In the library of Lambeth Palace there is an interesting book, which
belonged to Archbishop Parker, and has been well scored by him: but it is
not entered either in the Lambeth catalogue of 1812, or in that of Benet
College. This is the “Gospels of MacDurnan,” in Irish calligraphy of the
ninth century, and it contains some valuable Anglo-Saxon entries.23

RESEARCH, DISCOVERY, AND RECONSTRUCTION.

Hitherto we have been describing the collection of material; this it was that
rescued our early history and literature from hopeless oblivion. The old
parchments contained much knowledge that ought to be recovered and
diffused; but this would require preparation and labour. Among the
labourers, Matthew Parker comes first as he does among the collectors. This
prelate was an earnest student in the ancient history of the country and
especially in whatever had relation to the Church. He was the first editor of
a Saxon Homily. It was printed by John Day, and was entitled, “A
Testimony of Antiquity showing the Ancient Faith of the Church of England

touching the Sacrament, &c.” The interest of this publication as understood
at the time, lay in its witness against transubstantiation. It was reprinted at
Oxford by Leon Lichfield, 1675.

In 1571 the Saxon Gospels were published by John Fox, who acknowledges
obligations to Parker in his preface. This book was reprinted at Dort, in
1665, by Marshall, who was afterwards rector of Lincoln College, in
Oxford.

In 1574 appeared Parker’s edition of Asser’s Life of Alfred, and we read in
Strype that “of this edition of Asserius there had been great expectation
among the learned.” We can add, that of this edition the interest is not yet
extinct.

How far Parker’s books were done by himself and how far he was
dependent on his literary assistants, is a question of little importance. No
doubt, a great deal of it was the work of his secretary, Joscelin. We look at
Parker as a master builder, not as a journeyman. The name of Joscelin meets
us often when we are following the footsteps of those times. His writing is
seen on many a manuscript, and we have to thank him for much valuable
information. It is chiefly through his annotations that we know the external
and local relations of our several Saxon chronicles.24 In August, 1565, he
was at St. Augustine’s, Canterbury; and there he found the old transcript of
the first life of St. Dunstan, which is now in the Cotton Library.25

But the chief labourers and reconstructors of the first movement were
William Camden (b. 1551—d. 1623), and Sir Henry Spelman (b. 1562—d.
1641). The name of Camden’s “Britannia” is still alive, and is familiar as a
household word with all who explore even a little beyond the beaten track.
But it is otherwise with Sir Henry Spelman, whose studies were more
recondite, and to whom Abraham Wheloc looked back as to “the hero of
Anglo-Saxon literature.” His “Glossary” was a work of vast compass, and

for it he corresponded much with learned men abroad; among others with
the famous Northern antiquary, Olaus Wormius, the author of “Literatura
Runica,” of which he sent Spelman a copy in October, 1636.26 His son, Sir
John Spelman, wrote the “Life of King Alfred.” Before he died, Sir Henry
Spelman founded an Anglo-Saxon chair at Cambridge; and the first
occupant of it was Abraham Wheloc, who edited Bede in 1643 and with it
that Saxon Chronicle which was burnt in 1731. In 1644 he edited the
Anglo-Saxon Laws. His successor was William Somner (b. 1606—d. 1669),
who produced the first Anglo-Saxon dictionary. So this foundation was not
unfruitful. But the chair fell into abeyance, until it was restored by Dr.
Bosworth, and filled by Professor Skeat.

This, the first movement of reconstruction, had its seat in Cambridge, under
the shadow of Archbishop Parker’s library. The next advance, dating from
the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in Oxford, and was connected
with the sojourn of Junius in this place. He was much at the Bodleian, and
he is said to have lodged opposite Lincoln College. He was a fellow-
labourer with Dr. Marshall, the rector of that college, in the Mæso-Gothic
and Anglo-Saxon Gospels which they printed at Dordrecht, 1665. This
Oxford period may be said to have culminated in the work of George
Hickes, Nonjuror and Saxonist (b. 1642—d. 1715), the author of the
massive “Thesaurus Linguarum Septentrionalium,” Oxford, 1705, a
monument of diligence and insight, to which was appended a work of the
greatest utility and necessity,—the idea was Hickes’s, as was also much of
the sustaining energy,—Humphrey Wanley’s catalogue of Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts. We must not omit Edmund Gibson (b. 1669—d. 1748), who in
early life produced his admirable “Chronicon Saxonicum,” amplifying the
work of Wheloc, and embodying for the first time the Peterborough
manuscript. He was afterwards bishop of London. In 1750 Richard
Rawlinson gave rents of the yearly value of £87. 16s. 8d. to the University

of Oxford, for the maintenance and support of an Anglo-Saxon lecture or
professorship for ever.

Up to this time it might still be said of the collections that they were just
stored in bulk as goods are stored in great magazines; there was much to
explore and to learn. Important discoveries still remained to be made by
explorers in these and other collections. Wanley’s catalogue had somewhat
the effect of running a line of road through a fertile but unfrequented land;
and Conybeare’s “Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” published in 1826,
fruit of the Oxford chair, had a great effect in calling the attention of the
educated, and more than any other book in the present century has served as
the introduction to Saxon studies.

It was not until the close of the eighteenth century that the “Beowulf” was
discovered. Wanley had catalogued it, but without any idea of the real
nature of the book. Thorkelin was, however, attracted from Denmark; he
came and transcribed it, and prepared an edition which was nearly ready in
1808, when his house was burnt in the bombardment of Copenhagen. But
he began again, and lived to see his name to the Editio Princeps of
“Beowulf,” at a time when there were few who knew or cared for his work.
He left two transcripts, which are now our highest source in many passages
of the poem. The original having been scorched in the fire of 1731, the
edges of the leaves went on cracking away, so that many words which were
near the margins and which are now gone, passed under the eye of
Thorkelin.

In 1832, a learned German, Dr. Blume, discovered at Vercelli, in North
Italy, a thick volume containing Anglo-Saxon homilies, and some sacred
poems of great beauty. The poems were copied and printed under the care
of Mr. Thorpe, by the Record Commission, in a book known as the
“Appendix to Mr. Cooper’s Report on the Fœdera,” a book that became
famous through the complaints that were made because of the long years

during which it was kept back. A few privileged persons got copies, and
when Grimm, in 1840, published the two chief poems of the new find, the
Andreas and the Elene, which he had extracted from Lappenberg’s copy, he
had a little fling at “die Recorders,” as if they kept the book to themselves
for a rarity to deck their own shelves withal. The poems are six in number:
1. A Legend of St. Andrew; 2. The Fortunes of the Twelve Apostles; 3. The
Departed Soul’s Address to the Body; 4. A Fragment; 5. A Dream of the
Holy Rood; 6. Elene, or The Invention of the Cross.

In 1851 the first notice of a book of homilies older than Ælfric,—the
property of the Marquis of Lothian, and preserved in the library of Blickling
Hall, Norfolk,—was made public by Mr. Godwin in the transactions of the
Cambridge Antiquarian Society.27

In 1860 was discovered the valuable fragment of an epic poem on King
Waldhere, and the manner of the find shall be told in the words of Professor
George Stephens, which I quote from the Editio Princeps of “Waldhere,”
published by him in the same year. “On the 12th of January, 1860, Professor
E. C. Werlauff, Chief Librarian of the Great National Library,
Cheapinghaven [Copenhagen], was engaged in sorting some bundles of
papers, parchment leaves, and fragments, mostly taken from books, or
book-backs, which had not hitherto been arranged. While thus occupied, he
lighted upon two vellum leaves of great antiquity, and bearing an Old
English text. He kindly communicated the discovery to me, and the present
work is the result.”

II.

INSCRIPTIONS

of the Anglo-Saxon period exist both in the learned and the vernacular
language. It is peculiarly interesting, when an inscription is exhumed that
gives us back a contemporary monument, however slight, of that Anglian
Church which was the first-fruit of Christianity in our nation. About twenty
years ago, a stone was found at Wearmouth which had been buried in the
ruins of the monastery ever since the ninth century, and which came up
fresh and clear in almost every letter, bearing, “Hic in sepulcro requiescit
corpore Hereberecht prb.28 (Here in this tomb Hereberecht presbiter rests in
the body).” A fine inscription from Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire, is now
among the Arundel Marbles at Oxford. It is printed in Parker’s “Glossary of
Architecture,” and in my Saxon Chronicles. Often the interest of these Latin
inscriptions is enhanced by a strong touch of the vernacular showing
through. This is the case on a fine monumental stone in Mortimer Church.

OF VERNACULAR INSCRIPTIONS

there is one at Lincoln, in the tower of St. Mary-le-Wigford Church. Into
this tower, which is of early date, a Roman pagan monument (Diis
Manibus, &c.) is walled, and, on the triangular gable of the stone, a Saxon
inscription has been carved. It is imperfect, but the general sense is clear. It
must be read from the lowest and longest line upwards to the apex. It says:
“Eirtig caused me to be made and endowed in honour of Christ and St.
Mary.” Perhaps the tower, or even the church, is the speaker. The founder’s
name is much defaced: I have adopted the reading of Rev. J. Wordsworth,
who has bestowed attention on this stone.

A fragment of a similar inscription, but much more copious, was found at
St. Mary’s, York, and is described in Hübner, No. 175.

But the most characteristic of the vernacular inscriptions are those on sun-
dials. There are no less than three of these in the North Riding of Yorkshire;

viz., at Old Byland, and at Edstow near Pickering, and at Kirkdale.29 The
last is fullest and most perfect, and is, moreover, dated. It bears: “+ Orm
Gamalson bought the minster of S. Gregory when it was all to broken and
to fallen, and he it let make anew from ground for Christ and S. Gregory in
the days of Edward the King and Tosti the Earl. + and Hawarth wrought me
and Brand presbiter. + This is day’s sun-marker, hour by hour.”

The poetical inscription in Runes, on the Ruthwell Cross, is too large a
subject for this place.30

JEWELLERY.

The Anglo-Saxons retained an old tradition of decorative art, and they had
among them skilful jewellers. Several specimens have been found, and are
to be seen in museums; but the noblest of all these is that which is known as
the Alfred Jewel.

The Alfred Jewel was discovered in Newton Park, near Athelney, in the
year 1693, and it found its way to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford by the
year 1718, where it still rests. It consists of an enamelled figure enshrined in
a golden frame, with a golden back to it, and with a thick piece of rock
crystal in front to serve as a glass to the picture. Imagine a longitudinal
section of a pigeon’s egg, and let the golden plate at the back of our jewel
represent the plane of the egg’s diameter. From this plane, if we measure
three-quarters of an inch in the girth of the egg, and then take another
section parallel to the gold plate at the back, we obtain the front surface of
the crystal through which the enamelled figure is visible. The smaller end of
our oval section is prolonged and is fashioned like the head of a boar. The
snout forms a socket, as if to fit on to a peg or dole; a cross-pin, to fix the
socket to the dole, is still in place. Around the sloping rim, which remains,
the following legend is wrought in the fabric: Ælfred mec heht gewyrcean

(Alfred me commanded to make). The language of the legend agrees
perfectly with the age of King Alfred, and it seems to be the unhesitating
opinion of all those who have investigated the subject that it was a personal
ornament of the great West Saxon king. As to the manner of wearing it, and
as to the signification of the enamelled figure, there has been the greatest
diversity of opinion. Sir Francis Palgrave suggested that the figure was
older than the setting. Perhaps it was a sacred object, and perhaps one of the
presents of Pope Marinus, or some other potentate; and that the mounting
was intended to adapt it for fixture in the rim of a helmet or crown over the
centre of the royal brow. By its side, in the same glass case, there lies a gold
ornament of far simpler design, but of like adaptation.

DRAWING AND ILLUMINATION OF BOOKS.

This is the branch of Saxon art which is best represented by extant remains.
That the specimens are numerous may be gathered from what has been said
above in the description of manuscripts. There are two periods, and the
change takes place with the revival of learning in the reign of Edgar. In the
earlier period, the drawings and the decorations are of the same general type
as the Irish illuminated books, and it has been thought that our artists had
learnt their art from the Irish; but now there is a disposition to see in this art
a type common to both islands, and to call it British. The Lindisfarne
Gospels (A.D. 710) offer the best example of this kind. In the tenth century,
Frankish art was much imitated, and the Saxon style was altered. But the
Saxons, in their imitations, displayed originality; and they developed a
gorgeous form of decoration, which was recognised as a distinct style, and
was known on the Continent as English work (opus Anglicum). The typical
specimen of this kind is the Benedictional of Æthelwold (between 963 and
970). From the same cause, the character of the penmanship also passes
through a corresponding change, but more gradually and indistinctly.31

ARCHITECTURE.

Of Saxon architecture there are many traces; we will take but a few.

The cathedral at Canterbury was an old church, which had been built by
Christians under the Romans, and which Augustine, by the king’s help,
recovered, and consecrated as the Church of St. Saviour;32 in later times it
came to be called Christ Church. This building lasted all through the Saxon
period; it was enlarged by Abbot Odo, about 950, and was finally pulled
down by Lanfranc, in 1070. But there exists a written description of this old
church by a man who had seen it,—namely, Eadmer the Precentor, who was
a diligent collector of traditions concerning his cathedral. What makes his
description especially valuable to the architectural historian is the fact that
he compares it to St. Peter’s at Rome, and he had been to Rome in company
with Anselm. Now, although the old Basilica at Rome was destroyed in the
sixteenth century, yet plans and drawings which were made before its
demolition are preserved in the Vatican: and, with all these data before him,
Professor Willis reconstructed the plan of the metropolitan church of the
Saxon period.33 In certain features he used, moreover, the evidence of the
ancient Saxon church at Brixworth.34

Not only from models left in Britain by the Romans, but also through the
frequent visits of our ecclesiastics to Rome, it naturally happened that the
Saxon architecture was imitated from the Roman. Nevertheless, the Anglo-
Saxons appear to have developed a style of their own. Sir Gilbert Scott in
his posthumous Essays characterises this early church architecture by two
features—the square termination of the east end, and the west end position
of the tower. This was quite insular, and not to be found in Roman patterns.
In Professor Willis’s plan of the first cathedral at Canterbury the east and
west ends are both apsidal, and the two towers are placed on the north and
south sides of the nave.

The great discovery, a few years ago, of the Saxon chapel at Bradford-on-
Avon, and the successful way in which it was cleared and detached from
other buildings by Canon Jones, has not only given us so complete an
example of Saxon church architecture as we had nothing like it before, but
it has also improved our faculty of recognising Saxon work in fragmentary
relics, and, if I may so speak, of pulling them all together. A remarkable
passage in William of Malmesbury records that Aldhelm built a little church
(ecclesiola) in this place; and the possibility that this may be that very
church is not rejected by the best judges. Aldhelm died in 709.

Of Saxon construction a chief peculiarity is that which is called “longs and
shorts.” It occurs in coins of towers, in panelling work, and sometimes in
door jambs.35 Of the latter, a fine example occurs at Laughton, near Maltby,
not many miles distant from Sheffield. What makes this latter instance more
peculiarly interesting, is the fact that over the churchyard wall on the west,
in a small grass field, traditionally called the Castle Field, there is the well-
preserved plan of a Saxon lordly mansion. The circuit of the earthwork is
almost complete, and at a point in the enceinte there rises the mound on
which was pitched the garrison of the little castle. I use the term castle, as
the habits of the language now require, and as it is expressed in the name of
the spot. But, indeed, castles were little known in England before the
Conquest; had it been otherwise, the Conquest would not have been so
easy.36 The name and the thing came in with the Normans. Yet there were
ancient places of security, and their great feature was an earthen mound,
upon which a wooden building was pitched. The Saxon mounds often
became, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Freeman, the kernel of the Norman
castle. And there was a traditional method of fortification for the houses of
great men of which Laughton is an example.

SCULPTURE.

There are several pieces of Anglo-Saxon sculpture extant; and they are not
hard to recognise, because of the peculiar lines of drawing with which we
are already familiar in the illuminated manuscripts. In the Saxon chapel at
Bradford-on-Avon there are two angels, of life size, or larger, carved in
relief on stone. They appear in the wall high above the chancel arch,
towards the nave; and it is supposed from the distance between them, and
from their facing one another, that there was once a holy rood placed
between them, towards which they were in attendance.

In Bristol Cathedral there is a remarkable piece of Saxon sculpture,
representing a human figure, life size, apparently the Saviour, delivering a
small figure, as it were a soul, out of the mouth of the dragon. This is
carved on the upper side of the massive lid of a stone coffin. It was
discovered about forty years ago, and it may be seen in the vestry within the
Norman chapter-house, where it is masoned into the wall over the chimney-
piece.

BURIALS.

The Saxon graves have yielded many illustrative objects, especially
weapons and personal ornaments, pottery, and glass.37

The Saxon graves were first systematically explored by Bryan Faussett, of
Heppington, in Kent (b. 1720—d. 1776); who was called by his
contemporaries “the British Montfaucon.” He is unequalled for the extent of
his excavations, and the distinctness of his well-kept chronicle. After him,
in the next generation, came an interpreter, who was also a great excavator;
James Douglas, author of “Nenia Britannica,” 1793. The Faussett collection
is in Liverpool, the Douglas collection (most of it) in Oxford.

In more recent times the general accuracy of the results has been
established by means of comparative researches. The tumuli in the old
mother country of the Saxons have been examined, and their affinity with
our Saxon graves has been determined beyond question; while a parallel
comparison has also been instituted between the Frankish graves in France,
and the ancestral Frankish graves in old Franconia over the Rhine. Thus it is
well known what interments are really Saxon.

The chronology of the varieties of interment is not, however, so completely
ascertained. In the boundaries of property from the tenth century and
onwards we find repeated mention of “heathen burial-places,” and it has
perhaps been too readily inferred that all the Saxon graves in the open
country unconnected with churches are older than the Conversion. Mr.
Kemble investigated this subject, and he came to the conclusion that the
cinerary urns were heathen, but that the whole interments were Christian.
His observations were made chiefly in the old mother country, which lies
between the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Main. He identified the change from
cremation to inhumation with that from heathenism to Christianity.

The tumular relics of different parts of England suggest old tribal
distinctions of costume and apparel. In Kent the fibulæ are circular and
highly ornamented, but these are sparingly found beyond the area of the
earliest settlers. From Suffolk to Leicestershire the fibulæ are mostly
bridge-shaped. A third variety, the concave or saucer-shaped, is found in
Berkshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire. It is, however,
possible that these distinctions may be partly chronological.

The most splendid fibula known is of the first kind. It was exhumed by
Bryan Faussett, 5th August, 1771, on Kingston Down in Kent, from a deep
grave containing numerous relics, and such as indicated a lady of
distinction. The Kingston fibula is circular, entirely of gold, richly set with
garnets and turquoise; it is 3½ inches in diameter, ¼ inch in thickness, and

weighs 6 oz. 5 dwt. 18 gr. This is the gem of all Saxon tumular antiquities,
and it rests with the other Faussett finds in the Mayer collection at
Liverpool. Near it was found a golden neck-ornament, weighing 2 dwt. 7 gr.
These and other like examples, though less splendid, from the graves of
Saxon ladies, are good illustrations of the poetic epithet “gold-adorned,”
which is repeatedly applied to women of high degree.

The Saxon pottery is known to us by the burial urns. These are marked by a
local character for the various districts, but still with a generic resemblance,
which is based upon the comprehensive fact that although they appear like
inferior copies from Roman work, yet they are at the same time like the
urns found in Old Saxony and Franconia.

The glass drinking-vessels are very peculiar, and they are noticed as such in
the poetry.38 The hooped buckets that have been found in men’s graves
only, seem also to answer to expressions in convivial descriptions.

Of the tumular remains this general remark may be made, that they richly
illustrate the elder poetry. The abundance and variety of the objects which
remain after so long a time unperished, give a strong impression of the
lavish generosity with which the dead were sent on their way. Answering to
these finds there are two descriptions in the “Beowulf,” one in the
beginning where the mythic hero Scyld Scefing is (not buried but) shipped
off to sea; and the other the funeral of Beowulf with which the poem closes.

The graves also afford illustration negative as well as positive. The
comparative rarity of swords is a fact that has been particularly remarked.
This too agrees with the poetry in which there are swords of fame, which
are known by their own proper names, and which have an established
pedigree of illustrious owners at the head of which often stands the name of
the divine fabricator, Weland. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that
affinity with the tumular deposits is one of the notes of the primary poetry.

11 “Palæographia Sacra Pictoria.”

12 “Leland’s laboryouse journey and serche for Englandes antiquities, given as a newe
years gifte to King Henry VIII., enlarged by John Bale.” London. 1549.
13 This is curiously confirmed by the discovery of Waldhere, described below.

14 As this fire is one that the student is only too often reminded of, a few details may
be acceptable. A committee was appointed by the House of Commons to view the
Cotton Library after this disaster, and we learn from their Report (1732, folio) that
“114 volumes are either lost, burnt, or entirely spoiled, and 98 others damaged so as
to be defective; so that the said library at present consists of 746 entire volumes and
98 defective ones.” The collection when purchased had contained 958 volumes. Of
late years great pains have been taken for the preservation of the fragments by
careful mounting.
15 Photographed by the Early English Text Society, 1883.

16 “Die Sprache des Kentischen Psalters,” von Rudolf Zeuner. Halle, 1882. Referring
to Mr. Sweet, in Transactions of Philological Society, 1875-6.
17 “The Gospels of the fower Evangelistes, translated in the olde Saxons tyme out of
Latin into the vulgare toung of the Saxons, newly collected out of Auncient
Monumentes of the sayd Saxons, and now published for testimonie of the same.” At
London. Printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling ouer Aldersgate, 1571.
18 See Scrivener, “Introduction to Criticism of New Testament,” ed. 2, p. 147.

19 “Harmonia Symbolica,” Oxford, 1858, p. 61.

20 Westwood, “Facsimiles,” p. 123.

21 It was to have been edited by Professor Buckley for the Ælfric Society, but that
society closed its career too soon.
22 They were arranged by Kemble; and have recently been facsimiled by the
Ordnance Survey, under the editorship of Mr. W. Basevi Sanders.
23 Fully described by Mr. W. B. Sanders in the “Annual Report for 1873 of the Deputy
Keeper of Public Records,” p. 271 ff.
24 See the particulars in “Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel.” Clarendon Press, 1865.
Introduction, pp. vii., xxv., xxviii.
25 Stubbs, “Memorials of Saint Dunstan,” p. xxx.

26 “The Englishman and the Scandinavian,” by Frederick Metcalfe, M.A., 1880, p. 11.

27 In 1880 these Homilies were edited by Dr. Morris, for the Early English Text
Society, under the name of “The Blickling Homilies.”
28 Hübner, 197.

Hübner, 179, 180, 181.

30 Kemble, “Archæologia,” Anno 1843; Stephens, “Runic Monuments,” p. 405.
29

31 Westwood, “Palæographia Sacra Pictoria,” and “Facsimiles of Miniatures from
Irish and Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts.”
32 Beda, “Church History,” i., 33.

33 “The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral,” 1845, p. 27.

34 “The church at Brixworth has plainly had its walls raised, and a clerestory with
windows added, even in the Saxon period; assuming that midwall baluster-shafts
are to be received as characteristics of this period, for a triple window with such
shafts was inserted in the western wall when the walls were so raised.” Ibid., p. 30.
See also Haddan and Stubbs, i., 38.
35 Some of the churches in which these features may be observed are Deerhurst in
Gloucestershire; Earl’s Barton, Northants; Benet church in Cambridge; Sompting in
Sussex. Figured illustrations may be seen in Parker’s “Introduction to Gothic
Architecture.”
36 Freeman, N. C., ii., 605; “Reign of Rufus” i., 49.

37 These are described and figured in Bryan Faussett’s “Inventorium Sepulchrale,” ed.
Roach Smith; Wylie, “Fairford Graves”; Neville, “Saxon Obsequies”; Akerman,
“Pagan Saxondom”; Kemble, “Horæ Ferales.”
38 “The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,” by T. Wright, p. 424.

CHAPTER III.
THE HEATHEN PERIOD.

For many a petty king ere Arthur came
ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
each upon other, wasted all the land;
and still from time to time the heathen host
swarm’d over seas, and harried what was left.
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
wherein the beast was ever more and more,
but man was less and less, till Arthur came.
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
and after him king Uther fought and died,
but either fail’d to make the kingdom one.
And after these king Arthur for a space,
and thro’ the puissance of his Table round,
drew all their petty princedoms under him,
their king and head, and made a realm, and reign’d.

Alfred Tennyson, The Coming of
Arthur.

For the first hundred and fifty years of their life in this island our ancestors
were heathens. This time has no place in the English memory through any
legendary or literary tradition that is associated with the Saxons. The

legends of this time which retain a place in literature are not Saxon but
British. This is the era of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. There
is no book or piece of Saxon literature that can in any substantial sense be
ascribed to the heathen period; for I cannot go with those who assign this
high antiquity to the “Beowulf.”

There is a book that claims to be a product of this time, but it is neither
Saxon nor heathen. It bears the name of Gildas, a Briton, and it is a
fervently Christian book, written in Latin. It has two parts, one being a
Lament of the Ruin of Britain, the other a Denunciation of the conduct of
her princes. Its genuineness has been questioned, and it has also been ably
defended.39 The strong point in favour of the book is, that it existed and was
reputed genuine before the time of Bede, who used it as an authority, and
cited it by the author’s name, saying that “Gildas, their [the Britons’]
historian,” describes such and such evils in his “lamentable discourse.”40
Through Bede the information of Gildas has fallen into the stream of
English history, and we cease to be aware of the original source. For
example, the familiar tradition of the Saxons coming over in “three keels,”
ordinarily ascribed to Bede, is taken from Gildas. The date of this author
and his work, as now generally accepted, is this:—That he was born in 520,
the year of the battle of Mons Badonicus, and that he wrote about 564. But
this rests on an ill-jointed and uncertain passage, which was misunderstood
by Bede, if the modern interpretation is right.

And when we come to look into that Saxon literature which was
subsequently developed, the traces of the heathen period are unexpectedly
scanty, and the very remembrance of heathenism though not abolished
seems already wonderfully remote. But notwithstanding all this, we cannot
treat the subject of Anglo-Saxon literature in any satisfactory manner
without some consideration of the heathen period. For, on the one hand,
history requires it as a background, and the only appropriate background to

our story of the subsequent culture; and, on the other hand, we shall find, by
putting the scattered fragments together, that such an impression may be
gained as is at least sufficient for a subsidiary purpose.

Among the extant Saxon writings there is one and only one book, in which
we detect some possible work of this period. This is in the Chronicles.
Between A.D. 450 and 600 we have a sprinkling of curious annals that are
naturally calculated to rivet the attention. They are certainly of a very
distinct and peculiar cast, and it has been thought that they may possibly
represent (through much disguise of transcription) some kind of
contemporary records of the heathen period, whether the original shape was
that of ballads, or of annals kept in Runes.

These annals are characterised by an occasional touch of poetic fervour, and
by several local details which are stimulating to modern curiosity. A few
examples may be useful:—

455. Here41 Hengest and Horsa fought against Wyrtgeorn, the king,
in the place that is called Agælesthrep; and his brother Horsa was
slain; and after that Hengest took to the kingdom, and Æsc, his son.

457. Here Hengest and Æsc fought against the Brettas in the place
that is called Crecganford; and there they slew 4,000 men; and the
Brets then abandoned Kentland, and in great terror fled to
Londonbury.

473. Here Hengest and Æsc fought against the Walas: and they took
countless spoil: and the Walas fled the Engles like fire.

491. Here Ælle and Cissa beset Andredescester, and slew all those
that therein dwelt: there was not so much as one Bret remaining.

571. Here Cuthwulf fought with the Bretwalas at Bedcanford, and
took four towns: Lygeanburg and Ægelesburg (Aylesbury),

Bænesingtun (Bensington) and Egonesham (Ensham).

584. Here Ceawlin and Cutha fought against the Brettas, in the place
that is named Fethanleag; and Cutha was slain. And Ceawlin took
many towns and countless spoils; and in wrath he returned thence to
his own.

There is about these entries something remote and primitive, and
something, too, of a contemporaneous form, that penetrates even through
the folds of a modern dress.

If we would gather an idea of the religious sentiments of that heathen time,
two sources are open to us:—1. Classical authors, especially Cæsar and
Tacitus; 2. Incidental notices in domestic writings after the establishment of
Christianity. In regard to both these sources we must regulate our
expectations in accordance with the circumstances.

1. Cæsar and Tacitus wrote of Germany at large, and not of our particular
tribes in the north-west; yet they naturally touch some leading points which
are of interest for us here. As to their religion, Cæsar formed a totally
different opinion from Tacitus. According to the former, the Germans knew
only those visible and palpably useful gods, the Sun and the Moon, and
Fire; they had never even heard of any others by report. Tacitus, on the
contrary, says, that they worship Hercules and Mars, and, above all,
Mercury; that, at the same time, their religious sense is eminently spiritual,
for they repudiate the thought of enshrining the celestials within walls, or
representing them by the human form; that they venerate groves and forest-
glades, and that by the names of their gods they understand mysterious
beings visible only to the inward and reverential sight. These estimates are
diametrically opposed, and they have been used by an eminent writer to
illustrate the difficulty of getting at the truth about the religion of
barbarians. But it should be remembered that a long interval had elapsed

between Cæsar and Tacitus; an interval, moreover, that was likely to work
some, if not all, of the changes required to make these estimates compatible
with one another.

Tacitus informs us about the god Tuisco, whose name we still keep in
Tuesday;42 about the supremacy of Mercurius,43 that is, of Woden; and
about the form of the boar as a sacred symbol, which was worn on the
person for a charm against danger.44 He also relates the hideous ceremony
of a goddess Nerthus, or Mother Earth, who makes her occasional
progresses in a wagon drawn by cows, the attendants being slaves who,
when the rite is done, are all drowned in a mysterious lake.45

2. From the second source we might have expected more than we find.
Knowing that the new religion was not established without struggles and
delays and relapses, we might have expected that the traces of the dying
superstition would have been numerous in Anglo-Saxon literature. And if
we had the domestic writings that were produced in the first Christian
ardour, such an expectation might have been partially fulfilled. But in any
case we should not expect too much from early and unformed literature. It
is the mature fruit of long cultivation to produce a literature that reflects the
present. Almost all early literature is conventional, because the spontaneous
is not esteemed and is not preserved. But whatever might have happened
under other conditions, the fact now is that the literature of our first
Christian era is almost entirely lost. It perished in the Danish invasions. The
works of Beda are, indeed, preserved, and in one sense they make a large
exception to the general statement, yet the exception is not one that is of
great import for our immediate purpose. His works, even when he is upon a
local subject, breathe little of local curiosity or interest. His was a cloistered
life, his view was ever directed through the vista of books and learned
correspondence towards the central heart of Christianity, and he deigned but
rarely to cast a look behind him at the old superstitions of his people. His

writings, which are all in Latin, contribute something, but it is little,
towards our knowledge of Saxon heathendom. We are indebted to him for
an explicit statement about the meaning of the word “Easter.” It is as
follows:—“Rhedmonath is so called from their goddess Rheda, to whom in
that month they sacrificed.... With the people of my nation, the old folk of
the Angles, the month of April, which is now styled Paschal Month, had
formerly the name of Esturmonath, after a goddess of theirs who was called
Eostra, and whose festival is kept in that month; and they still designate the
Paschal Season from her name, by force of old religious habit keeping the
same name for the new solemnity.”46 This is a sample of what Beda might
have told us about the old heathendom, if he had made it a subject of
inquiry. The information is the more valuable because it was not
forthcoming from any other source. The Germans have an obscure trace of
Retmonat; and their ôstarmânoth, which remains as a German name for
April (Ostermonat) to the present day, is found as early as Eginhard, the
biographer of Charlemagne. But of the deities there is no information
anywhere but in Beda. The name of Easter appears related to “East” and the
growing strength of the sun. In the Edda a male being, a spirit of light, bears
the name of Austri: the German and Saxon tribes seem to have known only
a female divinity in this sense. A being with attributes taken from the Dawn
and from the Spring of the year, so full of promise and of blessing, might
well be tenaciously remembered and retained for Christian use.

We will now proceed to notice the sources which preserve some relics of
the old heathenism.

THE GENEALOGIES

bear the greatest testimony to the former dignity of Woden’s name. The
royal houses of Kent, Essex, Deira, Bernicia, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia,
—all trace up to Woden. Some go up far above Woden, who has a series of

mythological progenitors, the oldest of whom appears to be Scyld, the name
which forms the starting-point of the “Beowulf.”

THE LAWS.

In the Kentish code of Wihtræd (d. 725) there are penalties set down for
those who sacrifice to devils, meaning heathen gods.

But, on the whole, it is remarkable how little is found on this subject in the
codes before Alfred. In the Introduction to Alfred’s Laws idolatry is
forbidden in two places, not in words of the time, but with the sanction of
Scripture texts.

In the Laws of Edward and Guthrum heathenism is denounced with
penalties; in the Codes of Æthelred it is forbidden in a hortatory way; but
the most explicit prohibition is that of Canute:—

“5. Of Heathenism. And we strictly forbid all heathenism. It is heathenism
for a man to worship idols,—that is, to worship heathen gods, and the sun
or moon, fire or flood, water-wells or stones, or any kind of wood-trees, or
practise witchcraft, or contrive murder by sorcery.”

The latter words seem to point to that form of sorcery known as defixio,
wherein an effigy was maltreated, and incantations were used to direct the
injury against the life or health of some private enemy, whom the image
was taken to represent.

CANONS ECCLESIASTICAL.

In the Canons of Ælfric, c. 35, priests are not to attend funereal festivities
unless they are invited; and if they are invited, they are to forbid the heathen
songs of the lewd men, and their loud cachinnations; and they are not to eat

or drink where the corpse is deposited (thær thæt lic inne lith), lest they be
partakers of the heathen rite which is there celebrated. This seems to be
illustrated by a prohibition found in the Capitularies of Charlemagne
against eating and drinking over the mounds of the dead; and also by a
passage of Boniface (Epist. 71), who says that the Franks immolated bulls
and goats to the gods, and ate the sacrifices of the dead. It has been
supposed that a number of teeth, of oxen and sheep or goats, which were
found among heathen Saxon graves at Harnham, near Salisbury, might be
evidence of this practice.47

In the “Laws of the Northumbrian Priests,” c. 48, it is enacted:—“If there
be a sanctuary (frith-geard) in any one’s land, about a stone, or a tree, or a
wall, or any such vanity, let him that made it pay a fine (lah-slit), half to
Christ, half to the landlord (land-rica); and if the landlord will not aid in
executing the law, then let Christ and the king receive the mulct.”

THE POETRY

preserves many traces of heathendom. The unconscious relics of old
mythology that are imbedded in the recurrent formulæ of the heroic diction
is one of our strongest proofs that this diction was already matured in
heathen times. A very prominent term is Wyrd = Destiny, Fate; which is the
same as the Urðr of the Scandian mythology, one of the three fates, Urðr,
Werðandi, Skuld = Past, Present, Future. In Wyrd, the whole of the
attributes are included under one name; and it counts among the marks of
affinity between the Heliand and our Anglo-Saxon literature, that the same
thing is observed there also, though in a less distinct manner. In the
“Beowulf” it is said:—“Wyrd often keeps alive the man who is not destined
to die, if his courage is equal to the occasion.” Wyrd is said to weave, to
prescribe, to ordain, to delude, to hurt. In Cædmon she is wælgrim =
bloodthirsty. And the heathen association may still be felt, even when the

name of Wyrd is displaced by a name of the Christian’s God, as in
“Beowulf” where we read:—“The Lord gave him webs to speed in war.”48
In the Heliand the attributes are less varied, the vaticination is wanting, and
Wurð seems almost the same as Death.

But the old tradition of the three mysterious women lived on in this island.
It is now best known to us through the German Fairy Tales, where we have
the three spinning women. In the Middle Ages there was a remembrance of
these mysterious visitants in a certain ceremony of spreading a table for
three, whether for protection to the house at night, or to bring good luck to
the children born in that house. In the Penitential of Baldwin, Bishop of
Exeter (twelfth century), this superstition is noted, and the latter motive
assigned.

The monks of Evesham kept up a tradition which traced the origin of their
house to a vision of three beautiful maidens, in heavenly garments, sweetly
singing. They were seen by a swineherd in the forest, when he was in search
of a lost swine, and he went to Bishop Ecgwine and told him. The bishop
arrived at the place, was favoured with the same vision, and founded the
monastery there. The device on the abbey seal represented this vision.

A less pleasing vision of the Three Sisters is narrated by Wulfstan of
Winchester, a poet of the tenth century, who has left us a Latin poem of the
Miracles of St. Swithun. In it he tells how, coming back one evening
towards Winchester, he was met by two hideous females, who commanded
him to stop, but he ran away in terror; he was then met and stopped by a
third, who struck him a blow from which he suffered for the remainder of
his life; but the three women plunged into the river and disappeared.

The same three appear in Macbeth as the Weird Sisters; and it is probably
from this connexion that weird has become an adjective for all that savours
of heathenism.

A frequent word for battle and carnage is wæl, and the root idea of this
word is choice, which may be illustrated from the German wählen—to
choose. The heathen idea was that Woden chose those who should fall in
battle to dwell with him in Walhalla, the Hall of the chosen. In the exercise
of this choice, Woden acted by female messengers, called in the Norse
mythology valkyrja, pl. valkyrjor.49

All superior works in metal, as swords, coats of mail, jewels, are the
productions of Weland, the smith. His father is called Wudga, and his son is
called Wada; and with this child on his shoulder Weland strides through
water nine yards deep. This was matter of popular song down to Chaucer’s
time:—

He songe, she playede, he told a tale of Wade.

“Troylus and Crescyde,” iii., 615.

He had by Beadohild another son, in German named Witeche, who
inherited his father’s skill and renown. For his violence to Beadohild,
Weland was lamed; but he made for himself a winged garment, wherewith
he took his flight through the air. He is at once the Daidalos and the
Hephaistos of the Greeks. The translator of the Boethian Metres has taken
occasion to bring in this heathen god, whose cult (it seems) was still too
active. In Metre ii., 7, where Boethius has the line—

Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii manent?

under colour of faber = smith, which the name Fabricius suggests, Weland
is made a fruitful text:—

Hwær sind nu thæs wisan Where now are the bones
Welandes ban, of Weland the wise,

thæs goldsmithes that goldsmith
the wæs gio mærost? so glorious of yore?
Forthy ic cwæth thæs wisan Why name I the bones
Welandes ban, of Weland the wise,
forthy ængum ne mæg but to tell you the truth
eorthbuendra, that none upon earth
se craft losian can e’er lose the craft
the him Crist onlænth. that is lent him by Christ?
Ne mæg mon æfre Vain were it to try,
thy eth ænne wræccan e’en a vagabond man
his craftes beniman of his craft to bereave;
the mon oncerran mæg as vain as to turn
sunnan on swifan the sun in his course
and thisne swiftan rodor and the swift wheeling sky
of his riht ryne from his stated career—
rinca ænig. it cannot be done.
Hwa wat nu thæs wisan Who now wots of the bones
Welandes ban, of Weland the wise,
on hwelcum hi hlæwa or which is the barrow
hrusan theccen? that banks them?

One of the most striking points of contact between our relics of mythology
and those of the Edda occurs in the “Beowulf,” where mention is made of
the famous necklace of the Brosings (or, as Grimm would correct,
Brisings).

In the Edda the goddess Freyja is the owner of a precious necklace, called
Brîsinga men. She had acquired this jewel from the dwarfs, and she kept it
in an inaccessible chamber, but, nevertheless, it was stolen from her by
Loki. Therefore Loki is Brîsings thiofr, the thief of the Brising necklace;
and Heimdallr fought with Loki for it. When Freyja is angry the heaving of
this ornament betrays her emotion. When Thôrr, to get his hammer back,

disguises himself as Freyja, he fails not to put on her famous necklace.
From its mention in Anglo-Saxon poetry, Grimm would infer the familiarity
of the Saxon race with the whole story.50

But what adds vastly to the interest of this legend is that we find it in
Homer. It is essentially the same with the belt of Aphrodite (Hymn, l. 88).
In Iliad xiv., 214, Aphrodite takes it off and lends it to Hêrê to charm Zeus
withal. When we add that just above in the same context (Iliad xiv., 165)
Hêrê also has a curiously contrived chamber, made for her by Hephaistos
(Vulcan), the parallel is too close to be mistaken.

THE GOSPEL TRANSLATION.

Of the old heathen theogony we have a remarkable document in the names
of the days of the week; and these names are best preserved to us in the
rubrics of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels. These names are supposed to have
come from the western shores of Asia, and to have pervaded the nations of
Europe, both Roman and barbarian, in the first and second centuries. By a
comparison of the sets of names in the two families of nations, we gain
certain leading facts about the chief deities of our heathen ancestry, which
all the rest of the scattered evidence tends to confirm. Thus our Tuesday, A.-
S. Tywes-dæg, compared with the French Mardi and its Latin original
Martis dies, teaches us that the old god Tiw (who was also called Tir) was
recognised as the analogue of the Roman Mars, the god of war. So
Wednesday, A.-S. Wodnes-dæg, compared with the French Mercredi and its
Latin form Mercurii dies, gives us proof that the god Woden answered to
the Roman Mercurius. So, too, Thursday, A.-S. Thunres-dæg, compared
with French Jeudi and Latin Jovis dies, shows that Thunor (whom the
Scandinavians call Thor) is the god of thunder, like the Latin Jupiter. So
again, Friday, A.-S. Frige-dæg, compared with Vendredi and Veneris dies,

gives us the analogy of Frige with Venus.51 Saturday, A.-S. Satærnes-dæg,
seems like a borrowed name from the Latin Saturnus.

Kemble maintained the probability that Sætere was a native divinity, and
considered that the local names of Satterthwaite (Lanc.), and Satterleigh
(Devon), offered some probable evidence in that direction. More distinct are
the local namesakes of Woden. Kemble adduces repeated instances of
Wanborough, formerly Wodnesbrook (Surrey, Wilts, Hants),
Woodnesborough (Kent), Wanstrow, formerly Wodnestreow = Woden’s tree
(Somerset), Wansdike, and others.

THE HOMILIES

occasionally denounce and describe the prevalent forms of heathenism still
surviving. Thus Ælfric (i., 474):—“It is not allowed to any Christian man,
that he should recover his health at any stone, or at any tree.” Wulfstan
preaches thus:—“From the devil comes every evil, every misery, and no
remedy: where he finds incautious men he sends on themselves, or
sometimes on their cattle, some terrible ailment, and they proceed to vow
alms by the devil’s suggestion, either to a well or to a stone, or else to some
unlawful things....”52

In an alliterative homily of the tenth century, the heathen gods that are
combated are Danish:—53

Thes Jovis is arwurthost This Jove is most worshipped
ealra thæra goda, of all the gods
The tha hæthenan hæfdon that the heathens had
on heora gedwilde, in their delusion;
and he hatte Thor and he hight Thor
betwux sumum theodum; some nations among;

thone tha Deniscan leode him the tribes of the Danes
lufiath swithost. especially love.
... ...
Sum man was gehaten There once lived a man
Mercurius on life, Mercurius hight;
he was swithe facenful he was vastly deceitful
and swicol on dedum, and sly in his deeds,
and lufode eac stala eke stealing he loved
and leasbrednysse; and lying device;
thone macodon tha hæthenan him the heathens they made
him to mæran gode, their majestical god,
and æt wega gelætum and at the cross roads
him lac offrodon, they offered him gifts,
and to heagum beorgum and to the high hills
him on brohton onsegdnysse. brought him victims to slay.
Thes god was arwurthra This god was main worthy
betwux eallum hæthenum, all heathens among,
and he is Othon gehaten and his name when translated
othrum naman on Denisc. in Danish is Odin.

An interesting example of the methods used to wean our simple forefathers
from their old heathen practices may be seen in a “Spell to restore fertility
to land.”54 The preamble sets forth:—“Here is the remedy whereby thou
mayest restore thy fields, if they will not produce well, or where any
uncanny thing has befallen them, like magic or witchcraft.” Four turfs are to
be cut before dawn from four corners of the land, and these are to be
stacked in a heap, and upon them are to be dropped drops of an elaborate
preparation whereof one ingredient is holy water; and over them are to be
said words of Scripture and Our Father. And then the turfs are taken to
church, and prayers are said by the priest while the green of the turfs is
turned altarwards; and then, before sun-down, the turfs are returned to their
own original places: but first, four crosses, made of quickbeam, with the

names Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, written on their four ends, are to be put,
one in the bottom of each pit, and as each turf is restored to its native spot,
and laid on its particular cross, say thus:—“Crux, Mattheus; Crux, Marcus;
Crux, Lucas; Crux, Joannes.”55 Then the supplicant turns eastward, bows
nine times, and says a rhythmic form of prayer, in which some heathen
elements are just discernible. Then he turns three times towards the sun in
its course, and sings Benedicite, Magnificat, and Pater Noster, and makes a
gracious vow, in the friendly comprehension of which all the
neighbourhood is included, gentle and simple.

This being done, strange seed must be procured, and this must be got from
poor “almsmen”; and the supplicant must give them a double quantity in
return; and then he must collect together all his plough-gear and tackle, and
say over them a poetic formula which has fragments that look very like the
real old heathen charm. It begins with untranslatable words:—

Erce, erce, erce, Erce, erce, erce,
eordan modor. mother of earth.

Then go to work with the plough, and open the first furrow, and say:—

Hál wes thu, folde, Soil I salute thee,
fira modor; mother of souls;
beo thu growende, be thou growing
on Codes fæthme; by God’s grace;
fodre gefylled, filled with fodder
firum to nytte. folks to comfort.

Then a loaf is to be kneaded and baked, and put into the first furrow, with
yet another anthem:—

Ful æcer fodres A full crop of fodder
fira cinne, may the folks see;
beorht-blowende brightly blossoming,
thu gebletsod weorth. blessed mote thou be.

Then follows a chaplet of three repetitions, twice repeated, and this long
day’s orison is done.

Here we have a fair example of the artifice used by the clergy in
transforming old heathen charms into edifying ceremonies. Men are here
led to pray; to exercise themselves in some of the chief liturgical
formularies of the Catholic Church; to accept Christian versions of their old
incantations; to profess good will to their neighbours, high and low; and to
exercise some bounty towards the poor. Natural means are not neglected; a
change of seed is made a part of the ceremonial.

Such are some of the traces we can gather from the expiring relics of
heathenism. They all come from the Christian period, as was natural, seeing
that the national profession of heathenism ended before our literature began,
unless the annals mentioned at the beginning of this chapter are exceptions.
The facilities of writing must have been very limited if the only alphabet in
use was the Runic. It is, perhaps, a little too rigid to assume that the use of
the Roman alphabet is to be dated strictly from the Conversion. As the use
of Runes did not then suddenly terminate, but gradually receded before the
superior instrument, so perhaps it is most reasonable to suppose that the
adoption of the Roman alphabet was very gradual, and that the Saxons may
have begun to use it, at least in Kent, before the reign of Æthelberht.56

39 T. Wright, “Celt, Roman, and Saxon,” p. 389; J. R. Green, “Short History,” i., 2.

40 “Ecclesiastical History,” i., 22.

41 It is the manner of the Saxon chronicles to attach each annal to its year-date by an adverb of locality—“Here.”

42 “Germania,” c. 2.

43 Id., c. 9.

44 Id., c. 45.

45 “Germania,” c. 40.

46 “De Temporum Ratione,” c. 13.

47 “Archæologia,” vol. xxxv., p. 259.

48 Compare with this the “Spaedom of the Norns,” in Dasent’s “Burnt Njal”; also Gray’s “Fatal Sisters,” which is
another version of the same original, one remove further off, as Gray knew the poem only through the Latin of
Torfæus.
49 The second part of this compound repeats the idea of the first, namely, choice: it is from the verb to choose, for in
certain tenses this verb changed s to r, just as from the verb to freeze we have frore (Milton), and from lose we
have a participle lorn. The Anglo-Saxon form is wælcyrige. Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythol.” tr. Stallybrass, p. 418.
Kemble, “Saxons,” i., 402.
50 The same keen discoverer scents an old heathen reminiscence also when the poet of the Heliand makes that holy
thing which is not to be cast before dogs (Matthew vii. 6) a hêlag halsmeni = holy necklace.
51 For the distinct attributes of this goddess, who was the wife of Woden, the reader may consult Grimm’s “Teutonic
Mythology,” who quotes Paulus Diaconus (eighth century), saying that the Langobards called Woden’s wife Frea,
and Saxo, p. 13, saying, “Frigga Othini conjux.”
52 “Über die Werke des altenglischen Erzbischofs Wulfstan,” von Arthur Napier. Weimar, 1882, p. 33.

53 Printed in Kemble’s “Solomon and Saturn,” p. 120.

54 Printed in Thorpe’s “Analecta” (1846), p. 116.

55 This recalls the charm that within living memory was used on Dartmoor as an evening prayer:—

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on;
Two to head and two to feet,
And four to keep me while I sleep.

56 Some Runic alphabets may be seen in my “Philology of the English Tongue,” § 96 (ed. 3, 1879). The best
collection of Runic monuments is in the two folio volumes of Professor George Stephens.

CHAPTER IV.
THE SCHOOLS OF KENT.

§ 1.

It is a debatable question whether any Roman culture lived through the Saxon conquest.

The Saxon conquest of Britain was certainly, on the whole, a destructive one, and it has been justly
contrasted with the Frankish conquest of Gaul; where the conquerors quickly assimilated with the
conquered. The relics of Roman civilisation which the Saxons adopted, were indeed few. This is true,
as a general statement. But there is some ground for regarding Kent as a case apart. Here all accounts
seem to indicate a gradual and less violent intrusion of the new race, and to suggest the possibility
that there was not for that area a complete break in the traditions and customs of life. The capital city
itself, Dorobernia (Canterbury), whatever revolution it may have suffered, was at least not destroyed.
There is nothing that requires us to assume the extinction of the schools of grammar which existed
presumably in Kent as in Gaul.

The foundation of schools by the Roman mission is not recorded, nor does Bede say anything to
imply it when thirty years later he describes the foundation of schools in East Anglia. These were
founded by king Sigberct because he desired to have good institutions such as he had seen in Gaul,
and his wishes were carried into effect by bishop Felix, after the pattern of the schools of Kent.57
Whether it would be possible to trace the study of Roman law as a scholastic exercise through these
obscure times, is very doubtful.58 But certainly there is something about the Latinity of our earliest
legal documents, that has a local and even a vernacular aspect. Slight as these traces may be, they are
interesting enough to merit consideration.

In the Kentish laws are preserved our oldest extant relics of ancestral custom. The first code is that of
Æthelberht, with this title:—“This be the Dooms that Æthelbriht, king, ordained in Augustine’s
days.” It is much concerned with penalties for personal injuries. These are some of the “Dooms”:—

Cap. 40. If an ear be smitten off, 6 shillings amends (bôt).

” 41. If the ear be pierced through, 3 shillings.

” 43. If an eye is lost, 50 shillings.

” 44. If mouth or eye be damaged, 12 shillings.

” 45. If the nose be pierced, 9 shillings.

” 51. For the four front teeth, 6 shillings each; the tooth that stands next, 4
shillings; the next to that, 3 shillings; and thenceforth, each, 1 shilling.

Penalties for theft are graduated according to the quality of the person injured, i.e., according to the
different orders of men in the body politic, each of whom has a separate value: king, noble, freeman,
serf, slave. Such we may suppose to have been the primitive institutes of the tribes in the old mother
country on the Continent. But the code is headed by a captel, in which the property of the Church is
valued beyond that of the king, and the same applies to the higher clergy. “Cap. 1. The property of
God and the Church, 12 fold; Bishop’s property, 11 fold; Priest’s, 9 fold [the same as the King’s];
Deacon’s, 6 fold; Clerk’s, 3 fold.” Next follows one that we may well suppose might have been the
first of the pre-Christian code: “Cap. 2. If the king summon his people to him, and one there do them
evil—double bôt, and 50 shillings to the king.” Bede mentions (ii., 5) these laws of Æthelberht, and
especially this feature of them, that they began with the protection of Church property. He also says,
that the king constituted these laws according to Roman precedent (juxta exempla Romanorum), by
which some have been led to expect that there would be an element of Roman law in them. The
imitation consisted only in committing the laws to writing.

Æthelberht died in 616, and then came a heathen reaction under his son Eadbald; but he was
converted to Christianity in 618 by Bishop Laurentius. His son Erconbriht, who succeeded in 640,
was the first king who dared to demolish the heathen fanes. Bede informs us that this king made a
law for the observance of the Lenten fast; but no law of the kind appears until we come to the laws of
Wihtred. Ecgbriht succeeded his father in 664, under whom the waning power of Kent reasserted its
former sway. To him succeeded first Hlothære in 673, and then Eadric. These two reigns were short,
and the names of both the kings stand at the head of the next Kentish code.

The introductory sentence of this code was this:—“Hlothhære and Eadric, kings of the men of Kent,
enlarged the laws which their predecessors had made aforetime, with these dooms following”:—

Cap. 8. If one man implead another in a matter, and he cite the man to a ‘Methel’ or a ‘Thing’, let the
man always give security to the other, and do him such right, as the Kentish judges prescribe to them.

This code has a little series of laws concerning offences to the sense of honour, and consequent
danger to the king’s peace:—

Cap. 11. If in another’s house one man calleth another man a perjurer, or assail him offensively with
injurious words; let him pay a shilling to the owner of the house, and 6 shillings to the insulted man,
and forfeit 12 shillings to the king.

Cap. 12. If a man remove another’s stoup where men drink without offence, by old right he pays a
shilling to him who owns the house, and 6 shillings to him whose stoop was taken away, and 12
shillings to the king.

Cap. 13. If weapon be drawn where men drink, and no harm be done; a shilling to the owner of the
house, and 12 shillings to the king.

After a troublous time of encroachment from the side of Wessex, the kingdom of Kent had again a
time of honour, if not of absolute independence, under king Wihtred (691-725), who, in the preamble
to his laws, is called the most gracious king of the Kentish folk (se mildesta cyning Cantwara). His
laws are mostly ecclesiastical. The rights of the Church and of her ministers, the keeping of the
Sunday, manumission of slaves at the altar, penalties for heathen rites, these subjects make the bulk
of a code of 28 captels, of which the last four are about theft. The closing provision is characteristic
of the state of society:

Cap. 28. If a man from a distance, or a stranger, go off the road, and he neither shout nor blow a
horn, as a thief he is liable to be examined, or slain, or redeemed.

In the preamble this code is precisely dated on the 6th day of August in Wihtred’s fifth year, which is
696. Also it mentions Berghamstyde, which seems to mean Berkhamstead (Herts), as the place of
enactment, and Gybmund, bishop of Rochester, as having been present. Doubts have been cast upon
the genuineness of this code, but it is defended in Schmid’s introduction. This is the last of the laws
of Kent.

The Kentish laws are found in a register of the twelfth century, which has a high character for
fidelity. No doubt the substance of them is faithfully preserved. But they are not in the original
Kentish dialect; they have been translated into West Saxon. The translation has not, however,
obliterated all traces of the original; there are some peculiarities which survive, and which enable us
to see through the present form those traces of a higher antiquity, which strengthen that confidence
which the contents are calculated to inspire.

The Kentish dialect was the first literary form of the language of our Saxon ancestors. It has been
thought that in the Epinal Gloss, of which a specimen will be given below, we have the best extant
representation of this ancient dialect. Early in the ninth century we have some original documents in
the Kentish dialect, and these are our surest guides in judging of other specimens.59

The following extract is from a legal document of the year 832. Luba had made a deed of gift from
her estate to the fraternity of Christ Church at Canterbury, and the following sanction was appended:

✠ Ic luba eaðmod godes ðiwen ðas I, Luba, the humble handmaid of God,
forecwedenan god ⁊ ðas elmessan gesette ⁊ appoint and establish these foresaid
gefestnie ob minem erfelande et benefactions and alms from my heritable
mundlingham ðem hiium to cristes cirican ⁊ land at Mundlingham to the brethren at
ic bidde ⁊ an godes libgendes naman bebiade Christ Church; and I entreat, and in the name
ðæm men ðe ðis land ⁊ ðis erbe hebbe et of the living God I command, the man who
mundlingham ðet he ðas god forðleste oð may have this land and this inheritance at
wiaralde ende se man se ðis healdan wille ⁊ Mundlingham, that he continue these

lestan ðet ic beboden hebbe an ðisem gewrite benefactions to the world’s end. The man
se him seald ⁊ gehealden sia hiabenlice who will keep and discharge this that I have
bledsung se his ferwerne oððe hit agele se commanded in this writing, to him be given
him seald ⁊ gehealden helle wite bute he to and kept the heavenly blessing; he who
fulre bote gecerran wille gode ⁊ mannum hinders or neglects it, to him be given and
uene ualete. kept the punishment of hell, unless he will
repent with full amends to God and to men.
Fare ye well.

§ 2.

The middle of the seventh century was a very dark period throughout the West. The lingering rays of
ancient culture had grown very faint in France, Italy, and Spain. Literary production had ceased in
France since Gregory of Tours and his friend Venantius Fortunatus, the poet; in Spain, soon after
Isidore of Seville, the Christian area had been narrowed by the Moslem invasion; in Italy, though the
tradition of learning was never extinguished, yet no writer of eminence appeared for a long time after
Gregory the Great. At such a time it was that the seed of learning found a new and fruitful soil among
the Anglo-Saxon people; and they who had been the latest receivers of the civilising element, quickly
took the lead in religion and learning.

In the year 668 three remarkable men came into Britain, These were Theodore, a Greek of Tarsus,
who came as Archbishop of Canterbury; Hadrian, an African monk who had deprecated his own
appointment to that office; and Biscop Baducing (called Benedict Biscop), an Angle of Northumbria,
who had left his retreat in the monastery of Lerins, to guide and accompany the travellers into his
native country.

This had risen out of an unforeseen event, and had almost the appearance of accident. But the
consequences were great and far-reaching. Theodore organised the English Church upon lines that
proved permanent. A new era was also inaugurated for literature and art. Literature was represented
by Hadrian, who set up education at St. Augustine’s upon an improved plan; and art, especially in
relation to religious and educational institutions—books, buildings, ritual—was the province of
Benedict Biscop.

Up to this time education and literature had two rival sources, the old schools of Kent, and the
schools of the Irish teachers. But from Hadrian’s coming a new literary era commences. For more
than a hundred years our island was the seat of learning beyond any other country in the world of the
West. Even Greek learning, extinct elsewhere, was revived for a time; and Bede, whose childhood
had corresponded to the opening of this new activity, looked back on it when he was old as a glorious
time, and he put it on record that he had known many scholars to whom both the Latin and Greek
languages were as their mother tongue.

Of those who were formed in the school of Hadrian, the first and most conspicuous is Aldhelm. His
rudimentary education must have been over before he knew Hadrian. The school of Maidulf gave
him his boyish training at the monastery which was called after the Irish founder, and which has
given name to the town of Malmesbury (Maidulfes burh). So Aldhelm stands between the two
systems, the old Irish and the new Kentish. His preference was for the latter, but his works retain the
characteristics of both. He has a love of grandiloquence which is both Keltic and Saxon, and a
delight in alliteration which is more especially Saxon. His familiarity with the national poetry looms
often through his Latin. But his proper characteristics, those whereby he fills a position altogether his
own, are apart from these peculiarities. He is the scholar of the age, the type of that set whom Bede
delighted to recall, who knew Latin and Greek like their mother tongue. He is the father of Anglo-
Latin poetry. He made a zealous study of the Latin metres, and he commended the pursuit to other
scholars. His Greek knowledge manifests itself everywhere: not always with a good effect, according
to present taste; but in a manner which is of historical value as demonstrating his real familiarity with
the Greek language.

Aldhelm’s great work, and the work which most conveys his interpretation of the spiritual conditions
of his time, is his book, “De Laude Virginitatis,” in praise of Celibacy. But for the purposes of
literary history, his artistic studies are of more importance than those which are strictly religious and
ecclesiastical. Of the greatest interest for us are his Riddles. These are short Latin poems somewhat
after the model of Symphosius, whose work he describes,60 and whom he seems ambitious to
outstrip. The riddles of Symphosius are uniformly of three hexameter lines, those of Aldhelm vary in
length from four lines to sixteen; rarely more. The external structure is that of the Epigram, with the
object speaking in the first person. The riddles both of Symphosius and Aldhelm are so closely
identified with the vernacular riddles of the famous Exeter Song Book, that the reader may be glad of
a specimen from each author. It should be premised that in each collection the subject stands as a title
at the head of each piece. The subject of the sixteenth in Symphosius is the book-moth:—

DE TINEA.

Litera me pavit, nec quid sit litera novi,
In libris vixi nec sum studiosior inde,
Exedi musas nec adhuc tamen ipse profeci.

I have fed upon literature, yet know not what it is; I have lived among books, yet am not
the more studious for it; I have devoured the Muses, yet up to the present time I have made
no progress.

One of Aldhelm’s riddles is on the Alphabet; and this will be a fit specimen here, as containing
something that is germane to the history of literature:—

Nos denæ et septem genitæ sine voce sorores,
Sex alias nothas non dicimus adnumerandas,

Nascimur ex ferro rursus ferro moribundæ,
Necnon et volucris pennâ volitantis ad æthram;
Terni nos fratres incertâ matre crearunt;
Qui cupit instanter sitiens audire, docemus,
Turn cito prompta damus rogitanti verba silenter.

We are seventeen sisters voiceless born; six others, half-sisters, we exclude from our set;
children of iron by iron we die, but children too of the bird’s wing that flies so high; three
brethren our sires, be our mother as may; if any one is very eager to hear, we tell him, and
quickly give answer without any sound.61

Aldhelm is the first of the Anglo-Latin poets, and he was a classical scholar at a time when to be so
was a great distinction. Both in prose and verse, his style has the faults which belong to an age of
revived study. His love of learning, his keen appreciation of its beauty and its value, have tended to
inflate his sentences with an appearance of display. His poetic diction is simpler than that of his
prose; but here, too, he is habitually over-elevated, whence he becomes sometimes stilted, and
oftentimes he drops below pitch with an inadequate and disappointing close. But we must honour
him in the position which he holds. He is the leader of that noble series of English scholars who
represent the first endeavouring stage of recovery after the great eclipse of European culture.

There is nothing of his remaining in the vernacular; but that he was an English poet we have
testimony which, though late, is not to be disregarded. William of Malmesbury quotes a book of
King Alfred’s, which said that Aldhelm had been a peerless writer of English poetry: and he adds,
moreover, that a popular song, which had been mentioned by Alfred as Aldhelm’s, was still
commonly sung in his own time—that is, in the twelfth century.

Attempts have been made to identify some of our extant Anglo-Saxon literature with a name so
eminent. In 1835 the Anglo-Saxon Psalter of the Paris manuscript was first printed at Oxford, and as
this book gives a hundred of the Psalms in vernacular poetry, the suggestion that they might be
Aldhelm’s, though modernised, had rhetorical attractions for the editor (Thorpe), and supplied him
with material for a few rather idle sentences of his Latin preface. In 1840 Jacob Grimm edited (from
Thorpe’s editio princeps) two poems of the Vercelli book, the “Andreas” and the “Elene;” and in his
preface he sought to fix this poetry upon Aldhelm by a line of argument altogether fallacious, as was
afterwards shown by Mr. Kemble in his edition of the “Andreas” for the Ælfric Society.

That which we have to show for this period in the native Kentish dialect is less ambitious, but it will
not be despised by the considerate reader. In the beginnings of learning, when students had not the
apparatus of grammars and dictionaries, which now, being common, are almost as much a matter of
course as any gift of nature, it was necessary for students to make lists of words and phrases for
themselves, and after a while a few of these would be thrown together, and would be reduced to
alphabetical order for facility of reference. It is to such a process as this that we owe the Glossaries
which form an interesting branch of Anglo-Saxon literature. The Epinal Gloss is the oldest of these,

and it is very valuable because of the archaic forms of many of the words. A selection is here given
by way of specimen:—62

EPINAL GLOSS.

(Cooper, Appendix B, p. 153.)

Alba spina, haegu thorn (hawthorn).
Aesculus, boecae (beech).
Achalantis, luscina netigalæ (nightingale).
Acrifolus, holegn (holly).
Alnus, alaer (alder).
Abies, saeppae (fir).
Argella, laam (loam).
Accitulium, geacaes surae (sorrel).
Absintium, uuermod (wormwood).
Alacris, snel (swift, German schnell).
Alveus, stream rad (stream-road = channel).
Aquilæ, segnas (military standards).
Anser, goos (goose).
Beta, berc, arbor (birch).
Ballena, hran (whale).
Buculus, rand beag (buckler).
Berruca, uueartæ (wart).
Cados, ambras (casks).
Chaos, duolma (confusion, error).
Cicuta, hymblicae (hemlock).
Cofinus, mand (hamper).
Fulix, ganot, dop aenid (gannet, dip-chick).
Filix, fearn (fern).
Fasianus, uuor hana (pheasant).
Fungus, suamm (German schwamm).
Fragor, suoeg (swough, sough).
Finiculus, finugl (fennel).
Follis, blest baeelg (blast-bellows).
Glarea, cisil (pebble, cf. Chesil Bank).
Hibiscum, biscop uuyrt (marsh mallow).
Horodius, uualh hebuc (foreign hawk).
Hirundo, sualuuae (swallow).
Intestinum, thearm (German Darm).
Jungetum, risc thyfil (jungle).

Inprobus, gimach (troublesome).
Iners, asolcaen (lazy).
Inter primores, bituien aeldrum (among the chief men).
Juris periti, red boran (counsellors).
Invisus, laath (loath).
Iuuar (= jubar), leoma, earendil (gleam, beacon, crest).
Ignarium, al giuueorc (fire-work).
Ibices, firgen gaett (mountain goats, chamois).
Lunules, mene scillingas (coins or bracteates on a necklace).
Lucius, haecid (hake, German Hecht).
Lolium, atae (oats).
Limax, snel (snail).
Ligustrum, hunaeg sugae (honeysuckle).
Manipulatim, threatmelum (in bands).
Manica, gloob (glove).
Mascus, grima (mask).
Malva, cotuc, geormant lab (mallow).
Mars, Tiig (cf. Tuesday).
Ninguit, hsniuuith (snoweth).
Nigra spina, slach thorn (sloe-thorn).
Nanus, duerg (dwarf).
Olor, aelbitu (the elk, wild swan).
Piraticum, uuicing sceadan (pirates).
Pares, uuyrdae (Fates).
Perna, flicci (flitch).
Pictus acu, mið naeðlae sasiuuid (embroidered).
Pronus, nihol (perpendicular).
Pollux, thuma (thumb).
Quoquomodo, aengiþinga (anyhow).
Rumex, edroc.
Ramnus, theban (thorn).
Salix, salch (sallow).
Sturnus, staer (starling).
Titio, brand (firebrand).
Tignarius, hrofuuyrcta (roofwright).
Vadimonium, borg (pledge, security).

In this glossary we see the preparation for our modern Latin-English dictionaries. Already, as early as
the reign of Augustus, the foundation of the Latin dictionary was laid by Verrius Flaccus, but his
dictionary would naturally consist of Latin words with Latin explanations. But in the seventh century
there was a demand for Latin vocabularies, with equivalents in the vernacular languages; and here, in

the Epinal Glossary, we have the earliest known example of such a work. At first such glossaries
would be merely lists of words formed in the course of studying some one or two Latin texts, and in
process of time would follow the compilation of several such glossaries into one, until, in the tenth
and eleventh centuries, we find vocabularies of some compass (as Ælfric’s), and by the fifteenth
century we have such bulky dictionaries as the “Catholicon” and the “Promptorium Parvulorum.”

We will close this chapter with specimens of the “Psalter of St. Augustine,” which received an
Anglo-Saxon gloss (dialect Kentish63) at the end of the ninth, or early in the tenth century. The book
has been already described above, p. 33.

PSALM XLIX. (L.), 7:—“Hear, O my people,” &c.

geher folc min ond sprecu to israhela folce ond ic cythu the thætte god god thin ic eam
7. Audi populus meus et loquar Israhel et testificabor tibi quoniam Deus Deus tuus ego sum

na les ofer onsegdnisse thine ic dregu the onsegdnisse soth thine in gesihthe minre sind aa
8. Non super sacrificia tua arguam te holocausta autem tua in conspectu meo sunt semper

ic ne on foo of huse thinum calferu ne of eowdum thinum buccan
9. Non accipiam de domo tua vitulos neque de gregibus tuis hircos

for thon min sind all wildeor wuda neat in muntum ond oexen
10. Quoniam meæ sunt omnes feræ silvarum jumenta in montibus et boves

ic on cneow all tha flegendan heofenes ond hiow londes mid mec is
11. Cognovi omnia volatilia cæli et species agri mecum est

gif ic hyngriu ne cweothu ic to the min is sothlice ymb hwerft eorthan ond fylnis his
12. Si esuriero non dicam tibi, meus est enim orbis terræ et plenitudo ejus

ah ic eotu flæsc ferra oththe blod buccena ic drinco
13. Numquid manducabo carnes taurorum aut sanguinem hircorum potabo

ageld gode onsegdnisse lofes ond geld tham hestan gehat thin
14. Immola Deo sacrificium laudis et redde Altissimo vota tua

gece mec in dege geswinces thines thæt ic genere thec ond thu miclas mec
15. Invoca me in die tribulationis tuæ ut eripiam te et magnificabis me

D I A P S A L M A.

to thæm synfullan sothlice cweth god for hwon thu asagas rehtwisnisse mine ond genimes cythnisse
16. Peccatori autem dixit Deus Quare tu enarras justitias meas et adsumes testamentum
mine thorh muth thinne
meum per os tuum

thu sothlice thu fiodes theodscipe ond thu awurpe word min efter the
17. Tu vero odisti disciplinam et projecisti sermones meos post te

gif thu gesege theof somud thu urne mid hine ond mid unreht hæmderum dæl thinne thu settes
18. Si videbas furem simul currebas cum eo et cum adulteris portionem tuam ponebas

muth thin genihtsumath mid nithe ond tunge thin hleothrade facen
19. Os tuum abundavit nequitia et lingua tua concinnavit dolum

sittende with broether thinum thu teldes ond with suna moeder thinre thu settes eswic
20. Sedens adversus fratrem tuum detrahebas et adversus filium matris tuæ ponebas scandalum

thas thu dydes ond ic swigade thu gewoendes on unrehtwisnisse thæt ic wære the gelic
21. Hæc fecisti et tacui existimasti iniquitatem quod ero tibi similis

ic threu thec ond ic setto tha ongegn onsiene thinre Ongeotath thas alle tha ofer geoteliath dryhten
Arguam te et statuam illa contra faciem tuam (22.) intelligite hæc omnes qui obliviscimini Dominum
ne hwonne gereafie ond ne sie se generge
ne quando rapiat et non sit qui eripiat

onsegdnis lofes gearath mec ond ther sithfet is thider ic oteawu him haelu godes
23. Sacrificium laudis honorificabit me et illic iter est in quo ostendam illi salutare Dei

PSALM LXXVI. (LXXVII.)

Ond smegende ic eam in allum wercum thinum ond in gehaeldum thinum ic bieode
13. Et meditatus sum in omnibus operibus tuis et in observationibus tuis exercebor

god in halgum weg thin hwelc god micel swe swe god ur thu earth god thu the doest
14. Deus in sancto via tua quis Deus magnus sicut Deus noster (15.) tu es Deus qui facis
wundur ana cuthe thu dydes in folcum megen thin gefreodes in earme thinum folc
mirabilia solus notam fecisti in populis virtutem tuam (16.) liberasti in brachio tuo populum
thin bearn
tuum filios Israhel et Joseph

gesegun thec weter god gesegun thec weter ond on dreordun gedroefde werun niolnisse mengu
17. Viderunt te aquæ Deus viderunt te aquæ et timuerunt turbati sunt abyssi (18.) multitudo
swoeges wetre stefne saldun wolcen ond sothlice strelas thine thorh leordun stefn thunurrade
sonitus aquarum Vocem dederunt nubes et enim sagittæ tuæ pertransierunt (19.) vox tonitrui
thinre in hweole
tui in rota

in lihton bliccetunge thine eorthan ymbhwyrfte gesaeh ond onstyred wes eorthe
Inluxerunt coruscationes tuæ orbi terræ vidit et commota est terra

in sae wegas thine ond stige thine in wetrum miclum ond swethe thine ne bioth oncnawen
20. In mari viæ tuæ et semitæ tuæ in aquis multis et vestigia tua non cognoscentur

thu gelaeddes swe swe scep folc thin in honda mosi ond aaron
21. Deduxisti sicut oves populum tuum in manu Moysi et Aaron

These specimens of the Kentish dialect (with the exception of the Epinal Gloss) are of much later
date than the times which our narrative has yet reached; and they are only offered as a proximate
representation of that which was the first of English dialects to receive literary culture. This dialect is
peculiarly interesting as being that from which the West Saxon was developed; in other words, it is
the earliest form of that imperial dialect in which the great body of extant Saxon literature is
preserved. But the Kentish did not ripen into the maturer outlines of the West Saxon without the
intervention of a third dialect; and in order to appreciate this it is necessary for us to review that more
spacious culture of which the scene was laid in the country of the Northern Angles.

57 “Ecclesiastical History,” iii., 18.

58 Aldhelm speaks of the study of Roman law in connexion with other scholastic studies, as Latin verses and music.
But then that was after the new start given to education by Theodore and Hadrian. A century later, Alcuin
described the studies at V York in this order,—grammar, rhetoric, law.—Wharton, “Anglia Sacra,” ii. 6; Alcuin’s
poem, “De Pontificibus &c.”
59 They are in Kemble, “Codex Diplomaticus,” Nos. 226, 228, 229, 231, 235, 238.

60 Aldhelm’s “Works,” ed. Giles, p. 228.

61 Seventeen consonants and six vowels; made with iron style and erased with the same, or else made with a bird’s
quill; whatever the instrument, three fingers are the agents; and we can convey answer without delay even in
situations where it would be inconvenient to speak.
62 I have given the th, or þ, or ð, as in the manuscript. This is done in the present instance because a peculiar interest
attaches to it in the earliest specimens of writing. The frequency of th, and the rarity of the monograms, is itself a
distinguishing feature. Speaking in general terms of Anglo-Saxon literature, as it appears in manuscripts, it might
be fairly said that there is no th; this sound is represented by ð or þ. And of these two, the modified Roman
character, Ð ð, is found to prevail over the native Rune (þ) in the oldest extant writings. Throughout this little
book the th is commonly used, as being most convenient for the general reader.
63 Transactions of the Philological Society for 1875-6.

CHAPTER V.
THE ANGLIAN PERIOD.

While Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning, there was, in the Anglian region of
Northumbria, a development of religious and intellectual life which makes it natural to regard the
whole brilliant era from the later seventh to the early ninth century as “The Anglian Period.” Not
only did the greatest school of the whole island grow up at York, but also one that, with its important
library, was for the time the most active and useful in the whole of Western Europe.

The importance of the Anglian period consists in the fact that it belongs not merely to one nation, but
that Anglia became for a century the light-spot of European history; and that here we recognise the
first great stage in the revival of learning, and the first movement towards the establishment of public
order in things temporal and spiritual. Happily, the period stands out in a good historical light, and
the chief elements of its influence are finely exhibited in the persons of representative men or
representative groups.

There is Paulinus, the fugitive missionary from Kent, who made the first rapid evangelisation of the
northern country; King Edwin and his court form a well-displayed group between the old darkness
and the coming light, as they consult and compare the two; Oswald, returning from exile to be king,
and bringing with him the Scotian type of Christianity; Aidan, the first Scotian bishop of Lindisfarne,
and the model of pastors; Wilfrid, the champion of Roman unity, confronting Colman at the synod of
Whitby before Oswy, the presiding king, on the absorbing question of the time; Wilfrid appealing to
Rome against Theodore; and yet again, Wilfrid, the first Anglo-Saxon missionary; Biscop Baducing
(Benedict Biscop), the founder of abbeys, the traveller, the introducer of arts from abroad; Cædmon,
the cowherd, the divinely-inspired singer and the father of a school of English poetry; Cuthberht, the
shepherd-boy, abbot, bishop, hermit, and finally the national saint of Northumbria; Willebrord and
the two Hewalds, and all the glorious band of missionaries and martyrs; Winfrid (Boniface), the
crown of them all, apostle of Germany, and martyr; Beda, the teacher and historian; Ecgberct and
Alberct, successively archbishops of York, acknowledged presidents of Western learning; Alcuin, the
bearer of Anglian learning to the Franks, and the organiser of schools for the future ages.

After Aldhelm, the first Englishman who appeared as an author was Æddi, better known as Eddius
Stephanus. He was the friend and companion of Wilfrid in his contentions and troubles, and, after his
death, he wrote a biography of him in Latin. This book is of great value as an authority, and as

illustrating the history of the later seventh and early eighth century. Wilfrid died in 709, the same
year as Aldhelm.

Wilfrid was the master-spirit of this age. He represented the best aims of his nation; he understood
the needs of the time; he worked for them, and he suffered for them. With an overbearing spirit,
fantastic too often in his conduct, he saw what was needed—he saw the necessity for unity with
Rome. This was a necessity, not for one country alone, but for the whole West at that time. Protestant
writers have looked at Wilfrid through a distorting medium. Nowhere, perhaps, is there more need to
allow for difference of times than in estimating Wilfrid. He had great faults; he quarrelled with the
best men; but, on the other hand, Theodore, the most important of all his adversaries, sought
reconciliation at last, and accused himself of injustice. Wilfrid initiated the German missions; he
impressed on that great field of Saxon activity the policy of his agitated life, and that policy was ever
militant in Boniface, the chief apostle of Germany, and may be said to have triumphed when the
Roman Empire was renewed in harmony with the Holy See, and Charles was crowned in 800.
Wilfrid, more than any other man, appears as the ideal representative of that varied influence,
religious, literary, political, which the Anglo-Saxon Church exercised upon the Western world.

The beginning of our vernacular literature, so far as it can be treated chronologically, lies between
the years 658 and 680. For these are the years of the abbacy of Hild at Whitby, and it was in her time
that Cædmon appeared, who had received the gift of divine song in a vision of the night. When this
heavenly call was recognised, the herdsman became a brother of the religious fraternity, and devoted
his life to the pursuit of sacred poetry. To the lover of the mother tongue it must appear a singular
felicity that Cædmon’s first hymn is preserved in a book that was written not much more than half-a-
century after his death.64

Nu scylun hergan Now shall we glorify
hefaenricaes uard, the guardian of heaven’s realm,
metudæs maecti the Maker’s might
end his modgidanc; and the thought of his mind;
uerc uuldurfadur; the work of the glory-father,
sue he uundra gihuaes, how He of every wonder,
eci dryctin, He the Lord eternal
or astelidæ. laid the foundation.
He aerist scop He shapèd erst
aelda barnum for the sons of men,
heben til hrofe, heaven their roof,
halig scepen; holy Creator;
tha middungeard the middle world he,
moncynnæs uard, mankind’s sovereign,
eci dryctin, eternal captain,
æfter tiadæ afterwards created,
firum foldan the land for men

frea allmectig. Lord Almighty.65

Beda was born in 672, in the neighbourhood of Wearmouth, two years before Biscop founded an
abbey there. Of this abbey Beda became an inmate in his seventh year, under Abbot Biscop. He was
afterwards moved to the sister foundation at Jarrow, under Abbot Ceolfrid, and there he lived, with
rare absences, the remainder of his life. He was ordained deacon at the early age of nineteen; in his
thirtieth year he was ordained priest; he died in his sixty-third year, A.D. 735. He was a very prolific
author, and he has left us, at the end of his most considerable work, a sketch of his life, and a list of
his writings, down to the fifty-ninth year of his age, A.D. 731. The bulk of his works are theological,
chiefly in the form of commentaries, and they are little more than extracts from the best known of the
Fathers. This was adapted to the needs of the time, and Bede’s commentaries were held in great
esteem during the whole period. Ælfric, in the tenth century, used them largely for his “Homilies.”

Of all Bede’s works, the chronological made the greatest immediate impression, and was of most
general use at the time and for some centuries afterwards. The computation of Easter was the
groundwork of the ecclesiastical year, and every church felt the benefit of his services. Chronology
was then in its early maturity, and the Christian era was not yet a familiar method of reckoning. Bede
was the first historian who arranged his materials according to the years from the Incarnation. He had
made himself completely master of this subject, and he left it in such order that nothing more had to
be done to it, or could be improved upon it, for many centuries.

His fullest and most detailed work on chronology is entitled “De Temporum Ratione,” and to this is
added a chronicle of the world. On this elaborate work he was working down to A.D. 726. We have
the authority of Ideler for saying that this is a complete guide to the calculation of times and festivals.
He treats of the several divisions of time; and under the months, he speaks of the moon’s orbit (c.
xvii.), and its importance for the calendar, and the relation of the moon to the tides (c. xxix.); then of
the equinoxes and solstices, the varying length of the days, the seasons of the year, the intercalary
day, the cycle of nineteen years, the reckoning Anno Domini (c. xlvii.), indictions, epacts, the
determination of Easter. All these things are taught with theoretical thoroughness, as well as also in
their practical application. He also (c. lxv.) made a table for Easter from A.D. 532, “when Dionysius
began the first cycle,” to A.D. 1063.66 This is followed by the “Chronicle or Six Ages of this World,”
altogether a work that was a growing nucleus, and went on expanding down to the invention of
printing and the revival of classical literature.

But the works on which his eminence permanently rests, and by which he made all posterity indebted
to him, are his historical and biographical writings. He wrote a poem on the miracles of St. Cuthbert,
and afterwards he wrote a prose narrative “Of the Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of
Lindisfarne;” and in this, though a new and independent work, something of the poem is reproduced.
It is in this prose work that we find the call of Cuthbert on the night of Aidan’s death, the details of
his hermit life on the rocky islet of Farne, to which he had retired for greater rigour of devotion, from
which he was called back to be bishop at Lindisfarne, and to which after two years’ episcopate he
again retired for the remnant of his life.

He wrote also a prose life of St. Felix, drawing his materials from the metrical life of that saint in
hexameters by Paulinus.

His greatest biographical work is “Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, namely, Benedict,
Ceolfrid, Easterwini, Sigfrid, and Hwetbert.” These were the heads of the two sister foundations with
which his career was identified; and some of them had been his own teachers. The Life of Benedict is
the most interesting, as might be expected, and it fills the largest part of the book.

Finally, his greatest work, the work which is a gift for all time, is his “Church History of the Anglian
People.” This was the work of the author’s mature powers, and some of his earlier writings are made
use of in it. In this history, which is divided into five books, there is, first, a summary of the history
of Britain, from the time of Julius Cæsar down to the time of Gregory the Great. This part occupies
twenty-two chapters, and is drawn from Orosius and Gildas and Constantius. The proper narrative of
Bede begins at chap. xxiii., and there the conversion and early history of Saxon Christianity is given
down to the time of the restoration of the old church of St. Saviour (Canterbury Cathedral), and the
institution of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul (St. Augustine’s). The last chapter is of the decisive
battle of Degsastan, which determined the superiority of the Angles over the Scotti. The second book
begins with the death of Gregory and goes down to the death of Æduini, King of Northumbria, A.D.
633. In this book occurs a remarkable speech made by one of Æduini’s nobles, in the debate about a
change of religion:—

“The present life of man in the world, O king, is, by comparison with that time which is unknown,
like as when you are sitting at table with your aldermen and thanes in the winter season, the fire
blazing in the midst, and the hall cheerfully warm, while the whirlwinds rage everywhere outside and
drive the rain or the snow; one of the sparrows comes in and flies swiftly through the house, entering
at one door and out at the other. So long as it is inside, it is sheltered from the storm, but when the
brief momentary calm is past, the bird is in the cold as before, and is no more seen. So this human
life is visible for a time: but of what follows or what went before we are utterly ignorant. Wherefore,
if this new doctrine should offer anything surer, it seems worthy to be followed.” (ii., 13.)

The third book goes down to the appointment of Theodore to be Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 665.

This book contains the decision for Roman unity, and the defeat and departure of Colman and his
Scotian clergy. Bede was a hearty adherent of the Roman obedience, and his affectionate tribute to
the work of the Irish is all the more remarkable. He pauses upon the record of their departure as upon
the close of a good time that had been, and to which he looks wistfully back.

“The great frugality and content of him and his predecessors was witnessed by the very place they
ruled; for at their departure there were very few buildings besides the church; just what civilised life
absolutely requires, and no more. Their only capital was their cattle; for if rich men gave them
money, they presently gave it to the poor. Of funds and halls for entertaining the worldly great they
had no need, as such personages never came but to pray and hear the word of God. The King
himself, when occasion required, would come with just five or six thanes, and after prayer in church

would depart; and if it chanced they took refreshment there, they were content with just the simple
every-day fare of the brothers, and wanted nothing better. For at that time those teachers made it their
entire business to serve not the world but God, and their whole care to cherish not the belly but the
heart. And consequently the religious garb was at that time in great veneration; so much so that,
wherever a cleric or a monk arrived, he was joyfully received by all as the servant of God. Even upon
the road, if one were found travelling, they would run to him, and bend the head, and rejoice if he
signed them with the cross, or uttered a blessing; at the same time they gave careful attention to their
words of exhortation. Moreover, on Sundays they would race to the church or the monasteries, not to
refresh the body, but to hear God’s word; and if one of the priests happened to come to a village, the
villagers were quickly assembled, and were wanting to hear from him the word of life. And, indeed,
the priests on their part or the clerics had no other object in going to the villages but for preaching,
baptising, visiting the sick, and in a word for the care of souls; being so entirely purged from all
infection of avarice, that none accepted lands and possessions for building monasteries unless
compelled to do so by secular lords. Such conduct was maintained in the Northumbrian churches for
some time after this date. But I have said enough.” (iii., 26.)

The fourth book goes down to the death, A.D. 687, of the saint of whom Bede had previously written,
both in verse and in prose, the Saint of Northumbria, St. Cuthbert.

This book contains another passage to show that Bede looked wistfully back to a blessed time that
had been, and for which he was born too late. He has been speaking of Theodore and Hadrian, and he
is about to speak of Wilfrid and Æddi, when he thus breaks out:—“Never, never, since the Angles
came to Britain, were there happier times; brave and Christian kings held all barbarians in awe; the
universal ambition was for those heavenly joys of which men had recently heard; and all who desired
to be instructed in sacred learning had masters ready to teach them.” (iv., 2.)

This book also contains the history of Cædmon, which is perhaps the most frequently quoted piece of
all Bede’s writings:—

“In the monastery of this abbess [Hild], there was a certain brother, eminently distinguished by
divine grace, for he was wont to make songs fit for religion and piety, so that, whatever he learnt out
of Scripture by means of interpreters, this he would after a time produce in his own, that is to say, the
Angles’ tongue, with poetical words, composed with perfect sweetness and feeling. By this man’s
songs often the minds of many were kindled to contempt of the world and desire for the celestial life.
Moreover, others after him in the nation of the Angles tried to make religious poems, but no one was
able to equal him. For he learnt the art of singing not from men, nor through any man’s instructions,
but he received the gift of singing unacquired and by divine help. Wherefore he could never make
any frivolous or unprofitable poem, but those things only which pertain to religion were fit themes
for his religious tongue. During his secular life, which continued up to the time of advanced age, he
had never learnt any songs. And, therefore, sometimes at a feast, when for merriment sake it was
agreed that all should sing in turn, he, when he saw that the harp was nearing him, would rise from
his unfinished supper and go quietly away to his own home.” (iv., 24.)

On one occasion, when this had happened, he went, not to his home, but to the cattle sheds, to rest,
because it was his turn to do so that night. In his sleep one appeared to him and bade him sing. He
pleaded inability, but the command was repeated. “What then,” he asked, “must I sing?” He was told
he must sing of the beginning of created things. Then he sang a Hymn of Creation, and this hymn he
remembered when he was risen from sleep, and it was the proof of his divine vocation. The hymn
was preserved in Latin as well as in the original; and both have been quoted above. The poems which
he subsequently wrote are thus described:—

“He sang of the creation of the world and the origin of the human race, and the whole story of
Genesis, of Israel’s departure out of Egypt and entrance into the land of promise, of many other parts
of the sacred history, of the Lord’s Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven, of
the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of the Apostles. Likewise of the terror of judgment to
come, and the awful punishment of hell, and the bliss of the heavenly kingdom, he made many
poems; many others also concerning divine benefits and judgments, in all which he sought to wean
men from the love of sin, and stimulate them to the enjoyment and pursuit of good action.”

The fifth and last book contains a survey of the condition of the national Church down to 731, within
about four years of the author’s death.

Books of his on the technicalities of literature are a tract on “Orthography,” another “On the Metric
Art,” also a book “On Figures and Tropes of Holy Scripture.” Least esteemed have been his poetical
compositions, some of which have been suffered to perish. The poem on the “Miracles of St.
Cuthberht” is extant, but the “Book of Hymns in Various Metre or Rhythm” is lost, and so also is his
“Book of Epigrams in Heroic or Elegiac Metre.” But we are not left without an authentic specimen
of his hymnody, as he has incorporated in his history the Hymn of Virginity in praise of Queen
Ethelthryð, the foundress of Ely. His extant poetry proves him to have been an accomplished scholar
and a man of cultivated taste rather than of poetic genius. But we could afford to lose many Latin
poems in consideration of the slightest vernacular effort of such a man.

Many manuscripts of the “Ecclesiastical History” contain a letter by one Cuthbert to his fellow-
student Cuthwine, describing the manner of Bede’s death. In this letter is contained a pious ditty in
the vernacular, which Bede, who was “learned in our native songs,” composed at the time when he
was contemplating the approach of his own dissolution.

Fore there neidfarae Before the need-journey
nænig ni uurthit no one is ever
thonc snoturra more wise in thought
than him tharf sie than he ought,
to ymbhycggannae, to contemplate
aer his him iongae, ere his going hence
huaet his gastae what to his soul
godaes aeththa yflaes of good or of evil

aefter deothdaege after death-day
doemid uueorthae. deemed will be.67

Other remains in the Northumbrian dialect are the Runic inscription on the Ruthwell Cross, for
which the reader is referred to Professor Stephens’s “Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia
and England,” vol. i., p. 405; also the interlinear glosses in the Lindisfarne Gospels, and in the
Durham Ritual. For fuller information on these glosses I must refer the reader to Professor Skeat’s
Gospels “in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions Synoptically Arranged;” and more especially
to his preface in the concluding volume, which contains the fourth Gospel. The Psalter, which was
published by the Surtees Society as Northumbrian, is now judged to be Kentish; but that volume
contains, besides, an “Early English Psalter,” which presents a later phase of the Northumbrian
dialect.

The poetical works which now bear Cædmon’s name received that name from Junius, the first editor,
in 1655, on the ground of the general agreement of the subjects with Bede’s description of Cædmon’s
works. In this book we find a first part containing the most prominent narratives from the books of
Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel; and a second part containing the Descent of Christ into Hades and the
delivery of the patriarchs from their captivity, according to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and
the constant legend of the Middle Ages. This comprises a kind of Paradise Lost and Paradise
Regained. Of all this, the part which has attracted most notice is a part of which the materials are
found neither in Scripture nor in any known Apocrypha. The nearest approximation yet indicated is
in the hexameters of Avitus, described above.68 This problematical part describes the Fall of Man as
the sequel of the Fall of the Angels, substantially running on the same lines as Milton’s famous
treatment of the same subject. It has often been surmised that Milton may have known of Cædmon
through Junius, and that this knowledge may have affected the cast of his great poem as well as
suggested some of his most famous touches.69

The precipitation is thus described:—

329. wæron tha befeallene So were they felled
fyre to botme to the fiery abyss
on tha hatan hell into the hot hell
thurh hygeleaste through heedlessness
and thurh ofermetto. and through arrogance.
Sohten other land They arrived at another land
thæt wæs leohtes leas that was void of light
and wæs liges full and was full of flame
fyres fær micel. fire’s horror huge.70

When the fallen angel speaks, he begins thus:—

355. Is thes ænga stede This confined place
ungelic swithe is terribly unlike
tham othrum that other one
the we ær cuthon that we knew before
heah on heofenrice high in heaven’s realm
the me min hearra onlag. which my lord conferred on me.

Having thus begun with a lamentable cry, he gradually recovers composure and propounds a policy.
He observes that God has created a new and happy being, who is destined to inherit the glory which
he and his have lost:—

394. He hæfth nu gemearcod anne middangeard He hath now designed a middle world
thær he hæfth mon geworhtne where He man hath made,
æfter his onlicnesse; after His likeness:—
mid tham he wile eft gesettan with which He will repeople
heofena rice, mid hluttrum saulum. heaven’s realm, with stainless souls.
We thæs sculon hycgan georne, We must thereto give careful heed
thæt we on Adame that we on Adam
gif we æfre mægen, if we ever may
and on his eafram swa some and on his offspring likewise
andan gebetan. our harm redress.

The way proposed is by inducing them to displease their Maker, and then they will be banished to the
same place and become the slaves of Satan and his angels. A messenger is required:—

409. Gif ic ænigum thegne If I to any thane
theoden madmas lordly treasures
geara forgeafe in former times have given,
thenden we on than godan rice while we in the good realm
gesælige sæton all blissful sate,
and hæfdon ure setla geweald, and had sway of our mansions:—
thonne heme na on leofrantid at no more acceptable time
leanum ne meahte could he ever with value
mine gife gyldan. my bounty requite.
Gif his gien wolde If now for this purpose
minra thegna hwilc any one of my thanes
gethafa wurthan would himself volunteer
thæt he up heonon that he from here upward
ute mihte and outward might go,
cuman thurh thas clustro might come through these barriers

and hæfde cræft mid him and strength in him had
thæt he mid fetherhoman that with raiment of feather
fleogan meahte his flight could take
windan on wolcne to whirl on the welkin
thær geworht stondath where the new work is standing
Adam and Eve Adam and Eve
on eorth rice in the earthly realm
mid welan bewunden. with wealth surrounded—
and we synd aworpene hider and we are cast away hither
on thas deopan dalo. into these deep dales!

Satan rages not so much on account of his own loss as for their gain. If they could only be ruined by
the wrath of God, he declares he could be at ease even in the midst of woes; and whoever would
achieve this he will reward to his utmost, and give him a seat by his side. Presently we come to the
accoutring of the emissary:—

442. Angan hine tha gyrwan Began him then t’ equip
Godes andsaca th’ antagonist of God,
fus on frætwum: prompt in harness:—
hæfde fræcne hyge. he had a guileful mind.
Hæleth helm on heafod asette A magic helm on head he set,
and thone full hearde geband, he bound it hard and tight,
spenn mid spangum. braced it with buckles.
Wiste him spræca fela Speeches many wist he well,
wora worda. crooked words.

He takes wing and rises in air; and then comes a passage like Milton:—

Swang thæt fyr on twa he dashed the fire in two
feondes cræfte. with fiendish craft.71

Arrived at the garden he takes the shape of a serpent, and winds himself round the forbidden tree.
The description recalls the familiar picture so vividly that we cannot doubt the same picture was
before the eyes of children in the Saxon period as now. He takes some of the fruit and finds Adam,
and addresses him in a speech. He gives a naïve reason why he is sent:—

507. Brade synd on worulde Broad are in the world
grene geardas, the green plains,
and God siteth and God sitteth

on tham hehstan in the highest
heofna rice heavenly realm
ufan. Alwalda above. The Almighty
nele tha earfethu will not the trouble
sylfa habban himself have,
that he on thisne sith fare, that He should on this journey fare,
gumena drihten:— the Lord of men:—
ac he his gingran sent but He sends his deputy
to thinre spræce. to speak with thee.

These poems are surrounded by interesting questions which it is barely possible here to indicate.
Upon the top of the discussion about Milton, which is not by any means exhausted, there comes a
much larger and wider field of inquiry as to the relation existing between this Miltonic part (if I may
so speak) and the Old Saxon poem of the “Heliand.” The investigation has been admirably started by
Mr. Edouard Sievers in a little book containing this portion of the text, and exhibiting in detail the
peculiar intimacy of relation between it and the “Heliand,” in regard to vocabulary, phraseology, and
versification. This part of Mr. Sievers’ work is complete. Probably no one who has gone through his
proofs will be found to question his conclusion, that there is between the “Heliand” and the Saxon
“Paradise Lost” such an identity as isolates those two works from all other literature, and makes it
necessary to trace them to one source. What remains is only to determine the order of their
affiliation. His theory is that our “Cædmon” contains a large insertion which has been borrowed, not,
of course, from the “Heliand,” because the “Heliand” is a poem solely on the Gospel history, but
from a sister poem to the “Heliand,” a corresponding poem on the Old Testament. Professor George
Stephens, of Copenhagen, offered a simpler explanation. He supposed that our piece is a purely
domestic remnant of that school of English poetry which Bede described, and that the “Heliand” is a
continental offspring of the same school, being a monument of the poetic culture which was planted
along the borders of the Rhine by the Anglo-Saxon missionaries.

Alcuin’s name connects the Anglian period with the great Frankish revival of literature under
Charlemagne. And as he bears a prominent part in the establishment of literature in its next European
seat, so also he had the grief of witnessing the earlier stages of that devastation which extinguished
the light in his own country. This is how he writes on hearing of the invasion of Lindisfarne by the
northern rovers in 793, to Bishop Hugibald and the monks of Lindisfarne:—

“As your beloved society was wont to delight me when I was with you, so does the report of your
tribulation sadden me continually now that I am absent from you. How have the heathen defiled the
sanctuaries of God, and shed the blood of the saints round about the altar. They have laid waste the
dwelling-place of our hope; they have trodden down the bodies of the saints in the temple of God
like mire in the street. What can I say? I can only lament in my heart with you before the altar of
Christ, and say: Spare, Lord, spare Thy people, and give not Thy heritage to the heathen, lest the
pagans say, Where is the God of the Christians? What confidence is there for the churches of Britain

if Saint Cuthbert, with so great a company of saints, defends not his own? Either this is the beginning
of a greater sorrow, or the sins of the people have brought this upon them.”72

Thus we have arrived at the verge of that catastrophe which closes for ever the singular greatness of
Anglia. Charles brought learning to France by drawing from Anglia and from Italy the best plants for
his new field; he inherited the civilising labours of the Saxon missionaries in his dominions beyond
the Rhine; he founded a centre of power and a centre of education together; and France remained the
chief seat of learning throughout the Middle Ages.73 The glory of a European position in literature
can no longer be claimed for England. Through the remainder of our narrative we must be content
with a provincial sphere; and our compensation must be found in the fact that the vernacular element
is all the more freely developed.

64 In the famous manuscript of the “Ecclesiastical History” of Bede, which is commonly known as the Moore
manuscript, because it passed with the library of Bishop Moore (Ely) to the University of Cambridge, is in a hand
which is thought to be as old as the time of Bede, who died in 735.
65 Bede gives the “sense” of this first hymn as follows:—“Nunc laudare debemus auctorem regni caelestis,
potentiam creatoris et consilium illius, facta patris gloriae; quomodo ille, cum sit aeternus deus, omnium
miraculorum auctor extitit, qui primo filiis hominum caelum pro culmine tecti, dehinc terram custos humani
generis omnipotens creavit.”—“Ecclesiastical History,” iv. 24.
66 Adolf Ebert’s account of Bede in “History of Christian-Latin Literature,” translated by Mayor and Lumby in their
admirable edition of the third and fourth books of Bede’s “Church History” (Pitt Press Series), 1878, p. 11.
67 The general correctness of our translation is assured by the fact that the Latin text in which it is embodied
supplies a Latin translation, thus:—“quod ita latine sonat: ‘ante necessarium exitum prudentior quam opus fuerit
nemo existit, ad cogitandum videlicet antequam hinc proficiscatur anima, quid boni vel mali egerit, qualiter post
exitum judicanda fuerit.’”—“Bedæ Hist. Eccl.,” iii., iv. (Mayor and Lumby), p. 177.
68 Page 14.

69 There has been a recent discussion of this question by Professor Wülcker in “Anglia,” with a negative result. But
the conclusion rests on too slight a basis.
70 “Milton has the same idea in a kindred passage, but it is not so terse, so condensed, as Cædmon’s:—

‘Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe.’

“In Job x. 22 we also find a similar idea:—‘A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death
without any order, and where the light is as darkness.’ They are all powerful, all dreadful, but Cædmon’s ‘without
light, and full of flame,’ is much the strongest. It is an Inferno in a line.”—Robert Spence Watson, “Cædmon,”
p. 44.
71 “Paradise Lost,” i., 221:—

“Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,
Driv’n backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll’d
In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.”

72 Wright, “Biographia Literaria,” Anglo-Saxon Period, p. 353.

73 The new start of literature under Charles is briefly and brilliantly stated in the first paragraph of Adolf Ebert’s
second volume.

CHAPTER VI.
THE PRIMARY POETRY.

We have now seen something of a culture that was introduced from abroad, and guided by foreign
models. But our people had a native gift of song, and a tradition of poetic lore, which lived in
memory, and was sustained by the profession of minstrelsy. The Christian and literary culture
obtained through the Latin tended strongly to the suppression and extinction of this ancient and
national vein of poetry. But happily it has not all been lost, and it will be the aim of this chapter to
present some specimens of that poetry which is rooted in the native genius of the race, and which we
may call the primary poetry. The poetry which is manifestly of Latin material we will call the
secondary poetry. It is not asserted that we have two sorts of poetry so entirely separate and distinct
the one from the other, that the one is purely native and untinged with foreign influence, while the
other springs from mere imitation. The two sorts are not so utterly contrasted as that. Even the
secondary poetry is not without originality. On the other hand the primary poetry betrays here and
there the Latin culture and the Christian sentiment; and yet if is quite sufficiently distinct and
characterised to justify the plan of grouping it apart from the general body of the poetical remains.

The chief features of the Saxon poetry may conveniently be arranged under three heads: 1. The
mechanical formation. 2. The rhetorical characteristics. 3. The imaginative elements.

1. Of these the first turns on Alliteration, Accent, and Rhythm; and this part, which is generally held
to belong rather to grammar than to literature, I have described elsewhere.74

2. The Rhetorical characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry which is most prominent, is a certain
repetition of the thought with a variation of epithet or phrase, in a manner which distinctly resembles
the parallelism of Hebrew poetry.

3. The Imaginative element resides chiefly in the metaphor, which is very pervading and seems to be
almost unconscious. It seldom rises to that conscious form of metaphor which we call the Simile, and
when it does it is laconically brief, as in the comparison of a ship with a bird (fugle gelicost). The
later poetry begins to expand the similes somewhat after the manner of the Latin poets. In Beowulf
we have four brief similes and only one that is expanded; namely, that of the sword-hilt melting like
ice in the warm season of spring (line 1,608).

We will begin with the “Beowulf,” the largest and in every sense the most important of the remaining
Anglo-Saxon poems. It has much in it that seems like anticipation of the age of chivalry. The story of
the “Beowulf” is as follows:75—

Hroðgar, king of the Danes, ruled over many nations with imperial sway. It came into his mind to
add to his Burg a spacious hall for the greater splendour of his hospitality and the dispensing of his
bounty. This hall was named Heorot. But all his glory was undone by the nightly visits of a
devouring fiend; Hroðgar’s people were either killed, or gone to safer quarters. Heorot, though
habitable by day, was abandoned at night; no faithful band kept watch around the seat of Danish
royalty; Hroðgar, the aged king, was in dejection and despair.

Higelac was king in the neighbouring land of the Geatas, and he had about him a young nephew, a
sister’s son, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow. Beowulf had great bodily strength, but was otherwise little
accounted of. The young man loved adventure, and hearing of Hroðgar’s misery, he determined to
help him. He embarked with fourteen companions, and reached the coast of the Danes, where he was
challenged by the coast-warden in a tone of mistrust. After a parley, that officer sped him on his way,
and Beowulf’s company stood before Hroðgar’s gate. Asked the meaning of this armed visit, the
leader answers: “We sit at Higelac’s table: my name is Beowulf. I will tell mine errand to thy master,
if he will deign that we may greet him.” Hroðgar knew Beowulf’s name, remembered his father
Ecgtheow,76 had the visitor to his presence, heard his high resolve, was ready to hope for
deliverance, and prompt to see in Beowulf a deliverer. Festivity is renewed in the deserted hall, and
tales of old achievements revive forgotten mirth—mirth broken only by the gibes of the eloquent
Hunferth, which give Beowulf occasion to tell the tale of an old swimming-match when he slew sea-
monsters; and all is harmony again. But night descends, and with it the fears that were now habitual.
Beowulf shrinks not from his adventure; the guests depart, and the king, retiring to his castle,
commits to his visitor the night-watch of Heorot.

Næfre ic ænegum men Never I to any man
ær alyfde, ere now entrusted,
siððan ic hond and rond (since hand and shield
hebban mihte, I first could heave)
thryth ærn Dena:— the Guardhouse of the Danes:—
buton the nu tha! never but now to thee!
Hafa nu and geheald Have now and hold
husa selest; the sacred house;
gemyne mærtho, of glory mindful
mægen ellen cyth; main and valour prove;
waca with wrathum! watch for the foe!
ne bith the wilna gad, no wish of thine shall fail,
gif thu thæt ellen weorc if thou the daring work
aldre gedigest. with life canst do.

Beowulf and his companions have their beds in the hall.

They sleep; but he watches. It was not long before the depredator of the night was there, and a lurid
gleam stood out of his eyes. While Beowulf cautiously held himself on the alert, the fiend had
quickly clutched and devoured one of the sleepers. But now Grendel—such was the demon’s name—
found himself in a grasp unknown before. Long and dire was the strife. The timbers cracked, the
iron-bound benches plied, and work deemed proof against all but fire was now a wreck. Grendel
finding the foe too strong, thought only of escape. He did escape, and got away to the moor, but he
left an arm in Beowulf’s grip.

Early in the morning men came from far and near to see the hideous trophy on the gable of the hall:
men came to rejoice in the great deliverance; for Heorot, they said, was now purged. Great was their
joy. Mounted men rode over the moor, tracking Grendel’s retreat by his blood; they followed his path
to the dismal pool where he had his habitation; then they turn homewards, riding together and
conversing as they go. They talk of Beowulf, they liken him with Sigemund, that hero of greatest
name. When they come to galloping ground, they break away from the tales, and race over the turf.
In another tale they talk of Heremod; but he was proud and cold, not like Beowulf, who is as genial
as he is valiant. The early riders are back to Heorot in time to see the king and the queen moving
from bower to hall, the king with his guard, the queen with her maidens. Then follows a noble scene.
Hroðgar sees the hideous trophy on the gable; he stands on the terrace, and utters a thanksgiving to
God as stately as it is simple. He reviews the woe and the grief, the disgrace, the helplessness, and
the utter despondency of himself and of his people; “and now a boy hath done the deed which we all
with our united powers could not compass! Verily that woman is blessed that bare him; and if she yet
lives, she may well say that God was very gracious to her in her childbearing. Beowulf, I will love
thee as a son, and thou shalt lack nothing that it is in my power to give.”

Beowulf spake: “We did our best in a risky tussle; would I could have brought you the fiend a
captive. I could not hold him; he gave me the slip: but he left a limb behind; that will be his death.”
Next Heorot is restored and beautified anew. Marvellous gold-embroidered hangings drape the walls,
the admiration of those who have an eye for such things. The whole interior had been a wreck, the
roof alone remained entire. Now, it was straight and fair once more; and now it was to be the scene
of such a profusion of gifts as poet had never sung.

In honour of his victory Beowulf received a golden banner of quaint device, a helmet, and a coat of
mail; but what drew all eyes was the ancient famous sword now brought forth from the treasure
house, and borne up to the hero. Furthermore, at the king’s word, eight splendid horses, cheek-
adorned, were led into the hall; and on one of them was seen the saddle, the well-known saddle of
Hroðgar, wherein he, never aloof in battle-hour, sate when he mingled in the fray of war. “Take
them,” said the king, “take them, Beowulf, both horses and armour; and my blessing with them.”

The companions of Beowulf were not forgotten: they all received appropriate gifts. The festivities
proceed, and we have a picture of the course of the banquet. The minstrel’s tale on that occasion was
the Fearful Fray in the Castle of Finn, when Danes were there on a visit. The song being ended,

Waltheow the queen bears the cup to the king, and bids him be merry and bountiful. Her queenly
counsel stops not here. The king had sons of his own; he should give no hint of any other succession
to his seat; while he occupied the throne, he should be large in bounty and encircle himself with
grateful champions. Next, with like ceremony she honours Beowulf, and hands the cup to him. She
also presents her own special gifts to the deliverer:—bracelets, and a rich garment, and a collar
surpassing all most famed in story since Hama captured the collar of the Brosings. The queen
addresses Beowulf, wishes him joy of her gifts, exalts his merits, bids him befriend her son and be
loyal to the king. She took her seat, and the revelry grew. Little deemed they, what next would
happen, when the night should be dark, and Hroðgar asleep in his bower!

The hall is made ready as a dormitory for the men-at-arms; the benches are slewed round, and the
floor is spread from end to end with beds and bolsters. Every warrior’s shield is set upright at his
head, and by the bench-posts stands his spear, supporting helmet and mail. Such was their custom;
they slept as ever ready to rise and do service to their king. Horror is renewed in the night; Grendel’s
fiendish dam visits the hall and kills one of the sleepers, Æschere by name.

In the morning the king is in great distress. He sends for Beowulf, who, after the purging of Heorot,
had occupied a separate bower, like the king. Beowulf arrives, and hopes all is well. Hroðgar spake:
—“Ask not of welfare; sorrow is renewed for the Danish folk! My trusty friend Æschere is dead; my
comrade tried in battle when the tug was for life, when the fight was foot to foot and helmets kissed:
—oh! Æschere was what a thane should be! The cruel hag has wreaked on him her vengeance. The
country folk said there were two of them, one the semblance of a woman, the other the spectre of a
man. Their haunt is in the remote land, in the crags of the wolf, the wind-beaten cliffs, and untrodden
bogs, where the dismal stream plunges into the drear abyss of an awful lake, overhung with a dark
and grisly wood rooted down to the water’s edge, where a lurid flame plays nightly on the surface of
the flood—and there lives not the man who knows its depth! So dreadful is the place that the hunted
stag, hard driven by the hounds, will rather die on the bank than find a shelter there. A place of terror!
When the wind rises, the waves mingle hurly-burly with the clouds, the air is stifling and rumbles
with thunder. To thee alone we look for relief; darest thou explore the monster’s lair, I will reward the
adventure with ancient treasures, with coils of gold if thou return alive!”

Said Beowulf, the son of Ecgtheow:—“Sorrow not, experienced sire! Better avenge a friend than idly
deplore him:—each must wait the end of life, and should work while he may to make him a name—
the best thing after life! Bestir thee, guardian of the folk! let us be quick upon the track of Grendel’s
housemate. I make thee a promise:—not highest cliff, not widest field, not darkest wood, nor deepest
flood—go where he will—shall be his refuge! Bear up for one day, and may thy troubles end
according to my wish!” The king mounts, and with his retinue conducts Beowulf to the charmed
lake: the wildness of the way, and the strange nature of the scenes, are all in keeping. The armed
followers sit them down in a place where they command a view of the dismal water. Monstrous
creatures writhe about the crags; the men shoot some of them.

Beowulf equips for his adventure. His sword was the famous Hrunting, lent to him by Hunferth, the
boastful orator, he who had gibed at Beowulf on the day of his arrival. It was a sword of high repute;
a hoarded treasure; its edge was iron; it was damascened with device of coiled twigs; it had never
failed in fight the hand that dared to wield it. Now Beowulf spoke, ready for action: “Remember,
noble Hroðgar, how thou and I talked together, that if I lost life in thy service thou wouldest be as a
father to me departed:—protect my comrades if I am taken; and the gifts thou gavest me, beloved
Hroðgar, send home to Higelac. When he looks on the treasures he will know that I found a
bounteous master, and enjoyed life while it lasted. And let Hunferð have his old sword again: I will
conquer fame with Hrunting, or die fighting.” Act followed word: he was gone, and the wave had
covered him. He was most of the day before he reached the depths of the abyss. While yet on the
downward way, he was met by the old water-wolf that had dwelt there a hundred years, who had
perceived the approach of a human visitor. She clutched him and bore him off, till he found himself
with his enemy in a vast chamber which excluded the water and was lighted by some strange fire-
glow. At once the fight began, and Hrunting rang about the demon’s head; but against such a being
the sword was useless, the edge turned that never had failed before: he flung it from him and trusted
to strength of arm. In his rage he charged so deadly that he felled the monster to the ground; but she
recovered and Beowulf fell. And now the furious wight thought to revenge Grendel; she plunged her
knife at Beowulf’s breast, and his life had ended there but for the good service of his ringed mail-
serk. Protected by this armour, and helped by Him who giveth victory, he passed the perilous
moment, and was on his feet again. And now he espied among the armour in that place an old elfin
sword, such as no other man might carry; this he seized, and with the force of despair he so smote
that the fell hag lay dead:—the sword was gory, and the boy was fain of his work. With rage unsated,
he ranged through the place till he came to where Grendel lay lifeless: he smote the head from the
hateful carcase.

To Hroðgar’s men watching on the height the lake appeared as if mingled with blood, and this
seemed to confirm their fears. The day was waning: the old men about Hroðgar took counsel, and,
concluding they should see Beowulf no more, they moved homeward. But Beowulf’s followers,
though sick at heart and with little hope, yet sate on in spite of dejection.

Meanwhile the huge, gigantic blade had melted marvellously away “likest unto ice, when the Father
(he who hath power over times and seasons, that is, the true ruler) looseneth the chain of frost and
unwindeth the wave-ropes”:—so venomous was the gore of the fiend that had been slain therewith.
Beowulf took the gigantic hilt and the monster’s head, and, soaring up through the waters, he stood
on the shore to the surprise and joy of his faithful comrades, who came eagerly about him to ease
him of his dripping harness. Exulting they return to Heorot, Grendel’s head carried by four men on a
pole; they march straight up the hall to greet the king, and the guests are startled with the ghastly
evidence of Beowulf’s complete success. Beowulf tells his story and presents the hilt to Hroðgar. The
aged king extols the unparalleled achievements of Beowulf, and warns him against excessive
exaltation of mind by the example of Heremod.

Soon after this we have the parting between the old king and the young hero, who declares his
readiness to come with a thousand thanes at any time of Hroðgar’s need; while Hroðgar’s words are
of love and admiration and confidence in his discretion: and so he lets him go not without large
addition of gifts, and embraces, and kisses, and tears. “Thence Beowulf the warrior, elate with gold,
trod the grassy plain, exulting in treasure; the sea-goer that rode at anchor awaited its lord; then as
they went was Hroðgar’s liberality often praised.” At the coast they are met by the coast-warden with
an altered and respectful mien: they are soon afloat, and we hear the whistle of the wind through the
rigging as the gallant craft bears away before the breeze to carry them all merrily homewards after
well-sped adventure. The welcome is worthy of the work:—Higelac’s reception of Beowulf, the joy
of getting him back; Beowulf presenting to his liege lord the wealth he had won; old reminiscences
called up and couched in song; an ancient sword brought out and presented to Beowulf, and with the
sword a spacious lordship, a noble mansion, and all seigneurial rights.

And so he dwelt until such time as he went forth with Higelac on his fatal expedition against the
Frisians, who were backed by a strong alliance of Chauci, and Chattuarii, and Franks; and there
Higelac fell, and his army perished. Beowulf, by prodigious swimming, reached his home again,
where now was a young widowed queen and her infant son. She offered herself and her kingdom to
Beowulf; he preferred the office of the faithful guardian. At a later time the young king fell in battle,
and then Beowulf succeeded. He reigned fifty years a good king, and ended life with a supreme act
of heroism. He fought and slew a fiery dragon which desolated his country, and was himself mortally
wounded in the conflict. One single follower, Wiglaf by name, bolder or more faithful than the rest,
was at his side in danger, though not to help; and he received the hero’s dying words:—“I should
have given my armour to my son if I had heir of my body. I have held this people fifty years; no
neighbour has dared to challenge or molest me. I have lived with men on fair and equal terms; I have
done no violence, caused no friends to perish, and that is a comfort to one deadly wounded who is
soon to appear before the Ruler of men. Now, beloved Wiglaf, go thou quickly in under the hoary
stone of the dragon’s vault, and bring the treasures out into the daylight, that I may behold the
splendour of ancient wealth, and death may be the softer for the sight.” When it was done, and the
wondrous heap was before his eyes, the victorious warrior spake:—“For the riches on which I look I
thank the Lord of all, the king of glory, the everlasting ruler, that I have been able before my death-
day to acquire such for my people. Well spent is the remnant of my life to earn such a treasure; I
charge thee with the care of the people; I can be no longer here. Order my warriors after the bale-fire
to rear a mighty mound on the headland over the sea: it shall tower aloft on Hronesness for a
memorial to my people: that sea-going men in time to come may call it Beowulf’s Barrow, when
foam-prowed ships drive over the scowling flood on their distant courses.” Then he removed a
golden coil from his neck and gave it to the young thane; the same he did with his helmet inlaid with
gold, the collar, and the mail-coat: he bade him use them as his own.

“Thou art the last of our race of the Wægmundings; fate has swept all my kindred off into Eternity; I
must follow them.” That was his latest word; his soul went out of his breast into the lot of the just.

Reflections and discourses proper to the occasion are spoken by Wiglaf, such as chiding of the
timorous who stood aloof, and gloomy anticipations of the future.

3,000. Thæt is sio fæhtho This is the feud
and se feondscipe, and this the foeman’s hate
wæl nith wera, the vengeful spite
thæs the ic wen hafo, that I expect
the us seceath to against us now will bring
Sweona leode the Swedish bands;
syððan hie gefricgeath soon as they hear
frean userne, our chieftain high
ealdorleasne of life bereft—
thone the ær geheold who held till now
with hettendum ’gainst haters all
hord and rice; the hoard and realm;
folc ræd fremede, peace framed at home;
oððe furthur gen and further off
eorlscipe efnde. respect inspired.
Nu is ofost betost Now speed is best
thæt we theod cyning that we our liege and king
thær sceawian go look upon,
and thone gebringan, And him escort,
the us beagas geaf, who us adorned,
on âd fære. the pile towards.
Ne scal anes hwæt Not things of petty worth
meltan mid tham modigan, shall with the mighty melt,
ac thær is mathma hord, but there a treasure main,
gold unrime uncounted gold
grimme geceapod costly procured
and nu æt sithestan and now at length
sylfes feore with his great life
beagas gebohte. jewels dear-bought;
Tha sceal brond gretan them shall flame devour,
æled theccean, burning shall bury:—
nalles eorl wegan never a warrior bear
maððum to gemyndum, jewel of dear memory,
ne mægth scyne nor maiden sheen
habban on healse have on her neck
hring weorthunge, ring-decoration;
ac sceal geomor mod nay, shall disconsolate
golde bereafod gold-unadorned
oft nalles æne not once but oft
el land tredan; tread strangers’ land;

nu se here wisa now the leader in war
hleahtor alegde, laughter hath quenched
gamen and gleo dream. game and all sound of glee.

And so this noble poem moves on to its close, ending, like the “Iliad,” with a great bale-fire. Two
closing lines record like an epitaph the praise of the dead in superlatives; not as a warrior, but as a
man and a ruler: how that he was towards men the mildest and most affable, towards his people he
was most gracious and most yearning for their esteem.

About the structure of this poem the same sort of questions are debated as those which Wolff raised
about Homer—whether it is the work of a single poet, or a patchwork of older poems. Ludwig
Ettmüller, of Zürich, who first gave the study of the “Beowulf” a German basis, regarded the poem
as originally a purely heathen work, or a compilation of smaller heathen poems, upon which the
editorial hands of later and Christian poets had left their manifest traces. In his translation, one of the
most vigorous efforts in the whole of Beowulf literature, he has distinguished, by a typographical
arrangement, the later additions from what he regards as the original poetry. He is guided, however,
by considerations different from those that affect the Homeric debate. He is chiefly guided by the
relative shades of the heathen and Christian elements. Wherever the touch of the Christian hand is
manifest, he arranges such parts as additions and interpolations.77

Grein saw in the poem the unity of a single work, and he thought the motive allegorical. He
interpreted the assaults of the water-fiend as the night attacks of sea-robbers. I cannot see any such
allegory as this, but I agree with him as to the unity of the poem, so far as unity is compatible with
the traces of older materials. And I see allegory too, but in a different sense.

The material is mythical and heathen; but it is clarified by natural filtration through the Christian
mind of the poet. Not only are the heathen myths inoffensive, but they are positively favourable to a
train of Christian thought. Beowulf’s descent into the abyss to extirpate the scourge is suggestive of
that Article in the Apostles’ Creed which had a peculiar fascination for the mind of the Dark and
Middle Ages; the fight with the dragon; the victory that cost the victor his life; the one faithful friend
while the rest are fearful—these incidents seem almost like reflections of evangelical history.
Without seeing in the poem an allegorical design, we may imagine that, with the progress of
Christianity, those parts of the old mythology which were most in harmony with Christian doctrines
had the best chance of survival; and that, as a poet puts a new physiognomy on an old story without
distorting the tradition, as we have seen in our own day the story of Arthur told again, not with the
elaborate allegory of Spenser, but with a spiritual transfiguration which makes the “Idylls of the
King” truly an epic of the nineteenth century, so I conceive that Beowulf was a genuine growth of
that junction in time (define it where we may) when the heathen tales still kept their traditional
interest, and yet the spirit of Christianity had taken full possession of the Saxon mind—at least, so
much of it as was represented by this poetical literature.

We may not dismiss the “Beowulf” without hazarding an opinion as to the date of its production. It
has been said to be older than the Saxon Conquest, and some of the materials are doubtless of this
antiquity. But for the poem, as we have it, Kemble assigned it to the seventh century; then Ettmüller
thought it belonged to the ninth; then Grein went back halfway to the eighth, and this has been
adopted by Mr. Arnold, and most generally followed. I think Ettmüller is the nearest to the mark; and
I would rather go forward to the tenth than back to the eighth. A pardonable fancy might see the date
conveyed in the poem itself. The dragon watches over an old hoard of gold, and it is distinctly a
heathen hoard (hæðnum horde, 2,217) of heathen gold (hæðen gold, 2,277). In the same context we
find that the monster had watched over this earth-hidden treasure for 300 years; and if this may be
something more than a poetical number, it may possibly indicate the time elapsed since the heathen
age. Three hundred years would bring us to the close of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth
century, a date which, on every consideration, I incline to think the most probable.78

All the traces of affinity with, or consciousness of, the “Beowulf” that we can discover—and they are
very few—are such as to favour this date. The only complete parallel to the fable is found in the
Icelandic Saga of Grettir, who is a kind of northern Hercules. This hero performs many great feats,
but there are three which belong to the supernatural. In one of these he wrestles with a fiend called
Glam, and kills him; and though Glam is not the same as Grendel, yet the circumstances of the
encounter are so full of parallels as to establish, at least, the literary affinity of the two stories. The
other two supernatural feats are coupled, just in the same way as two of the feats of Beowulf are. It is
two fights, one in a hall and one under a waterfall, with two monsters of one family. The fight with
the troll-wife in the hall is a true parallel to Beowulf’s fight with Grendel; but the fight with the troll
in the cavern under the force is in great essentials and in minute details so identical with Beowulf’s
underwater adventure, that one may call it a prose version of the same thing under different names. A
certain house was haunted. Men that were there alone by night were missing, and nothing more was
heard of them. Grettir came and lay in that hall. The troll-wife came and he vanquished her. This he
had done under an assumed name, but the priest of the district knows he can be no other than Grettir,
and he asks Grettir what had become of the men who were lost. Grettir bids the priest come with him
to the river. There was a waterfall, and a sheer cliff of fifty fathom down to the water, and under the
force was seen the mouth of a cavern. They had a rope with them. The priest drives down a stake into
a cleft of the rock and secured it with stones, and he sate by it. Grettir said, “I will search what there
is in the force, but thou shalt watch the rope.” He put a stone in the bight of the rope, and let it sink
down in the water. He made ready, girt him with a short sword, and had no other weapon. He leaped
off the cliff, and the priest saw the soles of his feet. Grettir dived under the force, and the eddy was
so strong that he had to get to the very bottom before he could get inside the force, where the river
stood off from the cliff. By a jutting rock he reached the cavern’s mouth. In the cave there was a fire
burning on the hearth. A giant sate there, who at once leaped up and struck at the intruder with a pike
made equally to cut and to thrust. This weapon had a wooden shaft, and men called it a hepti-sax.79
Grettir’s sword demolishes this weapon, and the giant stretched after a sword that hung there in the
cave. Then Grettir smote him and killed him, and his blood ran down with the stream past the rope
where the priest sate to watch. The priest concluded that Grettir was dead, and it being now evening

he went home. But Grettir explored the cave. He found the bones of two men, and put them into a
skin. He swam to the rope and climbed up by it to the top of the cliff. When the priest came to church
next morning he found the bones in the bag, and a rune-stick whereon the event was carved; but
Grettir was gone.

The identity is so manifest that we have only to ask which people (if either) was the borrower, the
English or the Danes. And here comes in the consideration that the geography of the “Beowulf” is
Scandinavian. There is no consciousness of Britain or England throughout the poem. If this raises a
presumption that the Saxon poet got his story from a Dane, we naturally ask, When is this likely to
have happened? and the answer must be that the earliest probable time begins after the Peace of
Wedmore in 878.

In the “Blickling Homilies” there is a passage which recalls the description of the mere in
“Beowulf.”80 So far as this coincidence affects the question, it makes for the date here assigned.

Beyond the “Beowulf” we have but small and fragmentary remains of the old heroic poetry. The
most important pieces are “The Battle of Finn’s Burgh,” and “The Lay of King Waldhere.” These are
now often printed in the editions of the “Beowulf.”

Ettmüller conjectured that the “Invitation from a True Lover Settled Abroad,” was not a single lyric,
but a beautiful incident taken from some epic poem.81 A messenger comes with a token to a lady at
home, by which she may credit his message; he bids her take ship as soon as she hears the voice of
the cuckoo, and go out to him who has all things ready about him to give her a suitable reception.

Next we will consider

“THE RUINED CITY.”82

The subject of this piece is a city in ruins. There is massive masonry: the place was once handsomely
built and decorated and held by warriors, but now all tumbled about; works of art exposed to view
and forming a strange contrast with the desolation around; there is a wide pool of water, hot without
fire; and there are the once-frequented baths. This is no vague poetic composition, but the portrait of
a definite spot. It suits the old Brito-Roman ruin of Akeman after 577; and it suits no other place that
I can think of in the habitable world. The old view that it was a fortress or castle seems misplaced in
time, as well as incompatible with the expressions in the text.83

The poem begins:—

Wrætlic is thes weal stan Stupendous is this wall of stone,
wyrde gebræcon, strange the ruin!

The strongholds are bursten, the work of giants decaying, the roofs are fallen, the towers tottering,
dwellings unroofed and mouldering, masonry weather-marked, shattered the places of shelter, time-
scarred, tempest-marred, undermined of eld.

Eorth grap hafath Earth’s grasp holdeth
waldend wyrhtan the mighty workmen
forweorene geleorene worn away lorn away
heard gripe hrusan in the hard grip of the grave
oth hund cnea till a hundred ages
wer theoda gewitan. of men-folk do pass.
Oft thes wag gebad Oft this wall witnessed
ræg har and read fah (weed-grown and lichen-spotted)
rice æfter othrum one great man after another
ofstonden under stormum.... take shelter out of storms....

How did the swift sledge-hammer flash and furiously come down upon the rings when the sturdy
artizan was rivetting the wall with clamps so wondrously together. Bright were the buildings, the
bath-houses many, high-towered the pinnacles, frequent the war-clang, many the mead-halls, of
merriment full, till all was overturned by Fate the violent. The walls crumbled widely; dismal days
came on; death swept off the valiant men; the arsenals became ruinous foundations; decay sapped the
burgh. Pitifully crouched armies to earth. Therefore these halls are a dreary ruin, and these pictured
gables;84 the rafter-framed roof sheddeth its tiles; the pavement is crushed with the ruin, it is broken
up in heaps; where erewhile many a baron—

glædmod and goldbeorht joyous and gold-bright
gleoma gefrætwed gaudily jewelled
wlonc and wingal haughty and wine-hot
wig hyrstum scan; shone in his harness;
seah on sinc on sylfor looked on treasure, on silver,
on searo gimmas; on gems of device;
on ead, on æht, on wealth, on stores,
on eorcan stan: on precious stones;
on thas beorhtan burg on this bright borough
bradan rices. of broad dominion.
Stan hofu stodan; There stood courts of stone!
stream hate wearp The stream hotly rushed
widan wylme, with eddy wide,
weal eal befeng (wall all enclosed)

beorhtan bosme; with bosom bright,
thær tha bathu wæron, (There the baths were!)
hat on hrethre; not in its nature!
thæt wes hythelic! That was a boon indeed!

“THE WANDERER” (EARDSTAPA).85

In patriarchal or sub-patriarchal times social life was still confined within the family pale; and the
man who belonged to no household was a wanderer and a vagabond on the face of the earth. Through
invasion or war or other accidents a man who had been the honoured member of a well-found home
might live to see that home broken up or pass into strange hands, and he might be thus like a plant
uprooted when he was too old to get planted in a fresh connexion. His only chance of any share in
social life was to wander from house to house, getting perhaps a brief lodging in each; and such a
homeless condition might be well expressed by the compound eardstapa, one who tramps (stapa)
from one habitation (eard) to another. In such an outcast plight the speaker in this piece went to sea,
and there he often thought of the old happy days that were gone. He would dream of the pleasure of
his old access to the giefstol of his lord, whom he saluted with kiss and head on knee, and then he
would wake a friendless man in the wintry ocean, and his grief would be the sorer at his heart for the
recollections of lost kindred that the dream had revived. Such a lot is in ready sympathy with old-
world ruins, of which there were many in England at that time, and they raise the anticipation of a
time when a like ruin will be the end of all! “It becomes a wise man to know how awful it will be
when all this world’s wealth stands waste, as now up and down in the world there are wind-buffeted
walls standing in mouldering decay”—and the description which follows is either a reminiscence of
“The Ruined City,” or else it shows that the subject of ruins was familiar with the Scōpas.86

“THE MINSTREL’S CONSOLATION.”87

Ettmüller reckoned this the oldest of the Saxon lyrics; influenced, perhaps, by the mythical nature of
the contents. But, if we regard the form rather than the material, there is a refinement about the
versification which does not look archaic. The poem is cast in irregular stanzas, and it has a refrain.
The poet, whose name is Deor, has experienced the fallaciousness of early success. His prospects are
clouded; once the favourite minstrel of his patron, he is now superseded by a newer Scōp. His
consolation is a well-known one; perhaps the oldest and commonest of all the formulæ of
consolation. Others have been in trouble before him, and have somehow got over it. This is not
conveyed as a mere generalisation; it is done poetically through striking examples, of which Weland
is the first, and Beadohild the second. After each example comes the refrain:—

thæs ofereode That [distress] he overwent,
thisses swa mæg! So . I . can . this!

The failures of life’s hopes and ambitions have been so often lamented, that the subject is rather
hackneyed and conventional. Here is a piece out of the beaten track; fresh, though ingenious and
artistic. Such a poem is all the more welcome as the subject belongs to an extinct career—the career
of a court minstrel.

The Ballads have a peculiar value of their own. There is a sense in which they are the best
representatives of the native muse. There are several extant specimens of various merit, but two are
pre-eminent, and these are, beyond all doubt, preserved in their original and unaltered form. They
were manifestly produced in the moment when the sensation of a great event was yet fresh. They are
impassioned and effusive, and they bear good witness to the characteristics of primitive poetry. One
spontaneous element they preserve, which has been quite discarded from modern poetry, and of
which the other traces are few. I mean the poetry of derision. The light and shade of the ballad is
glory and scorn. The most popular subject of this species of poetry is a battle. Whether your ballad is
of victory or of disaster, these two elements, not indeed with the same intensity or the same
proportions, but still these two, are the constituents required. Our best examples are the “Victory of
Brunanburh” (937), and the “Disaster of Maldon” (991).

The battle of Brunanburh was fought by King Athelstan and his brother Edmund (children of
Edward), against the alliance of the Scots under Constantinus with the Danes under Anlaf.

Various attempts have been made to present in modern English the Ballad of Brunanburh, the most
successful being that by the Poet Laureate. Our language is rather out of practice for kindling a
poetic fervour around the sentiment of flinging scorn at a vanquished foe; but the following will
serve to illustrate this heathenish element, or such relics of it as survived in the tenth century. The
person first railed at is Constantinus:—

X.

Slender reason had
He to be proud of
The welcome of war-knives—
He that was reft of his
Folk and his friends that had
Fallen in conflict,
Leaving his son, too,
Lost in the carnage,
Mangled to morsels,
A youngster in war!

XI.

Slender reason had
He to be glad of
The clash of the war-glaive—
Traitor and trickster
And spurner of treaties—
He nor had Anlaf,
With armies so broken,
A reason for bragging
That they had the better
In perils of battle
On places of slaughter—
The struggle of standards,
The rush of the javelins,
The crash of the charges,
The wielding of weapons—
The play that they played with
The children of Edward.

Alfred Tennyson, “Ballads and Other
Poems,” 1880, p. 174.

The longest of our ballads, though it is imperfect, is that of the “Battle of
Maldon.” In the year 991 the Northmen landed in Essex, and expected to be
bought off with great ransom; but Brithnoth, the alderman of the East
Saxons, met them with all his force, and, after fighting bravely, was killed.
The lines here quoted occur after the alderman’s death:—

Leofsunu gemælde, Then up spake Leveson
and his linde ahof, and his shield uphove,
bord to gebeorge; buckler in ward;
he tham beorne oncwæth; he the warrior addressed:
Ic thæt gehate, I make the vow,
thæt ic heonon nelle that I will not hence
fleon fotes trym, flee a foot’s pace,
ac wille furthor gan, but will go forward;
wrecan on gewinne wreak in the battle
mine wine drihten! my friend and my lord!
Ne thurfon me embe Sturmere Never shall about Stourmere,
stede fæste hæleth, the stalwart fellows,
wordum ætwitan, with words me twit
nu min wine gecranc, now my chief is down,
thæt ic hlafordleas that I lordless
ham sithie homeward go march,
wende from wige! turning from war!
ac me sceal wæpen niman, Nay, weapon shall take me,
ord and iren! point and iron.

Other ballads, or something like ballads, that are embodied in the Saxon
chronicles are:—“The Conquest of Mercia” (942); “The Coronation of

Eadgar at Bath” (973); “Eadgar’s Demise” (975); “The Good Times of King
Eadgar” (975); “The Martyr of Corf Gate” (979); “Alfred the Innocent
Ætheling” (1036); “The Son of Ironside” (1057); “The Dirge of King
Eadward” (1065).

Others there are of which only brief scraps remain, almost embedded in the
prose of the chronicles:—“The Sack of Canterbury” (1011); “The Wooing
of Margaret” (1067); “The Baleful Bride Ale” (1076); “The High-handed
Conqueror” (1086).88

Our last piece shall be “Widsith, or the Gleeman’s Song.”89 This is a string
of reminiscences of travel in the profession of minstrelsy; some part of
which has a genuine air of high antiquity.90 In the course of a long tradition
it has undergone many changes which cannot now be distinguished. But,
besides these, there are some glaring patches of literary interpolation,
chiefly from Scriptural sources. I quote the concluding lines:—

Swa scrithende So wandering on
gesceapum hweorfath, the world about,
gleo men gumena glee-men do roam
geond grunda fela; through many lands;
thearfe secgath they say their needs,
thonc word sprecath, they speak their thanks,
simle suth oththe north sure south or north
sumne gemetath, some one to meet,
gydda gleawne of songs to judge
geofum unhneawne, and gifts not grudge,
se the fore duguthe one who by merit hath a mind
wile dom aræran renown to make
eorlscipe æfnan; earlship to earn;
oth thæt eal scaceth till all goes out
leoht and lif somod: light and life together.

Lof se gewyrceth Laud who attains
hafath under heofenum hath under heaven
heahfæstne dom. high built renown.

74 In “A Book for the Beginner in Anglo-Saxon,” Clarendon Press Series; ed. 2
(1879), p. 70.
75 The editions and translations are by Thorkelin, Copenhagen, 1815; Kemble, ed. 1,
London, 1833; ed. 2, London, 1835; translation, 1837; Ettmüller, German
translation, Zurich, 1840; Schaldemose, with Danish translation, Copenhagen,
1851; Thorpe, with English translation, Oxford, 1855; Grundtvig, Copenhagen,
1861; Moritz Heyne, German translation, Paderborn, 1863; Grein, 1867; Arnold,
Oxford, 1876; Moritz Heyne, Text, ed. 4, 1879.
76 Wulfgar then spoke to his own dear lord:
“Here are arrived, come from afar
Over the sea-waves, men of the Geats;
The one most distinguished the warriors brave
Beowulf name. They are thy suppliants
That they, my prince, may with thee now
Greetings exchange; do not thou refuse them
Thy converse in turn, friendly Hrothgar!
They in their war-weeds seem very worthy
Contenders with earls; the chief is renowned
Who these war-heroes hither has led.”
Hrothgar then spoke, defence of the Scyldings;
“I knew him of old when he was a child;
His aged father was Ecgtheow named;
To him at home gave Hrethel the Geat
His only daughter: his son has now
Boldly come here, a trusty friend sought.”

This is from Mr. Garnett’s translation, which is made line for line. Published by
Ginn, Heath, & Co., Boston, 1882.
77 Dr. Karl Müllenhof (papers in Haupt’s “Zeitschrift”) follows the same line. His
treatment is thus described by Mr. Henry Morley:—“The work was formed, he
thinks, by the combination of several old songs—(1) ‘The Fight with Grendel,’
complete in itself, and the oldest of the pieces; (2) ‘The Fight with Grendel’s
Mother,’ next added; then (3) the genealogical introduction to the mention of
Hrothgar, forming what is now the opening of the poem. Then came, according to
this theory, a poet, A, who worked over the poem thus produced, interpolated many
passages with skill, and added a continuation, setting forth Beowulf’s return home.

Last came a theoretical interloper, B, a monk, who interspersed religious sayings of
his own, and added the ancient song of the fight with the dragon and the death of
Beowulf. The positive critic not only finds all this, but proceeds to point out which
passages are old, older, and oldest, where a few lines are from poet A, and where
other interpolation is from poet B.”—“English Verse and Prose” in “Cassell’s
Library of English Literature,” p. 11.
78 No one needs to be told that the dragon story is of high antiquity. But even of the
elements which have most the appearance of history some may be traced so far
back till they seem to fade into legend. Thus Higelac can hardly be any other than
that Chochilaicus of whom Gregory of Tours records that he invaded the Frisian
coast from the north, and was slain in the attempt. In our poem, this recurs with
variations no less than four times as a well-known passage in the adventures of
Higelac. But it affords a doubtful basis for argument about the date of our poem.
79 See Dr. Vigfusson’s remarks in the Prolegomena to his edition of the “Sturlinga
Saga,” Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1878.
80 See Dr. Morris’s Preface to the Blickling Homilies.

81 Cod. Exon., ed. Thorpe, p. 473.

82 Cod. Exon., ed. Thorpe, p. 476; Grein, i., 248.

83 Years ago I discussed this little poem before the Bath Field Club; and my
arguments were subsequently printed in the “Proceedings” of that society (1872).
Professor Wülcker has since agreed with me that the subject of the poem is a city,
and not a fortress. My identification of the ruin with Acemanceaster (Bath) has
been approved by Mr. Freeman in his volume on “Rufus.”
84 The feeling which pervades this remarkable fragment was strangely recalled by the
following passage in a recent book that has interested many:—“Masses of strange,
nameless masonry, of an antiquity dateless and undefined, bedded themselves in the
rocks, or overhung the clefts of the hills; and out of a great tomb by the wayside,
near the arch, a forest of laurel forced its way, amid delicate and graceful frieze-
work, moss-covered and stained with age. In this strangely desolate and ruinous
spot, where the fantastic shapes of nature seem to mourn in weird fellowship with
the shattered strength and beauty of the old Pagan art-life, there appeared
unexpectedly signs of modern dwelling.”—“John Inglesant,” by J. H. Shorthouse,
new edition, 1881, vol. ii., p. 320.
85 Cod. Exon., ed. Thorpe, p. 286.

86 A translation of this poem in Alexandrines appeared in the Academy, May 14, 1881,
by E. H. Hickey.
87 Cod. Exon., ed. Thorpe, p. 377. His title is “Deor the Scald’s Complaint.” I have
adopted the title from Professor Wülcker, “Des Sängers Trost.”
88 Sometimes a prose passage of unusual energy raises the apprehension that it may be
a ballad toned down. Dr. Grubitz has suggested this view of the Annal of 755, in
which there is a fight in a Saxon castle (burh). The graphic description of the place,

the dramatic order of the incidents, and the life-like dialogue of the parley, might
well be the work of a poet.
89 Kemble called it “The Traveller’s Song;” Thorpe, Cod. Exon., p. 318, “The Scop or
Scald’s Tale.”
90 A valuable testimony is borne to the substantial antiquity of this poem, by the fact
that Schafarik, who is the chief ethnographer for Sclavonic literature, regards it as a
valuable source on account of the Sclavonic names contained in it. I am indebted to
Mr. Morfil, of Oriel College, for this information.

CHAPTER VII.
THE WEST SAXON LAWS.

“No other Germanic nation has bequeathed to us out of its earliest
experience so rich a treasure of original legal documents as the Anglo-
Saxon nation has.” Such is the sentence of Dr. Reinhold Schmid, who upon
the basis of former labours, and particularly those of Mr. Benjamin Thorpe,
has given us the most compact and complete edition yet produced of the
Anglo-Saxon laws.91

It might seem as if laws were too far removed from the idea of literature, to
merit more than a passing notice here. Writers on modern English literature
generally leave the lawyer’s work altogether out of their field. But these are
among the things that alter with age. Laws become literary matter just as
they become old and obsolete. Then the traces they have left in words and
phrases and figures of speech, their very contrasts with the laws of the
present, makes them material eminently literary. We know what effective
literary use Sir Walter Scott has made of the antiquities and curiosities of
law.

And to this may be added another remark. When we are engaged in
reconstructing an ancient, we might almost say a lost literature, we need
above all things some leading ideas concerning the conditions of social life

and opinion and mental development at the period in question. Nothing
supplies these things so safely as the laws of the time.

INE’S LAWS.

The oldest extant West Saxon laws are those of King Ine,92 who reigned
thirty-eight years, A.D. 688-726. As the West Saxon power gradually
absorbed all other rule in this island, we here find ourselves entering the
central stream of history. In the preamble to Ine’s Laws the name of
Erconwald, bishop of London, who died in 693, is among the persons
present at the Gemôt. Consequently these laws must be referred to the first
years of Ine’s reign, and they must be older than the date of the Kentish
laws of Wihtred.

The laws of Ine are preserved to us as an appendix of the laws of Alfred.
This is the case in all the manuscripts. Not only does the elder code follow
the younger, but the numbering is continuous as if welding the two codes
into one. Thorpe follows the manuscripts in this arrangement, though not in
the numbering of the sections, and the student who consults his edition is
apt to be confused with this chronological inversion, unless he has taken
note of the cause. Ine reigned over a mixed population of Saxons and
Britons, and his code is of a more comprehensive character than that of the
Kentish kings. His enactments became, through subsequent re-enactments,
the basis of the laws not only of Wessex, but also of all England.
Accordingly they seem more intelligible to the modern reader.93

9. If any one take revenge before he sue for justice, let him give up what he
has seized, and pay for the damage done, and make amends with thirty
shillings.

12. If a thief be taken, let him die, or let his life be redeemed according to
his “wer.” ... Thieves we call them up to seven men; from seven to thirty-

five a band (hloth); after that it is a troop (here).

32. If a Wylisc-man have a hide of land, his “wer” is 120 shillings; if he
have half a hide, eighty shillings; if he have none, sixty shillings.

36. He who takes a thief, or has a captured thief given over to him, and then
lets him go or conceals the theft, let him pay for the thief according to his
“wer.” If he be an ealdorman, let him forfeit his shire, unless the king be
pleased to show him mercy.

39. If any one go from his lord without leave, or steal himself away into
another shire, and word is brought; let him go where he before was, and pay
his lord sixty shillings.

40. A ceorl’s close should be fenced winter and summer. If it be unfenced,
and his neighbour’s cattle get in through his own gap, he hath no claim on
the cattle; let him drive it out and bear the damage.

43. In case any one burn a tree in a wood, and it come to light who did it, let
him pay the full penalty, and give sixty shillings, because fire is a thief. If
one fell in a wood ever so many trees, and it be found out afterwards, let
him pay for three trees, each with thirty shillings. He is not required to pay
for more of them, however many they might be, because the axe is a
reporter and not a thief (forthon seo æsc bith melda, nalles theof).94

44. But if a man cut down a tree that thirty swine may stand under, and it is
found out, let him pay sixty shillings.

52. Let him who is accused of secret compositions clear himself of those
compositions with 120 hides, or pay 120 shillings.95

ALFRED’S LAWS.

Here I will quote from the introductory portion a piece which illustrates the
subject generally, and which is rendered interesting by the wide diversity of
comment which it has elicited from Mr. Kemble and Sir H. Maine. The
former is almost outrageously angry at Alfred for attributing the system of
bôts or compensations to the influence of Christianity; while in the strong
terms wherewith treason against the lord is branded, he can only see “these
despotic tendencies of a great prince, nurtured probably by his exaggerated
love for foreign literature.”96 It is positively refreshing to come out of this
heat and dust into the orderly and consecutive demonstration of Sir H.
Maine, who concludes a course of systematic exposition on the history of
Criminal Law, and indeed concludes his entire book on Ancient Law, with
an appreciative quotation of this passage from the Laws of Alfred. It is thus
introduced:—

“There is a passage in the writings of King Alfred which brings out into
remarkable clearness the struggle of the various ideas that prevailed in his
day as to the origin of criminal jurisdiction. It will be seen that Alfred
attributes it partly to the authority of the Church and partly to that of the
Witan, while he expressly claims for treason against the lord the same
immunity from ordinary rules which the Roman Law of Majestas had
assigned to treason against the Cæsar.”

Siththan thæt tha gelamp, thæt After that it happened that many
monega theoda Cristes geleafan nations received the faith of
onfengon, tha wurdon monega Christ, and there were many
seonothas geond ealne middan synods assembled through all
geard gegaderode, and eac swa parts of the world, and likewise
geond Angel cyn, siththan hie throughout the Angle race after
Cristes geleafan onfengon, they had received the faith of
haligra biscepa and eac otherra Christ, of holy bishops and also
gethungenra witena. Hie tha of other distinguished Witan.

gesetton for thære They then ordained, out of that
mildheortnesse, the Crist lærde, compassion which Christ had
æt mæstra hwelcre misdæde, taught, in the case of almost
thæt tha woruld hlafordas every misdeed, that the secular
moston mid hiora leafan buton lords might, with their leave and
synne æt tham forman gylte without sin, for the first offence
thære fioh-bote onfon, the hie accept the money penalty which
tha gesettan; buton æt hlaford they then ordained; excepting in
searwe, tham hie nane the case of treason against a
mildheortnesse ne dorston lord, to which they dared not
gecwæthan, fortham the God assign any mercy, because God
Ælmihtig tham nane ne Almighty adjudged none to
gedemde the hine oferhogodon, them that despised Him, nor did
ne Crist, Godes sunu, tham nane Christ, the Son of God, adjudge
ne gedemde, the hyne sealde to any to them that sold Him to
deathe; and he bebead thone death; and He commanded that
hlaford lufian swa hine selfne. the lord should be loved as
Himself.

Hie tha on monegum senothum They then in many synods
monegra menniscra misdæda ordained a “bot” for many
bote gesetton, and on monega human misdeeds, and in many a
senoth bec hy writon hwær anne synod-book they wrote, here
dom hwær otherne. one decision, there another.

Ic tha Ælfred cyning thas I then, Alfred, king, gathered
togædere gegaderode and these together, and I ordered to
awritan het monege thara, the write out many of those that our
ure foregengan heoldon, tha the forefathers held which to me
me licodon; and manege thara seemed good; and many of
the me ne licodon, ic awearp those that to me seemed not

mid minra witena getheahte, and good I rejected, with the counsel
on othre wisan bebead to of my Witan, and in other wise
healdenne, fortham ic ne dorste commanded to hold; forasmuch
gethristlæcan thara minra awuht as I durst not venture to set any
feala on gewrit settan, fortham great quantity of my own in
me wæs uncuth, hwæt thæs writing, because it was
tham lician wolde, the æfter us unknown to me what would
wæren. Ac tha the ic gemette, please those who should be after
awther oththe on Ines dæge, us. But those things that I found
mines mæges, oththe on Offan, established, either in the days of
Myrcena cyninges, oththe on Ine my kinsman, or in Offa’s,
Æthelbryhtes, the ærest fulluht king of the Mercians, or in
onfeng on Angel cynne, tha the Æthelbryht’s, who first received
me ryhtoste thuhton, ic tha her baptism in the Angle race, those
on gegaderode and tha othre which seemed to me rightest,
forlet. those I have here gathered
together, and the others I have
rejected.

Ic tha Ælfred, West seaxna I then, Alfred, king of the West
cyning, eallum minum witum Saxons, to all my Witan showed
thas geeowde, and hie tha these; and they then said, that it
cwædon, thæt him thæt licode seemed good to them all that
eallum to healdenne. they should be holden.

ALFRED AND GUTHRUM’S PEACE.

This is a little code which marks a crisis in Alfred’s life, and, it may be
added, a crisis also in the life of the nation. When Alfred by his victory over
the Danes in 878 had brought them to sue for peace, the treaty was made at
Wedmore in Somersetshire. The original text of the peace between Alfred

and Guthrum is among the Anglo-Saxon laws, and we present it to the
reader in its entire form. The first item is about the frontier line between the
two races which was drawn diagonally through the heart of England,
cutting Mercia in two, and leaving half of it under the Danes. The two parts
into which the country was thus divided, were designated severally as the
“Engla lagu” and the “Dena lagu.”

Ælfredes and Guthrumes frith. Alfred and Guthrum’s Peace.
This is thæt frith, thæt Ælfred This is the peace that king
cynincg and Gythrum cyning Alfred and king Guthrum and
and ealles Angel cynnes witan, the counsellors of all Angel-kin,
and eal seo theod the on East and all the people that are in
Englum beoth, ealle gecweden East Anglia, have all decreed
habbath, and mid athum and with oaths confirmed for
gefeostnod, for hy sylfe and for themselves and for their
heora gingran, ge for geborene, children, both for the born and
ge for ungeborene, the Godes for the unborn, all who value
miltse recce oththe ure. God’s favour or ours.

Cap. 1. Ærest ymb ure land- Cap. 1. First about our land-
gemæra: up on Temese and boundaries:—Up the Thames,
thonne up on Ligan, and and then up the Lea, and along
andlang Ligan oth hire æ wylm, the Lea to her source, then
thonne on gerihte to Bedan straight to Bedford, then up the
forda, thonne up on Usan oth Ouse to Watling Street.
Wætlinga stræt.

2. Thæt is thonne, gif man 2. Videlicet, if a person be slain,
ofslagen weorthe, ealle we we all estimate of equal value,
lætath efen dyrne Engliscne and the Englishman and the Dane, at
Deniscne, to viii healfmarcum eight half-marks of pure gold;

asodenes goldes, buton tham except the ceorl who resides on
ceorle the on gafol lande sit, and gafol-land, and their [i.e. the
heora liesingum, tha syndan eac Danish] liesings, those also are
efen dyre, ægther to cc scill. equally dear, either at two
hundred shillings.

3. And gif mon cyninges thegn 3. And if a king’s thane be
beteo manslihtes, gif he hine charged with killing a man, if he
ladian dyrre, do he thæt mid xii dare to clear himself, let him do
cininges thegnum. Gif man it with twelve king’s thanes. If
thone man betyhth, the bith the accused man be of less
læssa maga thonne se cyninges degree than the king’s thane, let
thegn, ladige he hine mid xi his him clear himself with eleven of
gelicena and mid anum cyninges his equals, and with one king’s
thægne. And swa ægehwilcere thane. And so in every suit that
spræce, the mare sy thonne iiii may be for more than four
mancussas. And gyf he ne dyrre, mancuses. And if he dare not, let
gylde hit thry gylde, swa hit him pay threefold, according as
man gewyrthe. it may be valued.

Be getymum. Of Warrantors.
4. And thæt ælc man wite his 4. And that every man know his
getyman be mannum and be warrantor for men and for
horsum and be oxum. horses and for oxen.

5. And ealle we cwædon on 5. And we all said on that day
tham dæge the mon tha athas when the oaths were sworn, that
swor, thæt ne theowe ne freo ne neither bond nor free should be
moton in thone here faran butan at liberty to go to the host97
leafe, ne heora nan the ma to us. without leave, nor of them any
Gif thonne gebyrige, thæt for one by the same rule (come) to
neode heora hwilc with ure bige us. If, however, it happen, that

habban wille, oththe we with for business any one of them
heora, mid yrfe and mid æhtum, desires to have dealings with us
thæt is to thafianne on tha or we with them, about cattle
wisan, thæt man gislas sylle and about goods, that is to be
frithe to wedde, and to granted on this wise, that
swutelunge, thæt man wite thæt hostages be given for a pledge
man clæne bæc hæbbe. of peace, and for evidence
whereby it may be known that
the party has a clean back [i.e.,
that he has not carried off on his
back what is not his own].

EADWARD AND GUTHRUM’S LAWS.

Besides two codes of laws of Eadward, the son of Alfred, we have also a
code entitled as above. Of these laws it is said that they were first made
between Alfred and Guthrum, and afterwards between Eadward and
Guthrum.98 Many of the enactments of this code were transmitted to later
ordinances.

This syndon tha domas the These are the dooms that king
Ælfred cyneg and Guthrum Alfred and king Guthrum chose.
cyneg gecuran.

And this is seo gerædnis eac the And this is the ordinance, also,
Ælfred cyng and Guthrum cyng. which king Alfred and king
and eft Eadward cyng and Guthrum, and afterwards king
Guthrum cyng. gecuran and Eadward and king Guthrum,
gecwædon. Tha tha Engle and chose and ordained, when the
Dene to frithe and to English and Danes fully took to
freondscipe fullice fengen. and peace and to friendship; and the

tha witan eac the syththan Witan also, who were afterward,
wæron eft and unseldan thæt often and repeatedly renewed
seolfe geniwodon and mid gode the same and increased it with
gehihtan. good.

ATHELSTAN’S LAWS.

Under the name of Athelstan we have five codes, of which the second and
third are mere abstracts in Latin; but the others are in Saxon; and besides
these a substantive ordinance bearing the special title of “The Judgments of
the City of London.” This has been described as follows:—“The rules of the
guild composed of thanes and ceorls (gentlemen and yeomen), under the
perpetual presidency of the bishop and portreeve of London.”99 They
combine to protect themselves against robbery, and this in two ways: (1) by
promoting the action of the laws against robbers; (2) by mutual insurance.

The determination of this code to the reign of Athelstan is guided by the
mention of the places of enactment, which are Greatley (near Andover,
Hants); Exeter; and Thundersfield (near Horley, Surrey), with which places
all the previous laws of Athelstan are associated.

From the fourth of the above-mentioned ordinances I will quote the law
about the tracking of cattle lost, stolen, or strayed:—

2. “And if any one track cattle within another’s land, the owner of that land
is to track it out, if he can; if he cannot, that track is to count as the fore-
oath,” i.e., the first legal step in an action to recover.

A more explicit description of the method of tracking cattle occurs in the
Ordinance of the Dunsæte.

This ordinance is placed by Thorpe between the laws of Æthelred and those
of Cnut. This little code of nine sections is intended to rule the relations of a
border country which, on its home side, is continuous with Wessex, and on
its outer side is next the Welsh. Sir Francis Palgrave, misled perhaps by a
questionable reading in Lambarde (1568), who has the form Deunsætas,
took this to be a treaty between the English and British inhabitants of
Devon, and bestowed on it the succinct title of the Devonian Compact. But
Mr. Thorpe objected to the form “Deun” as groundless, and he also quoted
the text of the code against it; for the last section speaks thus:—“Formerly
the Wentsæte belonged to the Dunsæte, but that district more strictly
belongs to Wessex, for they have to send thither tribute and hostages.” This
admits of no explanation in Devonshire, but in South Wales it does, and we
learn from William of Malmesbury that the river Wye was fixed by King
Athelstan as the boundary between the English and Welsh. On this basis the
Wentsæte will be the people of Gwent, and the Dunsæte will be the Welsh
of the upland or hill-country.

One of the most remarkable sections of this Code is the first, which
prescribes the method for tracking stolen cattle.

The laws concerning theft relate almost entirely to the protection of cattle,
and naturally so, because the chief wealth of the time consisted in flocks
and herds. Stolen cattle were tracked by fixed rules. If the track led into a
given district, the men of that district were bound to show the track out of
their boundary or to be responsible for the lost property. We have just seen
this in Athelstan’s laws; but in the previous reign a law of Edward, the son
of Alfred, directs that every proprietor of land is to have men ready to
dispatch in aid of those who are following the track of cattle, and that they
are not to be diverted from this duty by bribes, or inclination, or violence.
But the most explicit text on this subject is in the first chapter of the
Ordinance respecting the Dunset folk, as above said. It runs thus:—

“If the track of stolen cattle be followed from station to station, the further
tracking shall be committed to the people of the land, and proof shall be
given that the pursuit is genuine. The proprietor of the land shall then take
up the pursuit, and he shall have the responsibility, and he shall pay for the
cattle by nine days therefrom, or deposit a pledge by that date, which is
worth half more, and in a further nine days discharge the pledge with actual
payment. If objection be made that the track was wrongly pursued, then the
tracker must lead to the station, and there with six unchosen men, who are
true men, make oath that he by folk-right makes claim on the land that the
cattle passed up that way.”

We cannot follow the laws in detail, but must now conclude this subject
with one or two observations of a general kind. In the above I have
repeatedly used the word “Code”; but this is not to be understood with
technical exactness. Of late years we have heard much of “codifying” our
laws; and this expression suggests the idea of a compact and consistent
body of law, which should take the place of partial, occasional, anomalous,
and often conflicting legislation. Of “codes” in this sense, there is very little
to be found in the whole record of English law. Our Kentish and West
Saxon laws are little more than statements of custom or amendments of
custom; and while Professor Stubbs claims for the laws of Alfred, Æthelred,
Cnut, and those described as Edward the Confessor’s, that they aspire to the
character of codes, yet “English law (he adds) from its first to its latest
phase, has never possessed an authoritative, constructive, systematic, or
approximately exhaustive statement, such as was attempted by the great
compilers of the civil and canon laws, by Alfonso the Wise or Napoleon
Bonaparte.”100

There is a prominent characteristic of our laws which they have in common
with all primitive codes. These all differ from maturer collections of laws in
their very large proportion of criminal to civil law. Sir Henry Maine says

that, on the whole, all the known collections of ancient law are
distinguished from systems of mature jurisprudence by this feature,—that
the civil part of the law has trifling dimensions as compared with the
criminal.101 This is strikingly seen in the Kentish laws; and even in the West
Saxon laws a very little study will enable the reader to verify this
characteristic.

Our next and last observation shall be based on the absence of something
which the reader might possibly expect to find in the Saxon laws.

Of all the legal institutions that have claimed a Saxon origin, none
compares for importance with that of trial by jury. This has been called the
bulwark of English liberty, and it has been assigned to King Alfred as the
general founder of great institutions. But this is only a popular opinion.

Perhaps there is no single matter in legal antiquities that has been so much
debated as the origin of trial by jury. In the vast literature which the subject
has called forth, the most various accounts have been proposed. It is an
English institution, but whence did the English get it? From which of the
various sources that have contributed to the composite life of the English
nation? Was it Anglo-Saxon, or was it Anglo-Norman, or was it Keltic? Was
it a process common to all the Germanic family? If it was Norman, from
which source—from their Scandinavian ancestors or from their Frankish
neighbours? All these origins have been maintained, and others besides
these. According to some writers, it is a relic of Roman law; some trace it to
the Canon law; and champions have not been wanting to vindicate it as
originally a Slavonic institution which the Angles borrowed from the Werini
ere they had left their old mother country.102

In all this diversity of view there is one fixed point of common agreement.
It is allowed on all hands that England is the arena of its historical career,

and the question therefore always takes this start,—How did the English
acquire it?

The Anglo-Saxon laws have been diligently scanned to see if the practice or
the germ of it could be discovered there. In Æthelred iii., 3, there is an
ordinance that runs thus:—

And gan ut tha yldestan xii Let the xii senior thanes go out,
thegnas, and se gerefa mid, and and the reeve with them, and
swerian on tham haligdome, the swear on the halidom that is put
heom man on hand sylle, thæt in their hand, that they will not
hig nellan nænne sacleasan man calumniate any sackless man,
forsecgan, ne nænne sacne nor conceal any guilty one (?
forhelan. suppress any suit).

This looks like the grand jury examining the bills of indictment before trial,
and determining primâ facie whether they are true bills which ought to be
tried in court. But the progress of modern inquiry has led to the conclusion,
that though there may be rudiments of the principle in Anglo-Saxon and in
all Germanic customs, still it was among the Franks in the Carling era that a
definite beginning can first be recognised. The Frankish capitularies had a
process called Inquisitio, which was adopted into Norman law, and was
there called Enquête; this, having passed with the Normans into England,
was finally shaped and embodied in the common law among the legal
reforms of Henry II.

Under the Saxon laws, the true men who were sworn to do justice had a
very different part to act from that which falls to the lot of our English jury.
The duty of the latter is to deliver a verdict on matter of fact as proved by
evidence given in court. The judge charges them to put aside what they may
have heard out of court, and let it have no influence on their verdict, but to

let that verdict be strictly based upon the evidence of witnesses before the
court.

In Æthelred’s time it was different. The sworn men were not to judge
testimony truly, but to bear witness truly. They were to bring into court their
own knowledge of the case, and of any circumstances that threw light upon
it, including the general opinion and persuasion of the neighbourhood.
There was no attempt to collect evidence piecemeal, and to rise above the
level of local rumour, by a patient judicial investigation. This provides us
with something like a measure of the intellectual stage of the public mind in
Saxon times, and will perhaps justify these remarks if they have seemed
like drifting away from our proper subject. The notion of weighing evidence
had not taken its place among the institutions of public life. This has now
become with us almost a popular habit. Proficiency and soundness in it may
be rare, but the appreciation of it, the perception of its power and beauty,
and withal a pride and glory in it, is almost universal. How wide a distance
does this seem to put between us and our Saxon forefathers, only to say that
they had but the most rudimentary notions about the nature of evidence!

Witnesses came into court, not to speak, one by one, to a matter of fact, but
to pronounce in a body what they all believed and held. They came to
testify and uphold the popular opinion. Such testimony is like nothing
known to us now, except when witnesses are called to speak to general
character. These witnesses gave their evidence on oath; but it would
naturally happen sometimes that such sworn testimony was to be had on
both sides of the question. When this was the case, there was but one
resource left, and that was the Ordeal—the appeal to the judgment of God.
Such are the devices of inexperienced nations, who have no skill in sifting
out the truth, and are baffled by contending testimony. Nothing can better
illustrate the stage of our national progress in the times which produced the
literature which we are now surveying.

But, withal, it was in such a rude age that the foundations of English law
were laid, and those customs took a definite form which are the groundwork
of our jurisprudence, and in which consists the distinction between our
English law and the law of the other nations of Western Europe, who have
all (Scotland included) formed their legal system upon the civil law of
Rome.

LEGAL DOCUMENTS.

From the seventh century down to the end of our period we have a series of
legal documents, such as grants of land, purchases, memorials, written
wills, memoranda of nuncupatory wills, royal writs, family arrangements,
interchanges of land. The first thing to be noticed about this whole body of
writings is that they, at the beginning of the series, are entirely in Latin;
then a few words of the vulgar tongue creep in, and then this native element
goes on increasing until we have entire documents in Saxon. Nevertheless,
it remained a prevalent habit in the case of transfer of land to have the grant
written in Latin, and the boundaries and other details expressed in Anglo-
Saxon. This is a large body of literature, and it fills six octavo volumes in
Kemble’s “Codex Diplomaticus.” Being of very various degrees of
genuineness—some absolute originals, some faulty copies, some too
carefully amended, down to the veriest forgeries—there is here a good field
for the exercise of critical discrimination. And there are many curious and
interesting details to reward the patient student. The following extract is
from a memorial addressed to Edward, the son of Alfred, touching matters
that had mostly fallen in his father’s time; and it opens a glimpse of Alfred
in his bed-chamber receiving a committee that came to report progress.

Tha bær mon tha boc forth and Then they brought forward the
rædde hie; tha stod seo conveyance and read it; there

hondseten eal thæron. Tha stood the signatures all thereon.
thuhte us eallan the æt thære Then seemed it to all of us who
some wæran thet Helmstan were at the arbitration, that
wære athe thæs the near. Tha Helmstan was all the nearer to
næs Æthelm na fullice gethafa the oath. Then was not Æthelm
ær we eodan in to cinge and fully convinced before we went
rædan eall hu we hit reahtan and in to the king and explained
be hwy we hit reahtan: and everything—how we reported it,
Æthelm stod self thær inne mid; and on what grounds we had so
and cing stod thwoh his honda reported it: and Æthelm himself
æt Weardoran innan thon bure. stood there in the room with us;
Tha he thæt gedon hæfde tha and the king stood and washed
ascade he Æthelm hwy hit him his hands at Wardour in the
ryht ne thuhte thæt we him chamber. When he had done
gereaht hæfdan; cwæth thæt he that, then he asked Æthelm why
nan ryhtre gethencan ne meahte it seemed to him not right what
thonne he thone ath agifan we had reported to him; he said
moste gif he meahte. that he could think of nothing
more just than that he might be
allowed to discharge the oath if
he were able.

91 The Anglo-Saxon laws have been edited by William Lambarde, London, 1568, 4to.;
Abraham Whelock, Cambridge, 1644; Wilkins, London, 1721, folio; Dr. Reinhold
Schmid, Leipzig, 1832; Thorpe, 1840; Schmid, ed. 2, 1858. It is Schmid’s second
edition that is spoken of above.
92 Ine is to be pronounced as a word of two syllables.

93 Palgrave, “English Commonwealth,” i., 46.

94 Grimm, “Legal Antiquities,” § 10, quotes some widely-scattered parallels: from
Rügen he produces the proverb, “Mit der exe stelt men nicht” (with the axe men
steal not); and from Wetterau, “Wan einer hauet, so ruft er” (when one hews, he
shouts). He dubs the Anglo-Saxon formula the more poetical (poetischer).

95 “These secret compositions are forbidden by nearly every early code of Europe; for
by such a proceeding both the judge and the Crown lost their profits. The
“Capitulary” of 593 puts the receiver of a secret composition on a level with the
thief: ‘Qui furtum vult celare, et occulte sine judice compositionem acceperit,
latroni similis est.’ And even now in common law, the rule is to obtain the sanction
of the Court for permission ‘to speak with the prosecutor,’ and thus terminate the
suit by compounding the affair in private.”—Thorpe. The reason assigned is,
however, not the whole reason.
96 “Saxons in England,” vol. ii., p. 208.

97 I.e., go to the Danish camp in East Anglia.

98 Here we have to understand two distinct kings of the name of Guthrum.

99 Coote, “The Romans of Britain,” p. 397.

10 “Documents Illustrative of English History,” p. 60.
0
10 “Ancient Law,” chap. x. init.
1
10 Palgrave, “Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth;” Stubbs, “Constitutional History;”
2 Heinrich Brunner, “Die Entstehung der Schwurgerichte,” Berlin, 1872.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHRONICLES.

Of the historical writings that remain from the Anglian period—namely,
those of Æddi and Bede, we have already spoken; the subject of the present
chapter will be the Saxon Chronicles and the Latin histories which are more
or less related to these Chronicles.

The habit of putting together annals began to be formed very early. In our
Chronicles there are some entries that may perhaps be older than the
conversion of our people. The contributors to Bede’s “History” would
appear to have sent in their parts more or less in the annalistic form. That
form is even now but slightly veiled in the grouped arrangement into which
the venerable historian has, with little reconstruction but considerable skill,
cast his materials. Annal-writing, we may venture to say, had by his time
become a recognised habit in literature, and there is extant a brief
Northumbrian Chronicle which ends soon after Bede’s death.103 Continuous
with this we have a series of annals which were produced in the north, and
which are now imbedded in the West Saxon Chronicles; but the traces of
their birth are not obliterated. Such vernacular annals were probably at first
designed as little more than notes and memoranda to serve for a Latin
history to be written another day; but the Danish wars broke the tradition of
Latin learning, and made a wide opening which gave opportunity for the

elevation of a vernacular literature. There is no part of Anglo-Saxon
literature more characterised by spontaneity than are the Saxon Chronicles.
Nowhere can we better see how the mother-tongue received the devolution
of the literary office in an unexpected way when the learned literature was
suddenly and violently displaced.

One of the strong features of these Chronicles is the genealogies of the
kings, ascending mostly to Woden as their mythical ancestor. The most
complete of these is that of the West Saxon kings, which is prefixed to the
Parker manuscript in manner of a preface. This genealogy was originally
made for Ecgbryht, who reigned from 800 to 836,—it was made at his
death, and it comprised the accession of his son, Æthelwulf. Subsequently
an addition was made, which continued the line of kings down to Alfred,
and closed with the date of his accession. This, when combined with the
fact that the first hand in this book ends with 891, seems to fix the date of
the Winchester Chronicle. This interesting appendix is as follows:—

Ond tha feng Æthelbald his And then Æthelbald his son
sunu to rice and heold v gear. took to the realm and held it 5
Tha feng Æthelbryht his brother years. Then succeeded
to and heold v gear. Tha feng Æthelbryht his brother, and held
Æthered hiera brothur to rice 5 years. Then Æthered their
and heold v gear. Tha feng brother took to the realm, and
Ælfred hiera brothur to rice and held 5 years. Then took Alfred
tha wæs agan his ielde xxiii their brother to the realm, and
wintra, and ccc and xcvi wintra then was agone of his age 23
thæs the his cyn ærest years; and 396 years from that
Wessexana lond on Wealum his race erst took Wessex from
geodon. the Welsh.

These Chronicles are remarkable for a certain unconscious ease and
homeliness. Even when, in the course of their progress, they grow more
copious and mature, they hardly discover any consciousness of literary
dignity. Of the Latin writings of the Anglo-Saxon period this could not be
said. This naïveté is naturally more observable in the earlier parts, which
seem like rescued antiquities, which might have been built into their place
when, in the latter end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century, the
importance of the national and vernacular chronicle began to be realised.

Some of the brief entries concerning the various settlements on the coasts
and the early contests with the Britons have the appearance of traditional
reminiscences that had been preserved in popular songs. Such is that of 473,
that the Welsh flew the English like fire; 491, that Ælle and Cissa besieged
Andredescester, and slew all those that therein dwelt—there was not so
much as one Bret left; 584, how that Ceawlin, in his expedition up the Vale
of Severn, where his brother fell, took many towns and untold spoils, and,
angry, he turned away to his own.

Mingled with these are entries which, though ingenious, are hardly less
spontaneous. Such are those in which there is a manifest rationalising upon
the names of historical sites, and a fanciful discovery of their heroes or
founders. Thus, in 501, we read that Port landed in Britain at the place
called Portsmouth. Now, we know that the first syllable in Portsmouth is the
Latin portus, a harbour, and it seems plain that here we have a name made
into a personage. In 534 we read how Cynric gave the Isle of Wight to Stuf
and Wihtgar, and how Wihtgar died in 544, and was buried at Wihtgaraburg,
also called Wihtgaræsburh. Here the person of Wihtgar has been made out
of the name of the place, because that name was understood as meaning
Castle of Wihtgar. But it meant the Burgh “of” Wihtgar only in the sense of
the Burgh which was called Wihtgar. The last syllable, gar, is the British
word for burg, fortress, castle, which the Welsh call Caer to this day. And

the Saxons, having often to use the word gar in this sense—much as our
reporters of New Zealand affairs have to speak of a pa—distinguished the
gar that was in Wiht, as Wihtgar, and then they added their own word, burh,
as the interpretation of gar, and after a time the historian, finding the name
of Wihtgarburh, took Wihtgar for a man, and called it Wihtgar’s Burg,
Wihtgaresburh, a genitive form which still lives in “Carisbrooke.”

The originals of the Chronicles are preserved in seven different books. They
are known by the signatures A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

A, the famous book in Archbishop Parker’s library, preserved in Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge. The structure of this book indicates that it was
made in 891, and, indeed, the penmanship of this copy—at least, of the
compilation—may possibly be as old as the lifetime of King Alfred. It bears
the local impress of Winchester, except in the latest continuation, 1005-
1070, which appears to belong to Canterbury. It seems to have passed from
Canterbury to the place where it is now deposited; but that it was a
Winchester book in its basis seems indicated by the regular notices of the
bishops of Wessex from 634 to 754, by the diction of the compilation to
891, and especially by that of the remarkable continuation, 893-897.

B, British Museum, Cotton Library, Tiberius A. vi. Closes with the year
977, and was probably written at St. Augustine’s, Canterbury.

C, British Museum, Cotton Library, Tiberius B. i. The first handwriting
stops at 1046, and is probably of that date. Closes with 1066. Apparently a
work of the monks of Abingdon.

D, British Museum, Cotton Library, Tiberius B. iv. The first hand, which
stops at 1016, may well be of that date. Closes with 1079. This book
contains strong internal evidence of being a product of Worcester Abbey.

E, Bodleian Library, Laud, 636. This is the fullest of all extant Chronicles;
it embodies most of the contents of the others, and it adds the largest
quantity of new and original history. It gives seventy-five years’ history
beyond any of the others, and closes with the death of Stephen in 1154. The
local relations of this book are unmistakable. The first hand ends with 1121,
and all the evidence goes to prove that this book was prepared at that date in
the abbey of Peterborough. On Friday, August 3, 1116, a great fire had
occurred at Peterborough which had destroyed the town and a large part of
the abbey, and this book was apparently undertaken among the acts of
restoration. The varying shades of Saxon which this book contains, both in
the compilation and in the several continuations, render it of great value for
the history of the English language, especially in the obscure period of the
twelfth century.

F, British Museum, Cotton Library, Domitian A. viij. A bilingual Chronicle,
Latin and Saxon, which, by internal evidence, is assigned to Christ Church,
Canterbury. The abrupt ending at 1058 is no indication of the book’s date: it
was written late in the twelfth century.

G, British Museum, Cotton Library, Otho B. xi. A late copy of A, made
probably in the twelfth century. It nearly perished in the fire of 1731, and
only three leaves have been rescued; but happily the book had, before this
disaster, been published entire and without intermixture by Wheloc; and,
consequently, his edition is now the chief representative of this authority.

Of these books there are three which are distinguished above the rest by
individuality of character. These are the Parker book (A); the Worcester
book (D); and the Peterborough book (E). A Chronicle may have a marked
individuality in two ways—that is to say, either in its compilation or in its
continuation. I will give an example of each kind. The first shall be from the
Worcester Chronicle, which combines with the former stock of southern
history a valuable body of northern history between the years 737 and 806.

The following are selected as being annals which, either wholly or in part,
are derived from a northern source. The new matter is indicated by inverted
commas:—

737. Her Forthhere biscop . and 737. Here Forthere bishop (of
Freothogith cwen ferdon to Sherborne) and Freothogith
Rome . “and Ceolwulf cyning queen (of Wessex) went to
feng to Petres scære . and sealde Rome; “and Ceolwulf, king (of
his rice Eadberhte his fæderan Northumbria) received St.
sunu . se ricsade xxi wintra . Peter’s tonsure, and gave his
And Æthelwold biscop . and realm to Eadberht, his father’s
Acca forthferdon . and Cynwulf brother’s son; who reigned 21
man gehalgode to biscop . And years. And Æthelwold, bishop
thy ilcan gære Æthelbald cyning (of Lindisfarne) and Acca died,
hergode Northhymbra land.” and Cynwulf was consecrated
bishop. And that same year
Æthelbald, king (of Mercia)
ravaged the Northumbrians’
land.”

757. “Her Eadberht 757. “Here Eadberht, king of the
Northhymbra cyning feng to Northumbrians, became a monk;
scære . and Oswulf his sunu and Oswulf, his son, took to the
feng to tham rice, and ricsade an realm, and reigned one year, and
gær . and hine ofslogon his him his domestics slew, on July
hiwan . on viii Kl. Augustus.” 25.”

762. Her Ianbryht was gehadod 762. Here Ianbryht was
to arcebiscop . on thone xl dæg ordained archbishop (of
ofer midne winter . “and Canterbury) on the fortieth day
Frithuweald biscop æt Hwiterne after Midwinter (Christmas).

forthferde . on Nonas Maius. se “And Frithuweald, bishop of
wæs gehalgod on Ceastre on Whitehorne, died on May 7th.
xviii Kl. September . tham vi He was consecrated at York, on
Ceolwulfes rices . and he wæs the 15th of August, in the sixth
biscop xxix wintra. Tha man year of Ceolwulf’s reign; and he
halgode Pehtwine to biscop æt was bishop 29 years. Then was
Ælfet ee on xvi Kl. Agustus . to Pehtwine consecrated to be
Hwiterne.” bishop of Whitehorne at Ælfet
Island on the 17th of July.”

777. Her Cynewulf and Offa 777. Here Cynewulf and Offa
gefliton ymb Benesingtun . and fought about Bensington
Offa genom thone tun . “and tha (Benson, Oxf.), and Offa took
ilcan geare man gehalgode the town. “And that same year
Æthelberht to biscop to was Æthelberht hallowed for
Hwiterne in Eoforwic . on xvii bishop of Whitehorne, at York
Kl. Jul’.” on the 15th of June.”

779. Her Ealdseaxe and Francan 779. Here the Old Saxons and
gefuhton. “and Northhymbra the Franks fought. “And
heahgerefan forbærndon Beorn Northumbrian high-reeves
ealdorman on Seletune . on viii burned Beorn the alderman at
Kl. Janr. and Æthelberht Silton on the 25th of December.
arcebiscop forthferde in Cæstre . And Æthelberht, the archbishop,
in thæs steal Eanbald wæs ær died at York, into whose place
gehalgod . and Cynewulf biscop Eanbald had been previously
gesæt in Lindisfarna ee.” consecrated; and bishop
Cynewulf sate on Lindisfarne
island.”

782. “Her forthferde Werburh . 782. “Here died Werburh, queen
Ceolredes cwen . and Cynewulf of Ceolred (king of Mercia): and

biscop on Lindisfarna ee . and Cynewulf, bishop of Lindisfarne
seonoth wæs æt Aclæ.” Island. And synod was at
Aclea.”

788. “Her wæs sinoth gegaderad 788. “Here was a synod
on Northhymbra lande æt gathered in the land of the
Pincanheale . on iiii Non. Northumbrians at Finchale, on
Septemb. and Aldberht abb . 2nd September. And abbot
forthferde in Hripum.” Aldberht died at Ripon.”

793. “Her wæron rethe 793. “Here came dire portents
forebecna cumene ofer over the land of the
Northhymbra land . and thæt Northumbrians, and miserably
folc earmlice bregdon . thæt terrified the people; these were
wæron ormete thodenas . and tremendous whirlwinds, and
ligræscas . and fyrenne dracan lightning-strokes; and fiery
wæron gesewene on tham lifte dragons were seen flying in the
fleogende. Tham tacnum sona air. Upon these tokens quickly
fyligde mycel hunger . and litel followed a great famine:—and a
æfter tham . thæs ilcan geares . little thereafter, in that same
on vi Id. Janv. earmlice year, on January 8, pitifully did
hæthenra manna hergung the invasion of heathen men
adilegode Godes cyrican in devastate God’s church in
Lindisfarna ee . thurh hreaflac Lindisfarne Island, with
and mansliht . and Sicga plundering and manslaughter.
forthferde on viii Kl. Martius.” And Sicga died on Feb. 22.”

806. “Her se mona athystrode 806. “Here the moon eclipsed
on Kl. Septemb. and Eardwulf on Sept. 1; and Eardwulf, king
Northhymbra cyning wæs of his of the Northumbrians, was
rice adrifen . and Eanberht driven from his realm: and
Hagestaldes biscop forthferde.”

Eanberht, bishop of Hexham,
died.”

In these few selections the orthography shows occasional relics of the
northern dialect; and an expression here and there, such as “Ceaster” for
York, indicates the writer’s locality. Apart, however, from such traces, the
contents and the domestic interest would sufficiently declare the home of
these annals. They are specimens of the vernacular annals of the north,
which are now best seen in bulk in Simeon of Durham’s Latin Chronicle.

Our next example will serve to illustrate the free writing of an original
continuation. It is taken from the Winchester Chronicle (A). This Chronicle
exhibits, in the annals of 893-897, the first considerable piece of original
historical composition that we have in the vernacular. Indeed, we may say
that these pages, on the whole, contain the finest effort of early prose
writing that we possess. The quotation relates how Alfred set to work to
construct a navy:—

Thy ilcan geare drehton tha That same year the armies in
hergas on East Englum and on East Anglia and in
Northhymbrum West Seaxna Northhymbria distressed the
lond swithe be thæm suth stæthe land of the West Saxons very
. mid stæl hergum . ealra much about the south coast with
swithust mid thæm æscum the marauding invasions; most of all
hie fela geara ær timbredon. Tha with the “æscas” that they had
het Alfred cyng timbran lang built many years before. Then
scipu ongen tha æscas104 . tha king Alfred gave orders to build
wæron fulneah tu swa lange swa long ships against the “æscas;”
tha othru . sume hæfdon lx ara . those were well-nigh twice as
sume ma. Tha wæron ægther ge long as the others; some had 60
swiftran ge unwealtran . ge eac oars, some more. Those were

hieran thonne tha othru. Næron both swifter and steadier, and
nawther ne on Fresisc also higher than the others. They
gescæpene . ne on Denisc . bute were not shaped either on the
swa him selfum thuhte thæt hie Frisic or on the Danish model,
nytwyrthoste beon meahten. but as he himself considered
that they might be most
serviceable.

The most extensive original continuations are in the Peterborough
Chronicle (E). From one of these I quote the character of the Conqueror,
which accompanies the record of his death in 1086. The passage is
remarkable as containing the nearest approach to a discovery of authorship
that anywhere occurs in these Chronicles:—

Gif hwa gewilnigeth to gewitane If any one wishes to know what
hu gedon mann he wæs . oththe manner of man he was, or what
hwilcne wurthscipe he hæfde . dignity he had, or how many
oththe hu fela lande he wære lands he was lord of; then will
hlaford . Thonne wille we be we write of him as we
him awritan swa swa we hine apprehended him, who were
ageaton . the him onlocodan . wont to behold him, and at one
and othre hwile on his hirede time were resident at his court.
wunedon. Se cyng Willelm the The king William about whom
we embe specath wæs swithe we speak was a very wise man,
wis man . and swithe rice . and and very powerful; and more
wurthfulre and strengere thonne dignified and more authoritative
ænig his foregengra wære . He than any one of his predecessors
wæs milde tham godum was. He was gentle to those
mannum the God lufedon . and good men who loved God; and
ofer eall gemett stearc tham beyond all description stern to

mannum the withcwædon his those men who contradicted his
willan . On tham ilcan steode will. On that selfsame spot
the God him geuthe thæt he where God granted him that he
moste Engleland gegan . he might conquer England, he
arerde mære mynster . and reared a noble monastery, and
munecas thær gesætte . and hit monks he there enstalled, and
wæll gegodade . On his dagan well endowed the place. In his
wæs thæt mære mynster on days was the splendid minster in
Cantwarbyrig getymbrad . and Canterbury built, and also a
eac swithe manig other ofer eall great many others over all
Englaland . Eac this land wæs England. Also this land was
swithe afylled mid munecan . abundantly supplied with
and tha leofodan heora lif æfter monks; and they lived their life
sc̃ s Benedictus regule . and se after St. Benedict’s rule; and the
Cristendom wæs swilc on his state of Christianity was such in
dæge thæt ælc man hwæt his his time, that each man who was
hade to belumpe . folgade se the so disposed might follow that
wolde. Eac he wæs swythe which appertained to his order.
wurthful . thriwa he bær his Likewise he was very
cyne helm ælce geare . swa oft ceremonious:—three times he
swa he wæs on Englelande . on wore his crown every year (as
Eastron he hine bær on often as he was in England); at
Winceastre . on Pentecosten on Easter he wore it in Winchester,
Westmynstre . on mide wintre at Pentecost in Westminster, at
on Gleaweceastre . And thænne Christmas in Gloucester. And
wæron mid him ealle tha rice then there were with him all the
men ofer call Englaland . mighty men over all England;
arcebiscopas . and leodbiscopas archbishops and suffragan
. abbodas and eorlas . thegnas bishops, abbots and earls, thanes
and cnihtas . Swilce he wæs eac and knights. Withal he was

swythe stearc man and ræthe . moreover a very severe man and
swa thæt man ne dorste nan a violent; so that any one dared
thing ongean his willan don . He not to do anything against his
hæfde eorlas on his bendum the will. He had earls in his chains
dydan ongean his willan. who acted against his will.
Biscopas he sætte of heora Bishops he put out of their
biscoprice . and abbodas of bishoprick, and abbots from
heora abbodrice . and thægnas their abbacy, and thanes into
on cweartern . and æt nextan he prison; and at last he spared not
ne sparode his agenne brothor his own brother, who was
Odo het . he wæs swithe rice named Odo; who was a very
biscop on Normandige . on mighty bishop in Normandy; at
Baius wæs his biscopstol . and Baieux was his see, and he was
wæs manna fyrmest to eacan the first of men next to the king.
tham cynge.

These annals being all anonymous, every indication of the date of writing
excites interest. Under 643 the chronicler of B added a single word to what
he had before him (as we may presume) in his copy. That copy said that the
church at Winchester was built by order of King Cenwalh. The chronicler of
B says that the “old” church was built by Cenwalh. This harmonises
excellently with other indications of this Chronicle, by which it is made
probable that it was compiled in or about 977, when Bishop Æthelwold had
built a new church at Winchester.

In the Peterborough Chronicle, under 1041, the accession of Eadward is
accompanied by a benediction which indicates that the writer wrote near the
time, or at least before 1065. He says:—Healde tha hwile the him God unne
= May he continue so long as God may be pleased to grant to him! And the
half legible closing sentence of this Chronicle, in 1154, is a prayer of the

same kind for a new abbot of Peterborough, of whom it is said that “he hath
made a fair beginning.”

The Saxon Chronicles offer one of the best examples of history which has
grown proximately near to the events, of history written while the
impression made by the events was still fresh. It would be difficult to point
to any texts through which the taste for living history—history in immediate
contact with the events—can better be cultivated.

The Chronicles stretch over a long period of time. As to their contents, they
extend as a body of history from A.D. 449 to 1154—that is, exclusive of the
book-made annals that form a long avenue at the beginning, and start from
Julius Cæsar. The period covered by the age of the extant manuscripts is
hardly less than 300 years, from about A.D. 900 to about A.D. 1200. A large
number of hands must have wrought from time to time at their production,
and, as the work is wholly anonymous and void of all external marks of
authorship, the various and several contributions can only be determined by
internal evidence, and this offers a fine arena for the exercise and culture of
the critical faculty.

It is no small addition to the charm and value of these Chronicles that they
are in the mother tongue at several stages of its growth, and for the most
part in the best Anglo-Saxon diction. We have, moreover, the very soil of
the history under our feet, and this study would tend to invest our native
land with all the charm of classic ground.

The Chronicle form is the foundation of the structure of historical literature.
We are no longer content to study history now in one or two admirable
specimens of mature perfection, but rather we seek to know history as a
subject. All who have this aim must study Chronicles, and nowhere can this
kind of documentary record be found in a form preferable to that of the
Saxon Chronicles.

The Saxon Chronicles are sometimes said to be meagre; indeed, it has
almost become usual to speak of them as meagre. When such a term is used,
it makes all the difference whether it is made vaguely and at random, or
with meaning and discrimination. The Saxon Chronicles stretch over seven
centuries, from the middle of the fifth to the middle of the twelfth; and it
would indeed be wonderful if in such a series of annals there were not some
arid tracts. Certainly, there are meagre places, and it makes all the
difference whether a writer uses this epithet wisely or as a mere echo. In the
following quotation it is justly used:—“For the history of England in the
latter half of the tenth century we have, except the very meagre notices of
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, no contemporary materials, unless we admit
the Lives of the Saints of the Benedictine revival.”105 In the latter half of
the tenth century the Chronicles really are meagre, and it is a remarkable
fact, seeing that the period was one of revived literary activity.

This account of the Chronicles would be incomplete without the mention of
a small number of Latin histories which are naturally linked with them. The
Latin book of most mark in this connexion is Asser’s “Life of Alfred”—a
book that has long lain under a cloud of doubt, from which, however, it
seems to be gradually emerging. (A foolish interpolation about Oxford
which marred the second edition—that by Camden—has left a stigma on
the name.) It is not easy to answer all the adverse criticism of Mr. T. Wright;
but still I venture to think that the internal evidence corresponds to the
author’s name, that it was written at the time of, and by such a person as,
Alfred’s Welsh bishop. The evident acquaintance with people and with
localities, the bits of Welsh, the calling of the English uniformly “Saxons,”
all mark the Welshman who was at home in England. In the course of this
biography, which seems to have been left in an unfinished state, there is a
considerable extract from the Winchester Chronicles translated into Latin.

But the earliest Latin Chronicle which was founded on the Saxon
Chronicles is that of Æthelweard. He is apparently the “ealdorman
Æthelwerd,” to whom Ælfric addressed certain of his works; and he may be
the “Æthelwerd Dux” who signs charters, 976-998. His Chronicle closes
with the last year of Eadgar’s reign. He took much of his material from a
Saxon Chronicle, like that of Winchester, but he has also matter peculiar to
himself; and this raises a question whether he took such matter from a
Saxon Chronicle now lost. He is grandiloquent and turgid to an extent
which often obscures his meaning. In him we perceive all the word-
eloquence of Saxon poetry, striving to utter itself through the medium of a
Latinity at once crude and ambitious.106

The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester terminates with 1117; but a
continuator carried it on to 1141, making use of the Peterborough Chronicle
(E). The work of Florence is often identifiable with the Saxon Chronicles,
especially with that of Worcester (D). But he has good original insertions of
his own, as in his description of the election and coronation of Harold, on
which Mr. Freeman has dwelt, as a record intended to correct Norman
misrepresentation.

Simeon of Durham made large use of Florence, and he incorporated the
Northumbrian eighth-century Chronicle, of which a specimen has been
given above.

Henry of Huntingdon closed his annals at the same date as the latest of the
Saxon Chronicles, A.D. 1154. He is a historian of secondary rank, with
antiquarian tastes, a fondness for the Saxon Chronicles, and a special fancy
for the genealogies and the ballads. To him we owe the earliest known
mention of Stonehenge.

All these, except Asser and Æthelweard, are, as regards our Chronicles,
subsequent and derivative rather than collateral. They used the chronicles as

translators and compilers merely. The first who attempted something more
was William of Malmesbury. This remarkable writer (who in 1140 came
near to being elected Abbot of Malmesbury) was the first after Beda who
left the annal form, and aimed at a more comprehensive treatment of the
national history. He recognised the value of traditions from the Saxon times,
which in his day were still to be gathered, and it is by the incorporation of
such elements that his book has in some respects the character of a
supplement to the Saxon Chronicles.

We cannot but be struck with the isolation of the Saxon Chronicles. Great
literary products do not grow up alone; but they have, doubtless, a tendency
to create a solitude around them. Professor Stubbs apprehends such may
have been the case with these Chronicles. He has surmised that probably the
Chronicles had the same effect upon the previous schemes of history that
Higden’s “Polychronicon” had in the fourteenth century, that is to say, it
would have prevented the writing of new histories, and caused the neglect
or destruction of the old.107

10 Lappenberg, “Geschichte,” Introduction, p. xlviii.; referring to Hickes’
3 “Thesaurus,” iii., 288; and the preface to Smith’s edition of Bede. That lover of
English history, Dr. Reinhold Pauli, in the Göttingen “Gelehrt. Anzeig.” for 1866, p.
1407, suggested that the whole mediæval institution of annal-writing came from
Northumbria, and was carried on the mission-path of the Saxons into Frankland and
Germany, and there produced the fine Carlovingian series.
10 The “æscas” were the light and speedy galleys of the Danes.
4
10 Professor Stubbs, “Memorials of Saint Dunstan,” Rolls Series, p. ix.
5
10 Reinhold Pauli, “Life of Alfred,” anno 877, note.
6
10 Preface to “Chronica Rogeri de Hoveden,” Rolls Series, p. xi.
7

CHAPTER IX.
ALFRED’s TRANSLATIONS.

Around the great name of Alfred many attributes have gathered and
clustered, some of which are true, some exaggerated, some impossible. It is
quite unhistorical that Alfred divided the country into shires and hundreds,
or that he instituted trial by jury, or that he founded the University of
Oxford. Under the shadow of great names myths are apt to spring, that is to
say, unconscious authorless inventions, growing up of themselves round
any person or thing which happens to be the subject of much talk and little
knowledge. Had the conditions been favourable in England as they were in
France, the myths about Alfred might have grouped into an epic cycle, as
those about Charlemagne did; and, had the eleventh century produced a
great heroic poem analogous to the “Chanson de Roland,” it would have
formed a graceful and much-needed coping to the now too disjointed pile of
Anglo-Saxon literature.

But, when we come to Alfred’s literary achievements, we find no tendency
to exaggerate or embellish the sober truth. His hand is manifest in the Laws,
and strongly surmised in the Chronicles. In both these vernacular products
we find a new start, a fresh impulse, under Alfred. But that which stamps a
peculiar character on his Translations is that here we discern a new stride in

the elevation of the native language to literary rank. Latin was no longer to
be the sole medium of learning and education.

The learned language had almost perished out of the island where it had
once so eminently flourished. In the north the seats of learning had been
demolished; and the monasteries of Wessex, their first use as mission-
stations having been discharged, had become secularised in their habits, and
had not become seats or seminaries of learning. Alfred found no one in his
ancestral kingdom who could aid him in the work of revival. Like Charles
the Great, he looked everywhere for scholars, and drew them to his court. In
Mercia, the land adjoining scholastic Anglia, he found a few learned men—
Werferth, bishop of Worcester; Plegmund, who was elected (A.D. 890)
archbishop of Canterbury, and two of obscurer name;108 he drew Grimbald
from Gaul, and John from Old Saxony; Asser, from whose pen we know
about these scholars, came to him from South Wales. With the help of such
men Alfred gave a new impulse to literature, not as Charles had done, in
Latin merely, but as much, or even more, in his own vernacular.

We must not look upon his translations as if they were only makeshifts to
convey the matter of famous books to those who could not read the
originals. Alfred deplored the low state of Latin,—but then he could
substitute his own language for it, and that not merely because he must, but
also because the very scarcity of Latin had favoured the culture of English.
For it was in no dull or stagnant time that Wessex had let Latin wane; it was
in that vigorous stage of youth and growth when Wessex was fitting herself
to take an imperial place at home and raise her head among the nations. In
almost all the transactions of life, public and private, where Latin was used
in other countries, the West Saxons had for a long time used their own
tongue, and hence it came to pass that, when Alfred sought to restore
education and literature, he found a language nearer to him than the Latin,

and one which was fit, if not to supersede the Latin, yet to be coupled along
with it in the work of national instruction.

Of all Alfred’s translations, the foremost place is due to that of Gregory’s
“Pastoral Care.”109 Both internally and externally it is honoured with marks
of distinction. The translation is executed with a peculiar care, and a copy
was to be sent to every See in the kingdom. The very copy that was destined
for Worcester is preserved in the Bodleian; and there it may be seen by any
passing visitor, lying open (under glass) at the page with the Worcester
address, and the bishop’s name (Wærferth) inserted in the salutation. The
copy that was addressed to Hehstan, bishop of London, is not extant; but a
transcript of it, written (in Wanley’s opinion) before the Conquest, is in the
Cotton Library, or so much of it as the fire has left. The Public Library at
Cambridge has a representative of the copy which was addressed to
Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne. Another Cotton manuscript, which was
almost consumed (Tiberius, B. xi.), had happily been described by Wanley
before the fire. In this book the place for the bishop’s name was blank; and
there was this marginal note on the first leaf: ✠ Plegmunde arcebisc’. is
agifen his boc. and Swiðulfe bisc’. ⁊ Werferðe bisc’., i.e., Plegmund,
archbishop, has received his book, and Swithulf, bishop, and Werferth,
bishop.110 This book, therefore, of which only fragments now remain, was
like the Hatton manuscript in the Bodleian, one of Alfred’s originals.

Thus the Bodleian book (Hatton 20, formerly 88), for originality and
integrity remains unique; and from it we quote the opening part of Alfred’s
prefatory epistle:—

Deos boc sceal to wiogora This Book is to go to
ceastre. Worcester.
Ælfred Kyning hateth gretan Alfred, king, commandeth to
Wærferth biscep his wordum greet Wærferth, bishop, with his

luflice and freondlice; and the words in loving and friendly
cythan hate thæt me com swithe wise: and I would have you
oft on gemynd, hwelce wiotan informed that it has often come
iu wæron gyond Angelcynn, into my remembrance, what
ægther ge godcundra hada ge wise men there formerly were
woruldcundra; and hu among the Angle race, both of
gesæliglica tida tha wæron the sacred orders and the
giond Angelcynn; and hu tha secular: and how happy times
kyningas gas the thone ónwald those were throughout the Angle
hæfdon thæs folces on tham race; and how the kings who
dagum Gode and his had the government of the folk
ærendwrecum hersumedon; and in those days obeyed God and
hie ægther ge hiora sibbe ge his messengers; and they, on the
hiora siodo ge hiora ónweald one hand, maintained their
innanbordes gehioldon, and eac peace, and their customs and
út hiora ethel gerymdon; and hu their authority within their
him tha speow ægther ge mid borders, while at the same time
wige ge mid wisdome; and eac they spread their territory
tha godcundan hadas hu giorne outwards; and how it then went
hie wæron ægther ge ymb lare well with them both in war and
ge ymb liornunga, ge ymb ealle in wisdom; and likewise the
tha thiowotdomas the hie Gode sacred orders, how earnest they
scoldon; and hu man utanbordes were, as well as teaching us
wisdom and lare hieder ón londe about learning, and about all the
sohte, and hu we hie nu services that they owed to God;
sceoldon ute begietan gif we hie and how people from abroad
habban sceoldon. Swæ clæne came to this land for wisdom
hio wæs othfeallenu ón and instruction; and how we
Angelcynne thæt swithe feawa now should have to get them
wæron behionan Humbre the abroad if we were going to have

hiora theninga cuthen them. So clean was it fallen
understondan on Englisc, oththe away in the Angle race, that
furthum án ærendgewrit of there were very few on this side
Lædene on Englisc areccean; Humber who would know how
and ic wene thæt noht monige to render their services into
begiondan Humbre næren. Swæ English; and I ween that not
feawa hiora wæron thæt ic many would be on the other side
furthum anne ánlepne ne mæg Humber. So few of them were
gethencean besuthan Temese tha there that I cannot think of so
tha ic to rice feng. Gode much as a single one south of
ælmihtegum sie thonc thæt we Thames when I took to the
nu ænigne ón stal habbath realm. God Almighty be
lareowa. thanked that we have now any
teachers in office.

The king goes on to say that he remembered how, before the general
devastation, the churches were well stocked with books, and how there
were plenty, too, of clergy, but they were not able to make much use of the
books, because the culture of learning had been neglected. Their
predecessors of a former generation had been learned, but now the clergy
had fallen into ignorance. Wherefore, it seemed that there was no remedy
but to have the books translated into the language they understood. And this
(the king reflected) was according to precedent; for the Old Testament was
first written in Hebrew, and then the Greeks in their time translated it into
their speech, and subsequently the Romans did the like for themselves. And
all other Christian nations had translated some Scriptures into their own
language.

Forthy me thincth betre, gif iow Therefore to me it seemeth
swæ thincth, thæt we eac sumæ better, if it seemeth so to you,

bec, tha the niedbethearfostæ that we also some books, those
sien eallum monnum to that most needful are for all men
wiotonne, thæt we tha on thæt to be acquainted with, that we
gethiode wenden the we ealle turn those into the speech which
gecnawan mægen, and ge don we all can understand, and that
swæ we swithe eathe magon ye do as we very easily may
mid Godes fultume, gif we tha with God’s help, if we have the
stilnesse habbath, thæt eal sio requisite peace, that all the
gioguth the nu is on Angelcynne youth which now is in England
friora monna, thara the tha of free men, of those who have
speda hæbben thæt hie thæm the means to be able to go in for
befeolan mægen, sien to it, be set to learning, while they
liornunga othfæste, tha hwile are fit for no other business,
the hie to nanre otherre note ne until such time as they can
mægen, oth thone first the hie thoroughly read English writing:
wel cunnen Englisc gewrit afterwards further instruction
arædan: lære mon siththan may be given in the Latin
furthur on Læden gethiode tha language to such as are intended
the mon furthor læran wille and for a more advanced education,
to hieran hade don wille. Tha ic and to be prepared for higher
tha gemunde hu sio lar Læden office. As I then reflected how
gethiodes ær thissum afeallen the teaching of the Latin
wæs giond Angelcynn, and language had recently decayed
theah monige cuthon Englisc throughout this people of the
gewrit arædan, tha ongan ic on Angles, and yet many could
gemang othrum mislicum and read English writing, then began
manigfealdum bisgum thisses I among other various and
kynerices tha boc wendan on manifold businesses of this
Englisc the is genemned on kingdom to turn into English the
Læden Pastoralis, and on book that is called “Pastoralis”

Englisc Hierde boc, hwilum in Latin, and “Shepherding
word be worde, hwilum andgit Book” in English, sometimes
of andgite, swæ swæ ic hie word for word, sometimes sense
geliornode æt Plegmunde for sense, just as I learned it of
minum ærcebiscepe and æt Plegmund, my archbishop, and
Assere minum biscepe and æt of Asser, my bishop, and of
Grimbolde minum mæsse Grimbald, my priest, and of
prioste and æt Johanne minum John, my priest. After that I had
mæsse prioste. Siththan ic hie learned it, so as I understood it,
tha gelornod hæfde swæ swæ ic and as I it with fullest meaning
hie forstod, and swæ ic hie could render, I translated it into
andgitfullicost areccean meahte, English; and to each see in my
ic hie on Englisc awende; and to kingdom I will send one; and in
ælcum biscepstole on minum each there is an “æstel,” which
rice wille ane onsendan; and on is of the value of 50 mancusses.
ælcre bith an æstel, se bith on And I command in the name of
fiftegum mancessa. Ond ic God that no man remove the
bebiode on Godes naman thæt “æstel” from the book, nor the
nan mon thone æstel from thære book from the minster. No one
bec ne do, ne tha boc from thæm knows how long such learned
mynstre. Uncuth hu longe thær bishops may be there, as now,
swæ gelærede biscepas sien, thank God! there are in several
swæ swæ nu Gode thonc wel places; and therefore I would
hwær siendon; forthy ic wolde that they (the books) should
thæt hie ealneg æt thære stowe always be at the place; unless
wæren, buton se biscep hie mid the bishop should wish to have
him habban wille oththe hio it with him, or it should be
hwær to læne sie, oththe hwa anywhere on loan, or any one
othre biwrite. should be writing another copy.

Here we have a direct statement that the “Pastoral” was translated by King
Alfred himself, after a course of study in which he had been assisted by
Plegmund, Asser, Grimbald, and John. His interest in this book seems to
show that his estimate of it was something like that of Ozanam, who said
that Gregory’s “Pastoral Care” determined the character of the Christian
hierarchy, and formed the bishops who formed the nations.

Gregory’s “Dialogues,” on the contrary, were translated, not by the king,
but by Werferth, bishop of Worcester, as we are informed by Asser.111 This
translation is extant in manuscripts, but it has not yet been edited. It is,
perhaps, the most considerable piece of Anglo-Saxon literature that yet
remains to be made public. And it is striking, though not unaccountable,
that a book which was one of the most popular ever written,112 which
retained its popularity for centuries, and which has left behind it in literature
and in popular Christian ethics bold traces of its influence, should, in the
modern revival of Anglo-Saxon, have been so long neglected. As this book
is practically inaccessible, and as it was moreover a book peculiarly
germane and congenial to the average intelligence of these times, it seems
to claim a somewhat fuller notice.

Here, as in other translations, the king wrote a few words of preface.

Ic Ælfred gyfendum Criste mid I, Alfred, by the grace of Christ,
cynehades mærnesse dignified with the honour of
geweorthad hæbbe cuthlice royalty, have distinctly
ongiten, and thurh haligra boca understood, and through the
rædunge oft gehyred . thæt us reading of holy books have
tham God swa micele often heard, that of us to whom
healicnysse woruld gethingtha God hath given so much
forgifen hæfth . is seo mæste eminence of worldly distinction,
thearf thæt we hwilon ure mod it is specially required that we

gelithian and gebigian to tham from time to time should subdue
godcundum and gastlicum rihte and bend our minds to the
. betweoh thas eorthlican divine and spiritual law, in the
carfulnysse . and ic fortham midst of this earthly anxiety;
sohte and wilnode to minum and I accordingly sought and
getrywum freondum thæt hy me requested of my trusty friends
of Godes bocum be haligra that they for me out of pious
manna theawum and wundrum books about the conversation
awriton thas æfterfyligendan and miracles of holy men would
lare . thæt ic thurh tha transcribe the instruction that
mynegunge and lufe getrymmed hereinafter followeth; that I,
on minum mode hwilum through the admonition and love
gehicge tha heofenlican thing being strengthened in my mind,
betweoh thas eorthlican may now and then contemplate
gedrefednyssa . Cuthlice we the heavenly things in the midst
magan nu æt ærestan gehyran of these earthly troubles. Plainly
hu se eadiga and se apostolica we can now at first hear how the
wer Scs Gregorius spræc to his blessed and apostolic man St.
diacone tham wæs nama Petrus . Gregory spake to his deacon
be haligra manna thæawum and whose name was Peter, about
life, to lare and to bysne eallum the manners and life of holy
tham the Godes willan wyrceath men for instruction and for
. and he be him silfum thisum example to all those who are
wordum and thus cwæth:— working the will of God; and he
spake about himself with these
words and in this manner:—

Sumon113 dæge hit gelamp thæt On a certain day it happened
ic wæs swythe geswenced mid that I was very much harassed
tham geruxlum and with the contentions and worries
uneathnessum sumra of certain secular cares, in the

woruldlicra ymbhegena . for discharge of this episcopal
tham underfenge thyses function. In secular offices we
bisceoplican folgothes . On are very often compelled to do
tham woruld scirum we beoth the things that we well enough
full oft geneadode thæt we doth know we ought not to do. Then
tha thing the us is genoh cuth my desire turned towards that
thæt we na ne sceoldon . Tha retired place where I formerly
gelyste me thære diglan stowe was in the monastery. That is the
the ic ær on wæs on mynstre . friend of sorrow, because a man
seo is thære gnornunge freond . can always best think over his
fortham man simle mæg his grief and his wrong, if he is
sares and his unrihtes mæst alone in retirement. There
gethencean gif he ana bith on everything plainly showed itself
digolnysse . Thær me openlice to me, whatever disquieted me
æt ywde hit sylf eall swa hwæt about my own occupation; and
swa me mislicode be minre there, before the eyes of my
agenre wisan . and thær beforan heart distinctly came all the
minre heortan eagan swutollice practical wrongs which were
comon ealle tha gedonan unriht wont to bring upon me grief and
the gewunedon thæt hi me sar sorrow. Accordingly, while I
and sorge ongebrohton. was there sitting in great
Witodlice tha tha ic thær sæt oppression and long silence,
swithe geswenced and lange there came to me my beloved
sorgende . tha com me to min se son Peter the deacon, who, from
leofesta sunu Petrus diacon se his early youth, with friendly
fram frymthe his iugothhades love was intimately attached and
mid freondlicre lufe wæs bound to me; and he was ever
hiwcuthlice to me getheoded my companion in the study of
and getogen . and he simle wæs sacred lore. And he then looking
min gefera to smeaunge haligre on me saw that I was oppressed

lare . and he tha lociende on me with the heavy grief of my
geseah thæt ic wæs geswenced heart, and he thus said to me,
mid hefigum sare minre heortan “Ah, sire, hath anything new
. and he thus cwæth to me, “La happened to thee, by reason of
leof gelamp the ænig thing which thou hast more grief than
niwes . for hwan hafast thu was formerly thy wont?” Then
maran gnornunge thonne hit ær said I to him, “Alas, Peter, the
gewunelic wære?” Tha cwæth ic grief which I daily endure it is
to him, “Eala Petrus seo to me always old for use and
gnornung the ic dæghwamlice wont; and it is to me always
tholie symle heo is me eald for new through the increase of it.”
gewunan . and simle heo is me
niwe thurh eacan.”

The edifying stories are sometimes as grotesque as the strangest carvings
about a mediæval edifice:—

A nun,114 walking in the convent garden, took a fancy to eat a leaf of
lettuce, and she ate, without first making the sign of the cross over it.
Presently she was found to be possessed. At the approach of the abbot, the
fiend protested it was not his fault; that he had been innocently sitting on a
lettuce, and she ate him.115

In the Dialogues we recognise that peculiar ideal of sanctity which we
identify not so much with Christianity as with mediæval Christianity. The
bright samples of Christian virtues are too like those types which have
afforded material to caricature. For example, Æquitius, the good abbot,
whose virtues adorn a series of narratives, practises in the following manner
the virtue of humility:—

Sothlice he wæs swithe waclic Moreover, he was very mean in
on his gewædum and swa his clothing, and so abject, that
forsewenlic thæt, theah hwilc though any one met him (of
man him ongean come the hine those who knew him not), and
ne cuthon, and he thone mid he greeted him with words, he
wordum gegrette, he wæs was so despised that he was not
forsewen thæt he næs ongean greeted in return; and as often as
gegreted; and swa oft swa he to he would travel to other places,
othrum stowum faran wolde, then was it his custom to sit on
thonne wæs his theaw thæt he the horse that he could find the
wolde sittan on tham horse the most despicable in the abbey, on
he on tham mynstre forcuthost which, moreover, he used a
findan mihte, on tham eac he halter for a bridle, and
breac hælftre for bridele, and sheepskins for saddle.
wethera fella for sadele.

Constantius was the name of a sacristan who completely despised all
worldly goods, and his fame was spread abroad. On one occasion, when
there was no oil for the lamps, he filled them with water, and they gave light
just as if it had been oil. Visitors were attracted by the report of his sanctity.
Once a countryman came from a distance (com feorran sum ceorl) to see a
man of whom so much was said. When he came into the church,
Constantius was on a ladder trimming the lamps. He was an under-grown,
slight-built, shabby figure. The countryman inquired which was
Constantius; and, being told, was so shocked and disappointed, that he
spoke sneeringly, “I expected to see a fine man, and this is not a man at
all!”

Mid tham the se Godes wer When Constantius the man of
Constantius tha this gehyrde, he God heard this, he forthwith in

sona swithe blithe forlet tha great joy left the lamps he was
leoht fatu the he behwearf, and attending to, and nimbly
hrædlice nyther astah and thone descended and embraced the
ceorl beclypte and mid countryman, and with exceeding
swithlicre lufe ongann mid his love began to hold him in his
earmum hinc clyppan and arms, and kiss him, and heartily
cyssan and him swithe thancian, thank him, that he had so judged
thæt he swa be him gedemde, of him; and thus he quoth:
and thus cwæth: “Thu ana —“Thou alone hadst opened
hæfdest ontynde eagan on me eyes upon me, and thou didst
and me mid rihte oncneowe.” rightly know me.”

Our next and last example is a story of a well-known type, and perhaps the
oldest extant instance of it:—

Eac on othrum timan hit gelamp Also at another time it happened
thæt him to becom for that there came to him for a
geneosunge thingon swa swa his visit, as his custom was,
theaw wæs Servandus se diacon Servandus, the deacon and
and abbod thæs mynstres the abbot of the monastery that
Liberius se ealdormann in Liberius the patrician had
getimbrode on suth formerly built in South
Langbeardena landes dælum. Lombardy (in Campaniæ
Witodlice he geneosode partibus). In fact, he used to
Benedictes mynster gelomlice . visit Benedict’s monastery
to tham thæt hi him betwynon frequently, to the end that in
gemænelice him on aguton tha each other’s company they
swetan lifes word . and thone might be mutually refreshed
wynsuman mete thæs with the sweet words of life, and
heofonlican etheles . thone hi the delectable food of the

tha gyta fullfremedlice heavenly country, which they
geblissiende thicgean ne mihton could not, as yet, with perfect
. huru thinga hi hine geomriende bliss enjoy, but at least they did
onbyrigdon . for tham the se in aspiration taste it, inasmuch
ylca wer Servandus eac fleow as the said Servandus was
on lare heofonlicre gife. likewise abounding in the lore
Sothlice tha tha eallunga becom of heavenly grace. When,
se tima hyra reste and stillnysse however, at length the time was
. tha gelogode se arwurtha come for their rest and repose,
Benedictus hine sylfne on sumes the venerable Benedict was
stypeles upflora . and Servandus lodged in the upper floor of a
se diacon gereste hine on thære tower, and Servandus the
nyther flore thæs ylcan stypeles deacon rested in the nether floor
. and wæs on thære ylcan stowe of the same tower; and there
trumstæger mid gewissum was in the same place a solid
stapum fram thære nyther flora staircase with plain steps, from
to thære up flora. Wæs eac æt the nether floor to the upper
foran tham ylcan stypele sum floor. There was, moreover, in
rum hus . on tham hyra begra front of the same tower a
gingran hi gereston . Tha tha se spacious house, in which slept
drihtnes wer Benedictus the disciples of them both.
behogode thone timan his When, now, Benedict, the man
nihtlican gebedes tham of God, was keeping the time of
brothrum restendum . tha gestod his nightly prayer during the
he thurhwacol æt anum brethren’s rest, then stood he all
eahthyrle biddende thone vigilant at a window praying to
ælmihtigan drihten . and tha the Almighty Lord; and then
færinga on tham timan thære suddenly, in that time of the
nihte stillnysse him ut nocturnal stillness, as he looked
lociendum geseah he ufan out, he saw a light sent from on

onsended leoht afligean ealle tha high disperse all the darkness of
nihtlican thystru . and mid swa the night, and shine with a
micelre beorhtnesse scinan thæt brightness so great that the light
thæt leoht the thær lymde which then gleamed in the midst
betweoh tham thystrum wæs of the darkness was brighter
beorhtre thonne dæges leoht. than the light of day. Lo then, in
Hwæt tha on thysre sceawunge this sight a very wonderful thing
swythe wundorlic thing æfter followed next, as he himself
fyligde . swa swa he sylf afterwards related; that even all
syththan rehte . thæt eac eall the world, as if placed under one
middaneard swylce under anum ray of the sun, was displayed
sunnan leoman gelogod . wære before his eyes. When, now, the
be foran his eagan gelæded . venerable father had fastened
Tha tha se arwurtha fæder his the intent observation of his
eagena atihtan scearpnysse eyes on the brightness of that
gefæstnode on thære shining light, then saw he angels
beorhtnesse thæs scinendan conveying in a fiery group into
leohtes . tha geseah he englas heaven the soul of Germanus,
ferian on fyrenum cliwene in to who was bishop of the city
heofenum Gérmanes sawle . se Capua. He desired then to
wæs bisceop Capuane thære secure to himself a witness of so
ceastre . He wolde tha gelangian great a wonder, and he called
him sylfum sumne gewitan swa Servandus the deacon twice and
miceles wundres. and thrice; and repeatedly he named
Servandum thone diacon his name with a loud
clypode tuwa and thriwa . and exclamation. Servandus then
ofthrædlice his naman nemde was disturbed at the unusual
mid hreames micelnysse. outcry of the honoured man, and
Servandus tha wearth gedrefed he mounted the stairs and
for tham ungewunelican hreame looked as directed, and he saw

swa mæres weres . and he up verily a small portion of that
astah and thider locode . and light. And, as the deacon was
geseah eallunga lytelne dæl thæs then amazed for so great a
leohtes. Tham diacone tha wonder, the man of God related
wafiendum for thus mycelum to him in order the things that
wundre . se Godes wer be had there happened; and
endebyrdnysse gerehte tha thing forthwith he sent orders to the
the thær gewordene wæron . and faithful man Theoprobus in
on Casino tham stoc wic tham Casinum the chief house, that he
eawfæstan were Theoprobo thær in the self-same night should
rihte bebead . thæt he on thære send a man to the city of Capua,
ylcan nihte asende sumne mann and should ascertain and report
to Capuanan thære byri . and to him what had happened about
gewiste and him eft gecythde Germanus the bishop. Then it
hwæt wære geworden be came to pass that he who was
Germane tham bisceope. Tha thither sent found that the
wæs geworden thæt se the venerable man, Germanus the
thyder asended wæs gemette bishop had indeed died; and he
eallunga forthferedne thone then cautiously enquiring,
arwurthan wer Germanum discovered that his departure
bisceop . and he tha was at that very time that the
smeathancollice axiende on man of God had witnessed his
cneow thæt his forsith wæs on ascent to heaven.
tham ylcan tyman the se
drihtnes wer oncneow his
upstige to heofenum.

Petrus cwæth: “This is swithe Peter said: “This is a very
wundorlic thing and thearle to wonderful thing, and greatly to
wafienne.” Book ii., c. 35. be marvelled at.”

In the translation of the “Comfort of Philosophy,” the translator makes his
greatest effort and exerts the utmost capabilities of his language. He is not
bound by any verbal fidelity to his author; he rather adapts the book to his
own use and mental exercitation. In the original the author is visited in
affliction by Philosophy, and with this heavenly visitant a dialogue ensues,
interspersed with choral odes. Alfred sinks the First Person of the author,
and makes the dialogue run between Heavenly Wisdom and the Mind (thæt
Môd).

The choral odes (generally called the Metres of Boethius) must have been
very hard for Alfred to translate, and they are done somewhat vaguely. We
have them in two translations, one in prose and the other in verse. There is
no doubt that the poetical version was made from the prose version, without
any fresh reference to the Latin. The two are often verbally identical, with a
little change in the order of words, and some necessary additions to satisfy
the alliteration, or fill out the poetic rhythm. It was long ago observed by
Hickes that the style of these poems differed little from prose; but it was
Mr. Thomas Wright who first noticed that they were, in fact, merely a
versified arrangement of the prose translation.

The same critic gave reasons for thinking that the versified metres were by
some later hand, and not by King Alfred. This has been recently the subject
of a very interesting discussion in the German periodical “Anglia,” it being
maintained by Dr. M. Hartmann that they are by Alfred, and the opposite
view (that of Mr. T. Wright) being advocated by Dr. A. Leicht.

When the Boethian metres make their appearance in Anglo-Saxon poetic
dress, they are considerably expanded. The original prose translation is
itself expansive, because the poetry of Boethius is exceedingly terse, and
cannot be rendered into readable prose without enlargement. The work of
the Saxon versifier is attended with further expansion, because of the
mechanical exigencies of the poetic form.

The twentieth metre (iii. 9) offers an extreme case of this kind. Here the
original consists of twenty-six hexameters, and the Anglo-Saxon poem has
281 long lines. In this case, however, the poetic expansion is not wholly
mechanical; the poet has made some real additions to the thought. The chief
of these is a new simile, in which the poising of the Earth in space is
illustrated by the yolk of an egg. The prose translation runs thus:—

Thu gestatholadest eorthan Thou hast established the earth
swithe wundorlice and fæstlice very wondrously and firmly that
thæt he ne helt on nane healfe . it does not heel116 over on any
ne on nanum eorthlic thinge ne side: and yet it stands not on any
stent ne nanwuht eorthlices hi earthly thing, nor does anything
ne healt . thæt hio ne sige . and earthly hold it up that it sink
nis hire thonne ethre to not; and yet it is no easier for it
feallanne of dune thonne up. to fall down than up.

The poetic version enlarges as follows:—

Thu gestatholadest Thou didst establish
thurh tha strongan meaht through strong might
weroda wuldor cyning glorious king of hosts
wunderlice wonderfully
eorthan swa fæste the earth so fast
thæt hio on ænige that she on any
healfe ne heldeth side heeleth not
ne mæg hio hider ne thider nor can hither or thither
sigan the swithor any more decline
the hio symle dyde. than she ever did.
Hwæt hi theah eorthlices Lo nothing earthly though
auht ne haldeth at all sustains her,
is theah efn ethe it is equally easy

up and of dune upwards and downwards
to feallanne that there should be a fall
foldan thisse: of this earth:
thæm anlicost likest to that
the on æge bith which we see in an egg;
geoleca on middan the yolk in the midst
glideth hwæthre and yet gliding free
æg ymbutan . the egg round about.
Swa stent eall weoruld So standeth the world
still on tille still in its place,
streamas ymbutan while streaming around,
lagufloda gelac water-floods play,
lyfte and tungla welkin and stars,
and sio scire scell and the shining shell
scritheth ymbutan circleth about
dogora gehwilce. day by day now
dyde lange swa. as it did long ago.

The translation of Orosius embodies a considerable piece of original matter.
Orosius had given, in the opening of his work, a geographical sketch of
Europe and Asia. In the translation a large addition is made to the
geography of Europe, and it was an addition not merely to this book, but (so
far as appears) to the stock of existing geographical knowledge. This
insertion consists of three parts, 1. A map-like description of Central
Europe; 2. Narrative of Ohthere, who had voyaged round the North Cape; 3.
Voyage of Wulfstan from Denmark along the southern and eastern coasts of
the Baltic. Ohthere’s Narrative is connected with King Alfred by name:
—“Ohthere sæde his hlaforde Ælfrede kynincge thæt he ealra Northmanna
northmest bude,” i.e., Ohthere said to his lord, King Alfred, that he of all
Northmen had the most northerly home.

The translation of Beda skips lightly over much of the twenty-two
preliminary chapters, giving good measure, however, to the description of
Britain and to the martyrdom of St. Alban. All about Gregory and Augustine
is full. So also about Eadwine, Oswald, Aidan, Oswy, and St. Chad. (But all
that famous section (iii. 25, 26) which describes the crisis between the
churches, the synod of Whitby, and the Scotian departure, is omitted
altogether). Full measure is given to Theodore, the synod of Hertford,
Wilfrid, Queen Ætheldrith, Hilda, and Cædmon. So also Cuthbert and John
of Hexham. Fully rendered are the failure of the Irish and the success of the
Anglian missions to Germany; also the visions which we may call
Dantesque. (The whole section about Adamnan’s influence and writings (v.
15, 16, 17) is omitted.) But about Aldhelm and his writings; also Daniel,
bishop of Winchester; the end of Wilfrid; and about Albinus, the successor
of Adrian, is fully rendered.

The Anglo-Saxon Gospels must be mentioned here. This is a book about
which we have no external information, and the manuscripts are
comparatively late. But the diction leads us to place it in or about the times
of Alfred.

It is probable that the “Beowulf” is the product of the same reign; while the
volume of sacred poetry that is designated by the name of “Cædmon”
appears (at least the first part of it) to be either of this time or possibly older.

If with the above we embrace in our view the Laws of this reign and the
evidence of contemporary work in the Chronicles, we must be struck with
the extent of this great muster of native literature. But we shall hardly do it
justice unless we remember that this is the first national display of the kind
in the progress of modern Europe. Native poetry had been cultivated in the
Anglian period, and there had been a vernacular apparatus to assist the
study of Latin, but of a varied and comprehensive literature in English or
any other European vernacular, we find no trace until now. We must not

look upon Alfred’s translations as mere helps to the Latin. What with the
freedom and independence of treatment, and what with the original
additions, they have a large claim to the character of domestic products. The
very scheme itself, that of using translation as a medium of culture, which is
now so familiar to us, was then quite a novel idea. In his preface to the
“Pastoral,” the king casts about for precedents, and he finds none but the
translations of Scripture into Greek and into Latin, and these do not, in fact,
make a true parallel. But he could hardly have used this argument without a
conscious pride that he had in his mother tongue an instrument not
unpractised, and not altogether unworthy to be the first of barbarian
languages to tread in the footsteps of the Greek and Latin.

This, then (I comprise the matter of three previous chapters and of three that
are to follow) is the “Anglo-Saxon”117 literature, properly so called; for that
expression, if used with technical exactness, affords a term of distinction for
the later literature of the south as against the earlier literature of the north,
which has been called the Anglian period.

10 Asser’s “Life of Alfred,” in “Monumenta Historica Britannica,” 487a.
8
10 It was published for the first time in 1871, being edited by Mr. Sweet for the Early
9 English Text Society.

11 Wanley’s “Catalogue,” p. 217.
0
11 “Monumenta Historica Britannica,” 486 E.
1
11 “The ‘dialogues’ were printed as early as the year 1458.”—T. D. Hardy in Willelmi
2 Malm. “Gesta Regum,” i., 189.

11 Here Gregory begins. The translation sometimes deviates from the text:—“Quadam
3 die nimis quorundam sæcularium tumultibus depressus, quibus in suis negotiis
plerumque cogimur solvere etiam quod nos certum est non debere, secretum locum
petii amicum mæroris, ubi omne quod de mea mihi occupatione displicebat, se
patenter ostenderet, et cuncta quæ infligere dolorem consueverant, congesta ante
oculos licenter venirent. Ibi itaque cum afflictus valde et diu tacitus sederem,
dilectissimus filius meus Petrus diaconus adfuit, mihi a primævo juventutis flore
amicitiis familiariter obstrictus, atque ad sacri verbi indagationem socius. Qui gravi
excoqui cordis languore me intuens, ait: Num quidnam tibi aliquid accidit, quod

plus te solito mæror tenet? Cui inquam: Mæror, Petre, quem quotidie patior, et
semper mihi per usum vetus est, et semper per augmentum novus.”
11 An nunne. This word is of two syllables; there is no silent e final in Anglo-Saxon.
4
11 Ic sæt me on anum leahtrice, tha com heo and bát me!
5
11 See Skeat, “Etym. Dict.,” v. “heel” (2).
6
11 This term appears in charters of the tenth century; also Asser styles the king
7 “Ælfred Angulsaxonum rex,” “Mon. Hist. Brit.,” 483 C. See Freeman, “Norman
Conquest,” vol. i., Appendix A.

CHAPTER X.
ÆLFRIC.

Alfred died in 901. From this to the Norman Conquest there are 165 years,
and the middle of this period is characterised by the works of the greatest of
Anglo-Saxon prose-writers.

The productions of Alfred and the scholars that surrounded him, are to be
understood as extraordinary efforts, and as beacons to raise men’s minds
rather than as specimens of the state of learning in the country, or even as
monuments of attainments that were likely soon to become general.
Although the literary movement under Alfred was so far sustained that it
did not subsequently die out, yet it would perhaps be too much to say that
he achieved a complete revival of learning. In the inert state of the religious
houses, the soil was unprepared. Still, a taste was kindled which continued
to propagate itself until the time when the religious houses became active
seats of education. This did not happen until the second half of the tenth
century, when the reform of the monasteries by Æthelwold and Dunstan
produced that great educational and literary movement of which the
representative name is Ælfric.

The impetus which Alfred had imparted did not cease with his life. If we
look into the Chronicles, we see that the Alfredian style of work is
continued down to the death of his son Edward, in 924, and that from that

point the stream of history dwindles and becomes meagre. This may be
typical of what happened over a wider surface. The impulse given to
translation may be supposed to have continued, and we may specify two
translations likely to have been made at this time. These are the Four
Gospels118 and the poetical Psalter.119

A feature of the Gospels is that the name of Jesus is regarded as a
descriptive title, and subjected to translation. It never appears in its original
form, but always as “Se Hælend”—that is, The Healer, The Saviour.

To this period, the first half of the tenth century, must be assigned some
translations of another sort. There are some considerable remains of a
translating period that gave to the English reader a mass of apocryphal,
romantic, fantastic, and even heretical reading; and that period can hardly
be any other than this. I imagine that now as a consequence of the new
literary interest awakened by King Alfred, many old book-chests were
explored, and things came to light which had been stored in the monasteries
of Wessex ever since the seventh and eighth centuries. These writings claim
a manifest affinity with the early products of the Gaulish monasteries, and
from these they would naturally have been diffused in southern Britain. But,
since the religious life of Gaul had been touched and quickened with the
reform of the second Benedict in the ninth century, some old things would
have been condemned and rejected there, which might still enjoy credit
with the old-fashioned clergy of Wessex.

Of apocryphal materials in Anglo-Saxon literature there are several
varieties. First, there is the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus. This is from a
Latin version of the Greek “Acts of Pilate,” and it is our earliest extant
source for that prolific subject, the Harrowing of Hell. The Greek text laid
claim to a Hebrew original:—

—her onginnath tha gedonan —here begin the actual things
thing the be urum Hælende that were done in connexion
gedone wæron . eall swa with our Saviour, just as
Theodosius se mæra casere hyt Theodosius the illustrious
funde on Hierusalem on thæs emperor found it in Jerusalem in
Pontiscan Pilates domerne . eall Pontius Pilate’s court-house;
swa hyt Nychodemus awrat . according as Nicodemus wrote
eall mid Ebreiscum stafum on it down all with Hebrew writing
manegum bocum thus awriten: on many leaves as follows.

The “Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn” belong to a legendary stock that
has sent its branches into all the early vernacular literatures of Europe. The
germ is found in the Bible and in Josephus. In 1 Kings x. 1, we read that,
when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove
him with hard questions. Josephus, in the “Jewish Antiquities,” vii. 5, tells a
curious story about hard questions passing between Solomon and Hiram,
king of Tyre. From such a root appear to have grown the multiform legends
in various languages which passed under such names as the “Controversy of
Solomon,” the “Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn,” or of “Solomon and
Marculfus.” This became at length a mocking form of literature; often a
burlesque and parody of religion. Mr. Kemble traces these legends to
Jewish tradition; but of all the examples preserved he says “the Anglo-
Saxon are undoubtedly the oldest.... With the sole exception of one French
version, they are the only forms of the story remaining in which the subject
is seriously and earnestly treated; and, monstrous as the absurdities found in
them are, we may be well assured that the authors were quite unconscious
of their existence.”120 There are, however, some places in which one is
moved to doubt whether the extravagance is the product of pure simplicity,
and without the least tinge of drollery.

But the reader may judge for himself. The fragments preserved are partly
poetical and partly in prose: the poetry is rather insipid; our quotation shall
be from the prose. The subject is the praise and eulogy of the Lord’s Prayer,
which is personified and anatomised. Saturnus asks, “What manner of head
hath the Pater Noster?” And, again, “What manner of heart hath the Pater
Noster?” We quote from the answer to the latter question:—

Salomon cwæth. His heorte is Solomon said: His heart is
xii thusendum sitha beohtre 12,000 times brighter than all
thonne ealle thas seofon the seven heavens that over us
heofenas the us sindon are set, though they should be
ofergesette, theah the hi syn all aflame with the doomsday
ealle mid thy domiscan fyre fire, and though all this earth
onæled, and theah the eal theos should blaze up towards them
eorthe him neothan togegnes from beneath, and it should have
birne, and heo hæbbe fyrene a fiery tongue, and golden
tungan, and gyldenne hracan, throat, and mouth lighted up
and leohtne muth inneweardne within ... ... he is fiercer and
... ... he is rethra and scearpra sharper than all the world,
thonne eal middangeard, theah though within its four corners it
he sy binnan his feower should be driven full of wild
hwommum fulgedrifen deer, and each particular deer
wildeora, and anra gehwylc deor have severally twelve horns of
hæbbe synderlice xii hornas iron, and each particular horn
irene, and anra gehwylc horn have twelve tines of iron, and
hæbbe xii tindas irene, and anra each particular tine have
gehwylc tind hæbbe synderlice severally twelve points, and
xii ordas, and anra gehwylc ord each particular point be 12,000
sy xii thusendum sitha scearpra times sharper than the arrow
thonne seo an flan the sy fram which had been hardened by

hundtwelftigum hyrdenna 120 hardeners. And though the
geondhyrded . And theah the seven worlds should be all fairly
seofon middangeardas syn ealle spread out after the fashion of
on efn abrædde on thisses anes this one, and everything should
onlicnesse, and thær sy eal be there assembled that heaven
gesomnod thætte heofon oththe or hell or earth ever engendered,
hel oththe eorthe æfre acende, they may not encircle the girth
ne magon by tha lifes linan on of his body at the middle. And
middan ymb fæthmian. And se the Pater Noster, he can by
Pater Noster he mæg anna ealla himself in his right hand grasp
gesceafta on his thære swithran and squeeze all creation like a
hand on anes wæxæpples wax-apple. And his thought it is
onlienesse gethŷn and more alert and swifter than
gewringan. And his gethoht he 12,00 angelic spirits, though
is springdra and swiftra thonne each particular spirit have
xii thusendu haligra gasta, theah severally twelve suits of
the anra gehwylc gast hæbbe feathers, and each particular
synderlice xii fetherhoman, and feather-suit have twelve winds,
anra gehwylc fetherhoma hæbbe and each particular wind twelve
xii windas, and aura gehwylc victoriousnesses all to itself.
wind twelf sigefæstnissa
synderlice.—Kemble, pp. 148-
152.

I do not undertake to assert that this piece is as old as the first half of the
tenth century; it is placed here only because this seems to be the most
natural place for the group of literature to which it belongs. As I said, the
reader must judge for himself whether this is perfectly serious. I believe that
these “Dialogues” are the only part of Anglo-Saxon literature that can be
suspected of mockery. The earliest laughter of English literature is ridicule;

and if this ridicule seems to touch things sacred, it will, on the whole, I
think, be found that not the sacred things themselves, but some unreal or
spurious use of them, is really attacked. So here, if there is any appearance
of a sly derision, the thing derided is not the Pater Noster, but the vain and
magical uses which were too often ascribed to the repetition of it.

Here we must find a place for the translation of “Apollonius of Tyre.” This
has all the features of a Greek romance, but it is only known to exist in a
Latin text, so that it has been questioned whether this Latin romance is a
translation from a Greek original, or a story originally Latin in imitation of
the Greek romancists. With those who have investigated the subject, the
hypothesis of translation is most in favour, and for the following reason.
The story presents an appearance of double stratification, such as might
naturally result if a heathen Greek romance had been translated into Latin
by a Christian. Although the phenomenon could be equally explained by
supposing a Latin heathen original which had been re-written by a Christian
editor, yet the former is the more natural and the more probable
hypothesis.121

We now come to the Blickling Homilies, a recently-published book of great
importance. It is not a homogeneous work, but a motley collection of
sermons of various age and quality. Some of the later sermons are not so
very different from those of Ælfric; but these are not the ones that give the
book its character. The older sort have very distinct characteristics of their
own, and they furnish a deep background to the Homilies of Ælfric. They
are plainly of the age before the great Church reform of the tenth century,
when the line was very dimly drawn between canonical and uncanonical,
and when quotations, legends, and arguments were admissible which now
surprise us in a sermon. Indeed, one can hardly escape the surmise that the
elder discourses may come down from some time, and perhaps rather an
early time, in the ninth century. One of the sermons bears the date of 971

imbedded in its context; and this, which is probably the lowest date of the
book, is twenty years before the Homilies of Ælfric appeared. Speaking of
that frequent topic of the time, the end of the world, which is to take place
in the Sixth Age, the preacher says:—

—and thisse is thonne se mæsta —and of this is verily the most
dæl agangen, efne nigon hund part already gone, even nine
wintra and lxxi. on thys geare. hundred years and seventy-one,
—P. 119. in this year.

Perhaps there is no book which has been published in the present generation
that has done so much for the historical knowledge of Anglo-Saxon
literature. Speaking generally, we may say that it represents the preaching
of the times before Ælfric; that it contains the sort of preaching that Ælfric
sat under in his youth (when not at Abingdon or Winchester); the sort of
preaching, too, that Ælfric set himself to correct and to supersede. It is a
book whose value turns not so much upon its own direct communications,
as on the light it throws all around it, showing up the popular standards of
the time, and enabling us to recognise the true setting of many a waif and
stray of the old literature. But it is upon the work of Ælfric that it sheds the
most valuable light. There is in Ælfric’s Homilies a certain corrective aim,
which was but faintly seen before, and when seen could not be distinctly
explained; but now we have both the aim and the occasion of it rendered
comparatively clear.

These Homilies supply to those of Ælfric their true historical introduction.
They support the reasons which Ælfric assigns for producing homilies. In
his preface he speaks of certain English books to which he designs his
sermons as an antidote. He had translated his discourses (he says) out of the
Latin, not for pride of learning, “but because I had seen much heresy
(gedwild) in many English books, which unlearned men in their simplicity

thought mighty wise.” Not only do the Blickling Homilies contain enough
of unscriptural and apocryphal material to justify the charge of “gedwild” in
its vaguer sense of error, but we have also documentary grounds for
believing that a careful theologian of that time, such as Ælfric undoubtedly
was, would have brought them under the indictment of heresy.

It used to be thought that the oldest extant list of condemned books
proceeded from Pope Gelasius, and was of about A.D. 494; but now that list
is assigned to the eighth or even ninth century. In this Index we find sources
for much of the literature which we have been considering in this chapter;
we find the “Acts of Pilate,” “Journeys of the Apostles,” “Acts of Peter,”
“Acts of Andrew the Apostle,” “The Contradiction of Solomon,” “The
Book Physiologus.”122 The material which gives the Blickling collection its
peculiar character is largely apocryphal, and, in the light of the above list,
heretical.

A new vitality is imparted to Ælfric’s sermons by their contrast with these
older ones. It is plain that there is a common source behind both sets of
sermons; the well-established series of topics for each occasion seems
clearly to point to some standard collection of Latin homilies now lost.123
The evident identity of the lines on which the discourses run makes
comparison the easier and the more satisfactory. In the sermon for
Ascension Day, Ælfric’s treatment is in pointed contrast with the older
book. The Blickling is full of the signs and wonders; some, indeed,
Scriptural, but far more apocryphal; and it is effusive over these. Whereas
Ælfric teaches that the visible miracles belonged to the infancy of the
Church, and were as artificial watering to a newly-planted tree; but, when
the heathen believed, then those miracles ceased. Now (he says) we must
look rather for spiritual miracles. The Homily on St. John Baptist is a good
example. According to the old book, John is called “angelus,” because he
lived on earth the angelic life, but Ælfric takes it as messenger, and this may

hint the difference of treatment. In the same discourse there is a contrast
which touches the chronology. The old Homily says that there are only two
Nativities kept sacred by the Church—that of the Lord and that of His
forerunner. Ælfric takes up this topic with a difference. He says that there
are three Nativities, which are celebrated annually, adding that of the
Blessed Virgin to the previous two. Now, it was precisely in the tenth
century that this third began to be observed in the churches of the West;124
and the change took place in the interval that separates these two sets of
homilies.

On the Assumptio St. Mariæ, the elder homily is a jumble of apocryphal
legend. Here Ælfric presents a contrast, and manifestly an intentional one.
In the preamble he recalls certain teaching of Jerome, “through which he
quashed the misguided narrative which half-taught men had told about her
departure.” Then, after an exposition of the Gospel for the day, he returns to
the Assumption in a passage which, when read in the light of the elder
Homily, is very pointed:—“What shall we say to you more particularly
about this festival, except that Mary was on this day taken up to heaven
from this weary world, to dwell with Him, where she rejoices in eternal life
for evermore? If we should say more to you about this day’s festival than
we read in those holy books which were given by God’s inspiration, we
should be like those mountebanks who, from their own imaginations or
from dreams, have written many false stories; but the faithful teachers,
Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, and other such, have in their wisdom rejected
them. But still these absurd books exist, both in Latin and in English, and
misguided men read them. It is enough for believers to read and to relate
that which is true; and there are very few men who can completely study all
the holy books that were indited by God’s Holy Spirit. Let alone those
absurd fictions, which lead the unwary to perdition, and read or listen to
Holy Scripture, which directs us to heaven.”

The Homilies of Ælfric are in two series, of which the first was published in
990, and addressed to Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury; the second in 991,
after that Danish invasion in which Byrhtnoth fell. These were long ago
published by the Ælfric Society. But there is another set, appropriated to the
commemoration of saints, after the manner of the Benedictine
hagiographies.125 These have a Latin preface, pointedly agreeing with the
prefaces to the previous series. If their miraculous narratives sometimes
contain what we should not have expected from Ælfric, and if this leads us
to doubt the authorship, we may reflect that the contrast is not so great as
that between the “Cura Pastoralis” and the “Dialogues” of Gregory.

As a slight specimen of the character of these latter discourses, I will give a
few lines from that on St. Swithun:—

Eadgar cyning tha æfter thysum King Eadgar then, after these
tacnum . wolde thæt se halga tokens, willed that the holy man
wer wurde up gedon . and spræc should be translated, and spake
hit to Athelwolde tham it to Athelwold, the venerable
arwurthan bisceope . thæt he bishop, that he should translate
hine upp adyde mid him with honourable solemnity.
arwurthnysse . Tha se bisceop Then the bishop Athelwold,
Athelwold mid abbodum and with abbots and monks, raised
munecum dyde up thone sanct the saint with song solemnly.
mid sange wurthlice . and bæron And they bare him into the
into cyrcan sce Petres huse . church St. Peter’s house, where
thær he stent mid wurthmynte . he stands in honoured memory,
and wundra gefremath. and worketh wonders.

Seo ealde cyrce wæs eall be The old church was all hung
hangen mid criccum . and mid round with crutches and with
créopera sceamelum fram énde stools from one end to the other,
oth otherne . on ægtherum wáge on either wall, of cripples who
. the thær wurdon ge hælede . there had been healed: and yet
and man ne mihte swa theah they had not been able to put
macian hi healfe up. half of them up.

Ælfric’s place in literature consists in this:—That he is the voice of that
great Church reform which is the most signal fact in the history of the latter
half of the tenth century. Of this reform, the first step was the restoration of
the rule of Benedict in the religious houses. The great movement had begun
in Gaul early in the ninth century, and its extension to our island could
hardly be delayed when peaceful times left room for attention to learning
and religion. Both in Frankland and in England the religious revival
followed the literary one; only there it followed quickly, and here after a
long interval.126

The chief author of this revival was Odo (died 961), and the chief
conductors of it were Æthelwold, Dunstan, Oswald. The leaders of this
movement were much in communication with the Frankish monasteries,
especially with the famous house at Fleury on the Loire. Various kinds of
literature were cherished, but that which is most peculiar to this time is the
biographies of Saints. Lanferth, a disciple of Æthelwold, wrote Latin
hagiographies, and from his Latin was derived the extant homily of the
miracles of St. Swithun. Wulstan, a monk of Winchester and a disciple of
Æthelwold, was a Latin poet, and wrote hagiography in verse; among the
rest, he versified the work of Lanferth on St. Swithun.

Ælfric was an alumnus of Æthelwold at Winchester, and perhaps at
Abingdon earlier; from Winchester he was sent to Cernel (Cerne Abbas in

Dorsetshire), to be the pastor of Æthelweard’s house and people, and there
he wrought at his homilies. The highest title that we find associated with his
name is that of abbot; and this probably is in relation to Egonesham
(Eynsham, Oxon), where Æthelweard founded a religious house, and Ælfric
superintended it. In Æthelweard the ealdorman we have our first example of
a great lay patron of literature: much of Ælfric’s work was undertaken at the
instance of Æthelweard.

It was at his request that he engaged in the translation of the Old Testament,
and when he had done the Pentateuch (with frequent omissions), and some
parts of Joshua and Judges,127 he ceased, and declared he would translate
no more, having a misgiving lest the narration of many things unlike
Christian morality might confuse the judgment of the simple. This is the
earliest recorded instance of a devout Christian withholding Scripture from
the people for their good. And, when we take it in conjunction with the
authorised diffusion of the Benedictine hagiographies of the time, we see
what was approved placed by the side of that which was mistrusted.

The so-called “Canons of Ælfric” are a mixed composition, in which some
matters of historical and doctrinal instruction are united with directions and
regulations and exhortations for correcting the practices of the ignorant
priests. They were compiled by Ælfric, at the request of Wulfsige, Bishop
of Sherborne (A.D. 992-1001), for the benefit of his clergy. The reformation
of the monasteries had already made considerable progress, and this seems
like an extension of the same movement to embrace the secular clergy.
Among the divers matters touched in the Articles are these:—The relative
authority of the councils; the first four are to be had in reverence like the
four gospels (Tha feower sinothas sind to healdenne swa swa tha feower
Cristes bec)—the vestments, the books, and the garb of the priest; the seven
orders of the Christian ministry; some points of priestly duty as regards
marriages and funerals; of Baptism and the Eucharist, with rebuke of

superstitious practices; the priest to speak the sense of the Gospel to the
people in English on Sundays and high days, as also of the Lord’s Prayer
and the Creed; but, withal, the immediate practical aim of the whole seems,
above all things, to be the celibacy of the clergy.128

Ælfric was the author of the most important educational books of this time
that have come down to us—namely, his “Latin Grammar,” in English,
formed after Donatus and Priscian; his “Glossary of Latin Words”; and his
“Colloquium,” or conversation in Latin, with interlinear Saxon.129

But for us, as for the men of the sixteenth century, the most important of
Ælfric’s works are his Homilies. The English of these Homilies is splendid;
indeed, we may confidently say that here English appears fully qualified to
be the medium of the highest learning. And their interest has been greatly
enhanced of late years by two important additions to our printed Anglo-
Saxon library. The first of these was the “Blickling Homilies,” edited by Dr.
Morris, which threw a new light upon Ælfric, and added greatly to the
significance of his Homilies.

The circuit of Anglo-Saxon homiletic literature has again been greatly
enlarged by a more recent publication, namely, that of the “Homilies of
Wulfstan.”130 These homilies are quite distinct in character from all the
preceding. There is nothing of controversy, and little in the shape of
argument: simply the assertion of Christian dogma and the enforcement of
Christian duty. The one topic that lies beyond these was more practical, in
the view of that day, than it is in our view—I mean the repeated
introduction of Antichrist and the near approach of the end of the world. In
the quotation the þ and ð (for th) are kept, as in Mr. Napier’s text.

Uton beon â urum hlaforde Let us be always loyal and true
holde and getreowe and æfre to our Lord, and ever by all
eallum mihtum his wurðscipe means maintain his worship and

ræran and his willan wyrcan, work his will, because all that
forðam eall, þet we æfre for ever we do out of sincere
rihthlafordhelde doð, eal we hit loyalty, we do it all for our own
doð us sylfum to mycelre great advantage, inasmuch as
þearfe, forðam ðam bið God will assuredly be gracious
witodlice God hold, þe bið his to the man who is perfectly
hlaforde rihtlice hold; and eac loyal to his lord; and likewise it
ah hlaforda gehwylc þæs for is the bounden duty of every
micle þearfe, þæt he his men lord, that he his men honourably
rihtlice healde. And we biddað sustain. And we entreat and
and beodað, þæt Godes þeowas, command, that God’s ministers,
þe for urne cynehlaford and for who most intercede for our
eal cristen folc þingian scylan royal lord, and for all Christian
and be godra manna ælmessan folk, and who live by good
libbað, þæt hy þæs georne men’s alms, that they
earnian, libban heora lif swa accordingly give diligent
swa bec him wisian, and swa attention to live their life as the
swa heora ealdras hym tæcan, bookes guide them, and so as
and began heora þeowdom their superiors direct them, and
georne, þonne mægon hy ægþer to discharge their service
ge hym sylfum wel fremian ge heartily; then may they do much
eallum cristenum folce . and we good both to themselves and to
biddað and beodað, þæt ælc cild all Christian people. And we
sy binnan þrittigum nihtum entreat and command that every
gefullad; gif hit þonne dead child be baptised within thirty
weorðe butan fulluhte, and hit days; if, however, it should die
on preoste gelang sy, þonne without baptism and it be along
ðolige he his hâdes and dædbete of the priest, then let him suffer
georne; gif hit þonne þurh mæga the loss of his order and do
gemeleaste gewyrðe, þonne careful penance; if, however, it

þolige se, ðe hit on gelang sy, happen through the relatives’
ælcere eardwununge and neglect, then let him who was in
wræcnige of earde oððon on fault suffer the loss of every
earde swiðe deope gebete, swa habitation, and be ejected from
biscop him tæce . eac we lærað, his dwelling, or else in his
þæt man ænig ne læte unbiscpod dwelling undergo very severe
to lange, and witan þa, ðe cildes penance, as the bishop may
onfôn, þæt heo hit on rihtan direct him. Also we instruct you,
geleafan gebringan and on that none be left unbishopped
gôdan þeawan and on þearflican too long; and they who are
dædan and â forð on hit wisian sponsors for a child are to see
to ðam þe Gode licige and his that they bring it up in right
sylfes ðearf sy; þonne beoð heo belief, and in good manners and
rihtlice ealswa hy genamode in dutiful conduct, and always
beoð, godfæderas, gif by heora continually guide it to that
godbearn Gode gestrynað. which may be pleasing to God
Homily xxiv. and for his own good; then will
they verily be as they are called,
“godfathers,” if they train their
god-children for God.

Hitherto Wulfstan has been represented in print by one sermon only, the
most remarkable, indeed, of all his discourses—being an address to the
English when the Danish ravages were at their worst, A.D. 1012, the year in
which Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury, was martyred. In this discourse
the miseries of the time are ascribed to the vengeance of God for national
sins; and the coming of Antichrist is said to be near. Wulfstan was
Archbishop of York from 1003 to 1023. Beautiful and valuable as his
sermons are in themselves, their value is greatly increased by their
connexion with the preceding series, and by the continuity they give to this

branch of our old literature. With the “Blickling Homilies,” in all their
variety, and those of Ælfric, and those of Wulfstan, in our possession, it is
hardly too much to say that we have a vernacular series of sermons that
fairly represents the Anglo-Saxon preaching for a period of one hundred
and fifty years.

11 The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Holy Gospels, ed. Thorpe, 1842.
8
11 Edited by Thorpe from the eleventh-century manuscript at Paris; Oxford, 1835.
9 This contains Psalms li.-cl. in poetry; the first fifty are in prose. Dietrich (in Haupt’s
“Zeitschrift”) pointed out that the prose was eleventh-century work, but the poetical
version was much older. He surmised that the prose translation had been made for
the purpose of giving completeness to a mutilated book, and that the whole Psalter
had once existed in Anglo-Saxon verse. Since then some fragments of the missing
psalms have been found. See Grein, “Bibliothek der Angelsächs. Poesie,” vol. ii., p.
412.
12 “The Dialogue of Solomon and Saturnus, with an Historical Introduction.” By John
0 M. Kemble, M.A. Ælfric Society, 1848, p. 2. See Dean Stanley, “Jewish Church,”
ii. 170.
12 Rohde, “Der Griechische Roman,” p. 408.
1
12 The list may be seen in the “Dictionary of Christian Antiquities” v. Prohibited
2 Books.

12 The series that goes by the name of Eusebius of Emesa has much general similarity
3 to the required collection.

12 “Dictionary of Christian Antiquities,” vol. ii., p. 1143.
4
12 This third set of Homilies is now for the first time in course of publication by the
5 Early English Text Society, under the editorship of Professor Skeat.

12 In like manner the literary revival of the fifteenth century was followed by the
6 religious revival of the sixteenth.

12 “Heptateuchus,” ed. Thwaites, 1698: reprinted by Grein.
7
12 “A Collection of all the Ecclesiastical Laws, Canons, &c., &c., of the Church of
8 England, from its First Foundation to the Conquest, that have hitherto been
published in the Latin and Saxonic Tongues. And of all the Canons and
Constitutions Ecclesiastical, made Since the Conquest and Before the Reformation
... now first translated into English ... by John Johnson, M.A., London, 1720.” A
New Edition, by John Baron, of Queen’s College (now Dr. Baron, Rector of Upton
Scudamore), Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1850. In two volumes, 8vo. Vol. i., p. 388.
12 See above, p. 40. The “Colloquium” is printed in Thorpe’s “Analecta.”
9
13 Wulfstan, “Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen
0 über ihre Echtheit: Herausgegeben von Arthur Napier. Erste Abtheilung: Text und
Varianten. Berlin 1883.”

CHAPTER XI.
THE SECONDARY POETRY.

How still the legendary lay
O’er poet’s bosom holds its sway.

Marmion.

Between the Primary and the Secondary Poetry we must acknowledge a
wide borderland of transition. Some poetical works lying in this interval we
have already found occasion to notice, and have given them such space as
we could afford. We have spoken of the Cædmon, and of the poetical
Psalter; and with these I must group the “Judith,” a noble fragment, which
is found in the Cotton Library in the same manuscript volume with the
Beowulf. This fragment preserves 350 long lines at the close of a poem
which appears—by the numbering of the Cantos—to have been of about
four times that length. This remnant contains what would naturally have
been the most vigorous and stirring parts of the poem: the riotous drinking
of Holofernes, the trenchant act of Judith, her return with her maid to
Bethulia, their enthusiastic reception, the muster for battle, the anticipation
of carnage by the birds and beasts of prey, the destruction of the invading
host.

The poetry which is distinctly Secondary is contained—the best specimens
of it—in two famous books, that of Exeter, and that of Vercelli; and in both
of these books it is largely connected with the name of a single poet,
Cynewulf. Here is at once an indication of the secondary poetry; not merely
that we have a poet’s name, for we also entitle poems by Cædmon’s name;
but that the poet himself supplies us with his name, and has left it—vailed
and enigmatic—for posterity to decipher.

Curiously and fancifully did Cynewulf interweave into the lines of his verse
the Runes which spelt his name; and it needed the skill of Kemble to
explain it to us. There are three of the extant poems in which he has thus
left his mark, namely two in the Exeter book and one in the Vercelli book.
In two cases out of the three this ingenious contrivance is at the close of the
poem. In the Vercelli book it occurs in the Elene, the last of the poems in
the manuscript, and Mr. Kemble remarked that it was “apparently intended
as a tail-piece to the whole book.”131 This naturally suggests the inference,
which indeed is generally accepted, that all the poems in the Vercelli book
are by Cynewulf.

But when a like inference is drawn for the Exeter book, inasmuch as the
same Runic device is there found in two pieces, that therefore the book is
simply a volume of Cynewulf’s poems, there seems less reason to
acquiesce. That a large part of the book is Cynewulf’s poetry will be
generally thought probable. The first thirty-two leaves of the manuscript,
which correspond to the first 103 pages in Thorpe’s edition, contain a series
of pieces which are really parts of one whole, as was shown by Professor
Dietrich, of Marburg;132 and, as one of these connected pieces has
Cynewulf’s Runic mark, it seems to follow that the whole “Christian Epic”
is by him. Again in the middle of the volume from the 65th to the 75th leaf
there is the poem of St. Juliana with the Runes of Cynewulf’s name at its
close, and this is therefore undoubtedly his. This brings us to Mr. Thorpe’s

286th page. The four pieces which lie between the above, more especially
two of them, St. Guthlac and the Phœnix, may well be his. But from the
close of St. Juliana (Thorpe, p. 286) the pieces become shorter and more
miscellaneous, exhibiting greater diversity both of subject and of quality,
being altogether such as to suggest that they have been collected from
various sources and are of different ages. So that on this view the volume
might be interpreted as containing (1) Poems by Cynewulf; and (2) a
miscellaneous collection. Thus Cynewulf’s part would close with “St.
Juliana,” which ends with the Runic device, like the Elene closing his
poems in the Vercelli book.133 About the person of this poet nothing is
known, beyond what the poems themselves may seem to convey. His date
has been variously estimated from the 8th to the 11th century. The latter is
the more probable. If we look at his matter, we observe its great affinity
with the hagiology of the tenth century, the high pitch at which the poetry of
the Holy Rood has arrived, and the expansion given to the subject of the
Day of Judgment. If we consider his language and manner, we remark the
facility and copious flow of his poetic diction, but with a something that
suggests the retentive mind of the student; his cumulation of old heroic
phraseology not unlike the romantic poetry of Scott, joined occasionally
with a departure from old poetic usage which seems like a slip on the part
of an accomplished imitator.134 Occasionally he has a Latin word of novel
introduction.

All these signs forbid an early date, but they agree well with Kemble’s view
of the time and person of Cynewulf. He proposed to identify our poet with
that Kenulphus who in 982 became abbot of Peterborough, and in 1006
became (after Ælfheah) bishop of Winchester. To this prelate Ælfric
dedicated his Life of St. Æthelwold, and he is praised by Hugo Candidus as
a great emender of books, a famous teacher, to whom (as to another
Solomon) men of all ranks and orders flocked for instruction, and whom the

abbey regretted to lose when after fourteen years of his presidency he was
carried off to the see of Winchester by violence rather than by election.135

The Canto in the “Christian Epic” in which the Cynewulf-Runes appear, is
on the near approach of Domesday. This piece closes with a prolonged and
detailed Simile, such as occurs only in the later poetry. Life is a perilous
voyage, but there is a heavenly port and a heavenly pilot:—

Nu is thon gelicost Now it is likest to that
swa we on laguflode as if on liquid flood
ofor cald wæter over cold water
ceolum lithan in keels we navigated
geond sidne sæ through the vast sea
sund hengestum with ocean-horses
flod wudu fergen. ferried the floating wood.

Is thæt frecne stream A frightful surge it is
ytha ofermæta of waves immense
the we her onlacath that here we toss upon
geond thas wacan woruld through this uncertain world—
windge holmas windy quarters
ofer deop gelad. over a deep passage.

Wæs se drohtath strong It was discipline strong
ær thon we to londe ere we to the land
geliden hæfdon had sailed (if at all)
ofer hreone hrycg— o’er the rough swell—
tha us help bicwom when help to us came,
thæt us to hælo so that us into safety
hythe gelædde portwards did guide
Godes gæst sunu: God’s heavenly Son:

And us giefe sealde And he gave us the gift
thæt we oncnawan magun that we may espy
ofer ceoles bord from aboard o’ the ship,
hwær we sælan sceolon place where we shall bind
sund hengestas the steeds of the sea,
ealde yth mearas old amblers of water,
ancrum fæste. with anchors fast.

Utan us to thære hythe Let us in that port
hyht stathelian our confidence plant,
tha us gerymde which for us laid open
rodera waldend the Lord of the skies,
halge on heahthum (holy port in the heights)
the he heofnum astag. when he went up to heaven.

The grandest of the allegorical pieces is that on the Phœnix. Of the pedigree
of the fable we have already spoken; as also of the Latin poem which the
Anglo-Saxon poet followed. It is rather an adaptation than a translation, and
it has a second part in which the allegory is explained. At the close there is a

playful alternation of Latin and Saxon half-lines, which does not at all
lessen the probability that the poet may have been the ingenious Cynewulf.

Hafað us alysed Us hath a-loosed
lucis auctor, the author of light,
þæt we motun her that we may here
merueri, worthily merit,
god dædum begietan with good deeds obtain
gaudia in celo, delights in the sky,
þær we motun where we may be able
maxima regna magnificent realms
secan, and gesittan to seek, and to sit
sedibus altis, in heavenly seats,
lifgan in lisse live in fruition
lucis et pacis, of light and of peace,
agan eardinga have habitations
alma letitiæ, happy and glad,
brucan blæd daga;— brook genial days:—
blandem et mitem gentle and kind
geseon sigora frean see Victory’s Prince
sine fine, for ever and ever,
and him lof singan and praise to him sing,
laude perenne, perennial praise,
eadge mid englum happy angels among
alleluia. Alleluia!

Of the other allegorical pieces the Whale was derived from the book
Physiologus, and probably the Panther also. The whale is used as a
similitude of delusive security. The story reappears in the Arabian Nights,
where it is the chief incident in the first voyage of Sindbad. The monster
lies on the sea like an island, and deludes the unsuspecting mariner.

Is þæs hiw gelic In look it is like
hreofum stane, to a stony land,
swylce worie with the eddying whirl
bi wædes ofre of the waves on the bank,
sond beorgum ymbseald with sandheaps surrounded
sæ ryrica mæst,136 a mighty sea-reef;
swa þæt wenaþ so they wearily ween
wæg liþende, who ride on the wave,
þæt hy on ealond sum that some island it is
eagum wliten; they see with their eyes;
and þonne gehydaþ and so they do fasten
heah stefn scipu the high figure-heads
to þam únlonde to a land that no land is
oncyr rapum; with anchor belayed;
setlað sæ mearas sea-horses they settle
sundes æt ende.137 no farther to sail.

When they have lighted their fires, and are getting comfortable, then all
goes down. This is an apologue of misplaced confidence in things earthly.

But the great and absorbing subject of poetry in this age is Hagiography. We
still see the old discredited apocryphal literature in occasional use, but it
retires before the more approved medium of popular edification, the Lives
and Miracles of the Saints. These offer material very apt for poetical
treatment. Even the Homilies, when on the lives of Saints, are often clothed
in the poetic garb.

In the Exeter book there are two of this class of poems; St. Guthlac and St.
Juliana. In St. Juliana, a characteristic passage is that in which the tempter
visits her in the guise of an angel of light, advising her to yield and to
sacrifice to the gods. At her prayer, the fiend is reduced to his own shape,

reminding us of a famous passage in Milton. St. Guthlac is distressed by
fiends, and among the trials to which he is exposed, one is this, that he sees
in vision the evil life of a disorderly monastery. When he has endured his
trials, and he returns to his chosen retreat, the welcome of the birds is very
charming.

But the greatest pieces of this sort are the two in the Vercelli book; the
Andreas and the Elene.

In the Andreas we have an ancient legend which is now known only in
Greek, but which no doubt lay before the Anglo-Saxon poet in a Latin
version. In this story Matthew is imprisoned in Mirmedonia, and he is
encouraged by the hope that Andrew shall come to his aid. Andrew is
wonderfully conveyed to Mirmedonia, where he arrives at a time of famine,
and he finds the people casting lots who shall be slain for the others’ food.
On the intervention of Andrew the devil comes on the scene and suggests
that he is the cause of their troubles. Then follows a long series of tortures
to which the saint is subjected. When his endurance has been put to extreme
proof, the word of deliverance comes to him and he puts forth miraculous
power. He calls for a flood, and it comes and sweeps the cruel persecutors
away. But the whole ends in a general conversion, and the drowned are
restored to life. He is escorted to his ship and has a happy voyage back to
Achaia like the return of any hero crowned with success. Here we are
reminded of the return of Beowulf; and widely different as the two poems
are, they have not only points of similarity but also a certain likeness of
type. There is, however, this great dissimilarity, that in the Andreas the poet
stops to speak of himself and of his inadequate performance, but still he
will give us a little more. The most novel and extraordinary part is the
voyage of Andrew to Mirmedonia. The ship-master is a Divine person, and
the instructive conversation which the saint addresses to him, is exceedingly
well managed, for while it verges on the humorous, it is perfectly reverent;

a strong contrast with the free use of such situations in the later mediæval
drama. Another feature which calls for notice is the sarcasm with which the
drowning people are told there is plenty of drink for them now.

The “Elene” opens with the outbreak of barbarian war, and Constantine in
camp on the Danube, frightened at the multitude of the Huns. In a dream of
the night he sees an angel who shows him the Cross, and tells him that with
this “beacon” he shall overcome the foe. II. Comforted by his dream, he had
a cross made like that of the vision, and under this ensign he was victorious.
Then he assembles his wise men to inquire of them who the god was that
this sign belonged to? No one knew, until some christened folk, who
(according to this poet) were then very few, gave the required information.
Constantine is baptised by Silvester. III. Zealous to recover the true Cross,
he sends his mother, Elene, with a great equipment to Judea. IV. She
proclaims an assembly, and 3,000 come together, and she requires of them
to choose those who can answer whatever questions she may ask. V. They
select 500 for that purpose. When they are come to the queen, she addresses
a chiding speech to them about their blindness in rejecting Him who came
according to prophecy; but she does not reveal her aim. Afterwards, the
Jews in consternation discuss among themselves what the imperial lady can
mean. At length one Judas divines that she wants the Cross which is hidden,
and which it is of the greatest consequence to keep from discovery; for his
grandfather Zacheus, when a-dying, told his son, the speaker’s father, that
whenever that Cross was found the power of the Jews would end. VI. The
speaker further said that his father told him the history of the Saviour’s life,
and how his son Stephen had believed in him and had been stoned. The
speaker was a boy when his father told him this, and seems to have thus
learnt about his brother Stephen for the first time.138 VII. When they are
summoned into the imperial presence they all profess to know nothing
about the subject of her inquiry, they had never heard of such a thing
before! She threatens. Then they select Judas as a wise man who knows

more than the rest, and they leave him as a hostage. VIII. The queen will
know where the Rood is. Judas pleads that it all happened so long ago that
he knows nothing about it. She says it was not so long ago as the Trojan
war, and yet people know about that. When he persists, she orders him to be
imprisoned and kept without food. He endures for six days, but on the
seventh he yields. IX. Released from prison he leads the way to Calvary. He
utters a fervent supplication in Hebrew, in which he pleads that He who in
the famous times of old revealed to Moses the bones of Joseph would make
known by a sign the place of the Rood, vowing to believe in Christ if his
prayer is granted. X. A steam rises from the ground. There they dig, and at a
depth of twenty feet three crosses are found. Which is the holy Rood? A
dead man is carried by; Judas brings the corpse in contact with the crosses
one after another, and the touch of the third restores life. XI. Satan laments
that he has suffered a new defeat, which is all the harder as the agent is
“Judas,” a name so friendly to him before! He threatens a persecuting king
who shall make the newly-converted man renounce his faith. Judas returns
a spirited answer, and Helena rejoices to hear the new convert rise superior
to the Wicked one. XII. The report spreads, to the joy of Christians and the
confusion of the Jews. The queen sends an embassy to the emperor at Rome
with the happy tidings. The greatest curiosity was displayed in the cities on
their road. Constantine, in his exaltation, sent them quickly back to Helena
with instructions to build a church in their united names on the sacred spot
of the discovery. The queen gathered from every side the most highly-
skilled builders for the church; and she caused the holy Rood to be studded
with gold and jewels, and then firmly secured in a chest of silver:—

Tha seo cwen bebeád Then the queen bade
cræftum getŷde of craftsmen deft
sundor âsecean at large to seek
tha selestan the skilfullest,

tha the wrætlicost the most curious
wyrcan cuthon and cunning to work
stân-gefôgum structures of stone;—
on tham stede-wange upon that chosen site
girwan Godes tempel God’s temple to grace
swa hire gasta weard as the Guarder of souls
reórd of roderum . gave her rede from on high.
Heo tha rôde heht She the Rood hight
golde beweorcean with gold to inlay
and gimcynnum and the glory of gems,
mid tham æthelestum with the most prized
eorcnanstânum of precious stones
besettan searocræftum; to set with high art;—
and tha in seolfren fæt and in a silver chest
locum belûcan . secure enlock:—
Thær thæt lifes treó so there the Tree of life
sêlest sigebeáma dearest of trophies
siththan wunode thenceforward dwelt;
æthelu anbroce . fabric of honour.

XIII. Helena sends for Eusebius, “bishop of Rome,” and he, at her bidding,
makes Judas bishop in Jerusalem, and changes his name to Cyriacus. Then
she inquires after the nails of the crucifixion, and, at the prayer of Cyriacus,
their hiding-place is revealed. When the nails were brought to the queen she
wept aloud, and the fountain of her tears flowed over her cheeks and down
upon the jewels of her apparel. XIV. She seeks guidance by oracle as to the
disposal of the nails. She is directed to make of them rings for the bridle of
the chief of earthly kings. He who rides to war with such a bridle should be
invincible; and a prophecy to that effect is quoted! Helena obeys, and sends
the bridle over sea to Constantine,—“no contemptible gift!” Helena
assembles the chief men of the Jews, bids them submit to Cyriacus, and
keep up the anniversary of the Finding of the Cross. Finally, for those who

keep the day is proclaimed a benediction so unmeasured and profuse as to
leave behind it an air in which the solemn evaporates in the histrionic.

Here more than in any other piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry we feel near the
mediæval drama. Almost every canto is like a scene; and little adaptation
would be required to put it upon the stage. The narrative at the beginning is
like a prologue, and then after the close of the piece we have an epilogue, in
which the author speaks about himself, and weaves his name with Runes
into the verses in the manner already described.

The briefest fragment in the Vercelli book is about False Friendship; and it
contains a long-drawn simile in which the bee is rather hardly treated.

Anlice beoð Likened they are
swa þa beon berað to the bees who bear
buton ætsomne; both at one time,
arlicne anleofan food for a king’s table,
and ætterne tægel and venomous tail
habbað on hindan; have in reserve;
hunig on muðe honey in mouth,
wynsume wist: delectable food:
hwilum wundiað in due time they wound
sare mid swice sorely and slyly
þonne se sæl cymeð. when the season is come.
Swa beoð gelice Such are they like,
þa leasan men, the leasing men,
þa þe mid tungan those who with tongue
treowa gehatað give assurance of troth
fægerum wordum, with fair-spoken words,
facenlice þencað; false in their thought;
þonne hie æt nehstan then do they at length
nearwe beswicað: shrewdly betray:

habbað on gehatum in profession they have
hunig smæccas, the perfume of honey,
smeðne sib cwide; smooth gossip so sweet;
and in siofan innan and in their souls purpose,
þurh deofles cræft with devilish craft,
dyrne wunde. a stab in the dark.

The “Runic Poem”139 is a string of epigrams on the characters of the Runic
alphabet, beginning with F, U, Þ, O, R, C, according to that primitive order,
whence that alphabet was called the “Futhorc.” Each of these characters has
a name with a meaning, mostly of some well-known familiar thing, apt
subject for epigram.

When learned men began to look at the Runes with an eye of erudite
curiosity, they often ranged them in the A, B, C order of the Roman
alphabet; hence it gives the Rune poem some air of antiquity that it runs in
the old Futhorc order. And, indeed, some of the versicles may perhaps be
ancient; that is, they may possibly date from a time when Runes were still
in practical use. But certainly much of this chaplet of versicles must be
regarded as late and dilettante work. The Rune names are not all clearly
authentic; for example, “Eoh” is rather dubious; but the poet treats the name
as meaning Yew, and gives us an interesting little epigram on the Yew-tree:
—

EOH bith utan Yew is outwardly
unsmethe treow unpolished tree;
heard hrusan fæst hard and ground-fast,
hyrde fyres guardian of fire;
wyrtrumum underwrethed with roots underwattled
wynan on æthle. the home of the Want.140

The Riddles are mostly after Simphosius and Aldhelm;141 but some are
aboriginal. The form is mostly that of the epigram, only instead of having
the name of the subject at the head of the piece as with epigrams, these little
poems end with a question what the subject is. These Riddles are found in
the Exeter book in three batches; Grein has drawn them all together, and
made eighty-nine of them. That on the Book-Moth, of which the Latin has
been given above, p. 88, is unriddled by the translator:—

Moððe word fiæt; Moth words devoured;
me þæt þuhte to me it seemed
wrætlicu wyrd a weird event
þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn; when I the wonder learnt;
þæt se wyrm forswealg that the worm swallowed
wera gied sumes sentence of man
þeof in þystro (thief in the dark)
þrymfæstne cwide document sure,
and þæs strangan staðol. binding and all.
Stælgiest ne wæs The burglar was never
wihte þy gleawra a whit the more wise
þe he þam wordum for the words he had
swealg. gulped.

Toward the end of the period, the poetic form becomes much diluted. The
poetic diction wanes, so does the figured style and the parallel structure;
and what remains is an alliterative rhythmical prose, which, from the nature
of the subjects treated, appears to have been very taking for the ear of the
people. Of this sort is the Lay of King Abgar, which Professor Stephens
assigns to the reign of Cnut. The Abgar legend is in Eusebius (died 340)
“History,” i. 13. Abgar, king of Edessa, being sick, wrote a letter to the
Saviour (it being the time of His earthly ministry) praying him to come and

heal him, and adding, that if, as he hears, the Jews seek to persecute Him,
his city of Edessa, though a little one, is stately, and sufficient for both.

... and ic wolde the biddan ... and I would thee pray,
thæt thu gemedemige the sylfne that thou condescend
thæt thu siðige to me to come unto me,
and mine untrumnysse gehæle and my infirmity cure,
for than the ic eom yfele for I am in evil case.
gahæfd. To me is eke said
Me is eac gesæd that the Jews are plotting
thæt tha Judeiscan syrwiath and rowning together
and runiath him betwynan how they may destroy
hu hi the berædan magon, thee;
and ic hæbbe ane burh, and I have a burgh
the unc bam genihtsumath. large enough for us
both.142

The impression which this secondary poetry leaves is, that the old ancestral
form could no longer furnish an adequate poetry for the growing mind of
the nation. In contrast with the expanding prose, it seems to shrink and fade
before our eyes. Its only means of enlargement seems to be in forgetting its
own traditions and assimilating itself to the prose. Moreover, we have traces
of various tentative sallies; one poet trying rhymes,143 another trying
hexameters,144 which reminds us of the efforts and essays of the unsatisfied
poetic genius in the middle of the sixteenth century. The Benedictine revival
had drawn off the interest from the old native themes of song to subjects
less fitted for poetry, or with which the poetry of the time was not yet
skilled to deal. The old poetry fitted the old heroic themes with which it had
grown up; and now it throve better on apocryphal and legendary fables than
on the verities of the faith which were rather beyond its strength. In the new

zeal the old vein of poetry was lost or neglected, and its place was not yet
appropriately filled.

For this want a provision was already making in the south. A fresh spirit of
poetry had risen in the region where Roman and Arabic fancy met, and,
after kindling France, was coming to England on the wings of the French
language. With the new romances came new models of poetic form. A long
struggle ensued between the native garb of English poetry and that of the
French. Both lived together until the fourteenth century, when the victory of
the French form was finally determined in Chaucer; and France set the
fashion in poetry to England, as it did generally to modern Europe.

13 In Wright’s “Biographia Literaria,” Anglo-Saxon Period, p. 502, seq., these three
1 Runic passages are collected and translated. In Bosworth’s “Anglo-Saxon
Dictionary,” ed. Toller, v. Cynewulf; the Runic passage is quoted from the Elene,
and translated. This poet’s Runic device affects us somewhat as when, at the end of
a volume of Coleridge’s poems, we come upon his epitaph, written by himself:—

“Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God!
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he—
Oh, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.!”

13 In Haupt’s “Zeitschrift,” ix.
2
13 We have already seen in the chapter on the West Saxon laws, that a bookmaker of
3 the Saxon period appended the laws of Ine to the laws of Alfred, as if he found it
natural to treat the old material as an appendix to the new.—But there is also
something on the other side. In the after part of the Exeter book there are three
batches of riddles, and the first riddle of the first series (Thorpe, p. 380), is a
charade upon the name of Cynewulf, as was shown by Heinrich Leo. This has
naturally led to the surmise that Cynewulf has had more to do with the riddles than
simply to preface them in his own honour.
13 Thus:—“ofer ealne yrmenne grund.” Juliana init.; and in the same poem we find
4 “bealdor” used of a woman!

13 All this is marred by William of Malmesbury, who represents him as having
5 trafficked for this promotion, and as having been cut off before he had long enjoyed
it. And yet the two pictures are not incompatible. The poetry sets before us a poet of
the most splendid gifts, but I know nothing that indicates a superiority of character.

Indeed, the comparison with Solomon suggests a moral type to which the known
and supposed writings of Cynewulf aptly correspond.
13 “Dorsum immane mari summo.” Æneid i.
6
13 Milton has set this to his own deep music:—
7
“Him haply slumb’ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder’d skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seaman tell,
With fixed anchor....”

13 The reader will not stumble at a few historical inaccuracies in a narrative where a
8 speaker in Helena’s time is a brother of the protomartyr.

13 Kemble, “Runes of the Anglo-Saxons,” pp. 13-19. Grein, vol. ii., p. 351; and
9 literary notice at p. 413.

14 It may not be known to all readers, that this is an English word; and historically,
0 perhaps, the best English name, for the mole (talpa). Along the Elbe it appears in a
form nearer to that of the text: “Win worp oder Wind-worp, der Maulwurf.”
Bremisch-Niedersachsisches Wörterbuch.
14 See Prof. Dietrich in Haupt’s “Zeitschrift,” xi.
1
14 Prof. Stephens, “Tvende Olde-Engelske Digte,” Kiobenhavn, 1853.
2
14 “The Riming Poem,” Cod. Exon. ed. Thorpe, p. 352.
3
14 Stubbs, “St. Dunstan,” Preface.
4

CHAPTER XII.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND AFTER THAT.

The first of these chapters took a brief survey of the literature that preceded
and elevated the Anglo-Saxon literature: this concluding chapter must be
still briefer in sketching the manner of its decline. It would be true to say
that the Norman Conquest dealt a fatal blow to Anglo-Saxon literature; but
it would also be true to say that the cultivation of Anglo-Saxon literature
never came to an end at all. I will presently endeavour to reconcile this
seeming contradiction; but first I have some little remainder to tell of the
main narrative.

There are two small sets of writings which have not yet been described.
These are the liturgical and scientific remains. Of liturgical, we have the
“Benedictionale of Æðelwold,”145 and we have the so-called “Ritual of
Durham,” with its interlinear Northumbrian gloss. But the most famous
book of this kind is that which is called “The Leofric Missal,” because
Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter (of Crediton, 1046-1050; of Exeter,
1050-1072) gave it to his cathedral. It is now in the Bodleian Library. “It is
one of the only three surviving Missals known to have been used in the
English Church during the Anglo-Saxon period,” the other two being the
Missal of Robert of Jumièges, Archbishop of Canterbury, now in Rouen

Library, and the “Rede Boke of Darbye,” in the Parker Library at
Cambridge.146

It may seem almost idle to talk of the “scientific” remains of Anglo-Saxon
times. For Science, in its grandest sense,—the recognition of constant order
in nature and the reign of law,—had not yet dawned upon the world.
Science, in this sense, dates only from the seventeenth century, and its
patriarchal names are Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. But, nevertheless,
the earlier and feebler efforts at the explanation of phenomena have a real
and a lasting value for human history, and what they lack in scientific
quality has somehow the effect of throwing them all the more into the arms
of the literary historian.

There is, however, one small Anglo-Saxon writing which needs not this
apology, and which may be considered as a real contribution even to
science. I mean the Geography which King Alfred inserted into his
translation of Orosius. All our other scientific relics are but compilation and
translation in the primitive paths of Medicine, and Botany, and Astronomy.

We have some considerable lists of Anglo-Saxon Botany. The vernacular
names of plants, many of them, seem to indicate a Latin tradition dating
from Roman times.147 In the medical treatises we see the practice of
medicine greatly mingled with superstition. Witchcraft is reckoned among
the causes of disease, and formulæ are provided for breaking the spell. The
“Leech Book” contains a series of prescriptions for divers ailments, with
directions for preparation and medical treatment. One batch of these
prescriptions is said to have been sent to King Alfred by Elias, Patriarch of
Jerusalem. A very popular book was the Herbarium of Apuleius. It was
translated into Anglo-Saxon, and four manuscripts of this translation are
still extant.148

On astronomical and cosmical matters there exists a well-written little
treatise of unknown authorship. It has been attributed to Ælfric, and it is
most likely a work of his time. It seems to have been very popular.149 It is,
as it professes to be in the prologue, a popular abridgment of Beda, “De
Natura Rerum.” It begins with a succinct abstract of the creation, the sixth
day being thus rendered:—

On ðam syxtan dæge he gescop On the sixth day he created all
eall deor cynn, ⁊ ealle nytena þe animal-kind, and all the beasts
on feower fotum gað, ⁊ þa that go on four feet, and the two
twegen menn Adam ⁊ Efan. men Adam and Eve.

The eclipse of the moon is well explained. After saying that Night is the
shade of the earth when the sun goes down under it, before it comes up the
other side,—

Woruldlice uðwitan sædon, Worldly philosophers said, that
{þæt} seo sceadu astihð up oð the shadow mounts up until it
ðæt heo becymð to þære lyfte arrives at the top of the
ufeweardan, and þonne be yrnð atmosphere, and then sometimes
se mona hwiltidum þonne he the moon when he is full runs
full byð on ðære sceade into the upper part of the
ufeweardre, and faggeteð oððe shadow, and is darkened or
mid ealle asweartað, for þam þe utterly blackened, forasmuch as
he næfð þære sunnan leoht þa he hath not the sun’s light so
hwile þe he þære sceade ord long as he traverses the
ofer yrnð oð ðæt þære sunnan shadow’s point until that the
leoman hine eft onlihton. sun’s rays again enlighten him.

The Norman Conquest gave the death-blow to our old native literature, in
the sense that the use of the literary Anglo-Saxon in its first integrity, as at
once a learned language and a spoken language, did not extend beyond the
generation that witnessed that great dynastic change. In this strict sense we
might point to the close of the Worcester Chronicle in 1079 as the
termination of Anglo-Saxon literature. There is, indeed, a Saxon Chronicle
that was even begun after that date, one which comprises the whole Saxon
period, and was continued by original writers down to 1154, but it is not
written in normal Anglo-Saxon. It represents the flectional decay which the
living and popular English was undergoing.

It exhibits, also, something of that new growth which was to compensate
for the loss of flection. And it already bears marks of that French influence
which was so largely to affect the whole complexion of the language. I
quote from the last Annal in the Saxon Chronicle of Peterborough:—

1154. On þis gær wærd þe King In this year was King Stephen
Stephan ded and bebyried þer dead and buried where his wife
his wif and his sune wæron and his son were buried at
bebyried æt Faures feld, þet Feversham, the minster he
minstre hi makeden . Þa þe King made. When the King was dead,
was ded, þa was þe eorl beionde then was the earl beyond sea,
sæ . and ne durste nan man don and no man durst do other than
oþer bute god for þe micel eie of good for the great awe of him.
him . Þa he to Engle land com . When he came to England, then
þa was he under fangen mid was he received with great
micel wurtscipe . and to king worship, and consecrated king
bletcæd in Lundene on þe in London on the Sunday before
Sunnen dæi be foren midwinter Christmas Day; and he held
dæi . and held þær micel curt. there a great court.

Here, then, at the very latest, we must close the canon of Anglo-Saxon
literature. And here our subject branches in two; we have to follow with a
brief glance what happened in two divergent lines of succession. As when,
in the early mountainous course of some growing river, a broken hill has
fallen across its bed, the old water-way is choked, and the descending
waters make new channels to the right and to the left; so it was with the
fortunes of our native language and literature after the Norman Conquest.
The stream of largest volume was the spontaneous and popular utterance
which amused in hall and taught in church; the lesser stream was the
artificial maintenance of Anglo-Saxon literature which went on in the old
seats of religion and learning.

The Norman Conquest brought in a vast body of romantic literature. Heroic
or entertaining tales in a ballad form were at that time highly popular; and a
peculiar talent for this sort of narrative was developed in France and among
the Normans. The oldest French romances were those of which the central
figure was Charles the Great. It was one of these, the “Song of Roland,”
that animated the conquering Normans at Senlac. According to high
authorities, it was in the next generation after the Conquest that the
“Chanson de Roland” took that final epic form which now it bears, and
probably the poet’s home was in England.150 For a long time the speech of
the upper society was wholly French. The two languages quickly met one
another in the market, and in all the necessary business of life; but in
respect of literature they long stood apart. Such was the state of things in
this island during the time in which the Carling cycle prevailed. With that
cycle the English language never came into contact at all in its palmy days;
and the few Carling poems that exist in English are of later date, and are of
a mixed nature. When at length, towards the close of the twelfth century, a
literary intercourse had sprung up between the two languages, the hero of
popular song was no longer Charles, but Arthur. In the English poetry of
Layamon (1205), founded upon the French of Robert Wace, we see the

story of Arthur in that early stage where it still purports to be history rather
than romance. Layamon represents the first great step from the old literature
to the new; and he is the first to give an English home to that ideal king who
was to be the chosen theme of Spenser and of Tennyson. We will quote the
death of Arthur and his funeral cortège:—

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR.

Line 28,582.

Tha nas ther na mare, Then was there no more
i than fehte to laue, in that fight left alive,
of twa hundred thusend out of 200,000 men,
monnen, that there lay cut to pieces;
tha ther leien to-hawen; but Arthur the King only
buten Arthur the king one, and two of his knights.
and of his cnihtes tweien. Arthur was wounded
Arthur wes forwunded dangerously much.
wunderliche swithe. There to him came a youth
Ther to him com a cnaue, who was of his kin;
the wes of his cunne; he was son of Cador,
he wes Cadores sune, the earl of Cornwall.
the eorles of Cornwaile. Constantine hight the youth;
Constantin hehte the cnaue; to the king he was dear.
he wes than kinge deore. Arthur looked upon him,
Arthur him lokede on, where he lay on the ground,
ther he lai on folden, and these words said,
and thas word seide, with sorrowful heart.
mid sorhfulle heorte. Constantine thou art welcome
Constantin thu art wilcume, thou wert Cador’s son:
thu weore Cadores sune: I here commit to thee,
ich the bitache here, my kingdom;

mine kineriche: and guide thou my Britons
and wite mine Bruttes, aye to thy life’s cost;
a to thines lifes: and assure them all the laws,
and hald heom alle tha laȝen, that have stood in my days:
tha habbeoth istonden a and all the laws so good,
mine daȝen: that by Uther’s days stood.
and alle tha laȝen gode, And I will fare to Avalon,
tha bi Vtheres daȝen stode. to the fairest of all maidens;
And ich wulle uaren to to Argante the queen,
Aualun, elf exceeding sheen:
to uairest alre maidene; and she shall my wounds,
to Argante there quene, make all sound;
aluen swithe sceone: all whole me make,
and heo scal mine wunden, with healing drinks.
maiken all isunde, And sith return I will,
al hal me makien, to my kingdom:
mid haleweiȝe drenchen. and dwell with Britons,
And seothe ich cumen wulle with mickle joy.
to mine kineriche: Even with these words,
and wunien mid Brutten, lo came from sea wending,
mid muchelere wunne. that was a short boat moving,
Æfne than worden, driving with the waves:
ther com of se wenden, and two women therein,
that wes an sceort bat lithen, of marvellous aspect:
sceouen mid vthen: and they took Arthur anon,
and twa wimmen therinne, and straight him bore away
wunderliche idihte: and softly down him laid,
and heo nomen Arthur anan, and forth with him to sea they gan
and aneouste hine uereden, to move away.
and softe hine adun leiden, Then was it come to pass
and forth gunnen hine lithen. what Merlin said whilome;
Tha wes hit iwurthen, that there should be much curious
that Merlin seide whilen; care,

that weore unimete care, when Arthur out of life should fare.
of Arthures forth-fare. Britons believe yet,
Bruttes ileueth ȝete, that he be alive,
that he beo on liue, and dwelling in Avalon
and wunnie in Aualun, with the fairest of all elves:
mid fairest alre aluen: still look the Britons for the day
and lokieth euere Bruttes of Arthur’s coming o’er the sea.
ȝete,
whan Arthur cume lithen.

In this poetry there is a new vein of popularity. Since we left the primary
poetry we have been on the track of a literature whose spring was in book-
learning. A foreign erudition had thrown the lore of the native minstrel into
the shade. But some relics of domestic material reappear with the new gush
of popular song in the 13th century. Among the mass of stories which fill
that time, we find here and there an old English tale, and sometimes it is a
translation back from the French. The romance of King Horn is one of
these. The names of the personages, and the general course of the plot—the
Saracens notwithstanding—are essentially Saxon. There are lines which are
almost pure Saxon poetry, and there are incidents that recall the Beowulf.

The story is as follows:—Horn was the son of the King of Suddene; he was
of matchless beauty, and he had twelve companions, among whom two
were specially dear to him; they were Athulf and Fikenild, the best and the
worst. The land was conquered by Saracens, who slew the king, but sent off
Horn and his twelve in a ship to perish at sea. They came to a land where
the king was Aylmar, who thus addressed them:—

Whannes beo ȝe, faire gumes,
That her to londe beoth icume,
Alle throttene
Of bodie swithe kene.

“Whence be ye, fair gentlemen, that here to land are come? All thirteen of
body very keen. By him that made me, so fair a band saw I at no time; say
what ye seek?” Horn tells his story, and Aylmar likes him, and bids
Athelbrus, his steward, teach him woodcraft, and the harp and song, and
also to carve and be cupbearer:—

Bifore me to kerve
And of the cupe serve.

The Princess Rymenhild falls in love with Horn, and this is an occasion to
prove the loyalty of Athulf. She orders Athelbrus to send Horn to her; but
he, fearing the consequences, and being specially responsible for Horn,
sends Athulf instead. Athulf finds that the princess has been deceived, and
declares at once that he is not Horn. When at length Horn does meet
Rymenhild, he points out to her the inequality of his rank. She gets her
father to knight him. She also gives him a ring, in which the stones are of
such virtue that if he looks on them and thinks of her he need fear no
wounds:—

The stones beoth of suche grace
That thu ne schalt in none place
Of none duntes beon of drad.

He rides forth in search of adventures to prove his knighthood. He falls in
with a crew of Saracens, slays 100 of them, and brings the head of the
master Saracen on the point of his sword to the king, where he sits in hall
among his knights, and presents it in acknowledgment of his dubbing
(compare p. 130 above). Fikenild tells Aylmar of Horn’s love for his
daughter, and Aylmar banishes Horn. Departing, he promises Rymenhild to
return in seven years or she shall be free to marry another. He leaves the
faithful Athulf behind to look after Rymenhild.

He arrives at the court of King Thurston, and there he calls himself Cutberd.
The land is infested by pagan invaders. Cutberd slays a giant and many of
the Saracens who were with him. Thurston offers him his daughter and the
kingdom with her. Cutberd tells the king that it must not be so, but that he
will claim his reward when he has relieved the king of all his troubles,
which will be at seven years’ end (compare p. 131 above).

Meanwhile, Rymenhild is sought in marriage by King Modi, and the day is
fixed. In her distress she sends in all directions to seek Horn; her messenger
finds Horn and delivers his message, but he never returns to the princess,
because he is drowned. Now Horn tells King Thurston his story, and
entreats his help. He adds that he will provide a worthy husband for his
daughter, namely, Athulf, one of the best and truest of knights. Thurston
assembles his men and they go with Horn. Horn leaves them under the
wood while he goes towards the palace. He meets a palmer and changes
clothes with him. In the palace he takes his place with the beggars, and
when Rymenhild rises to offer wine to the guests he gets speech of her and
lets her see the ring she had given him. This leads to a full recognition and
the betrothal of Horn with Rymenhild. Such is the tale of King Horn.

But, of all the old native stories that crop up in this later time, the most
remarkable is the “Lay of Havelok the Dane,” a large subject which we can
only just indicate here.151

Of the learned branches a good deal continued unbroken by the Conquest.
Such was mostly the case with Homilies and Lives of saints, and Poetry of
the allegorical and instructive kind.

In the Exeter Song-book we saw pieces that had been taken from the old
book “Physiologus.” This allegorical poetry retained its place through all
the changes.152 Here is a passage from the “Whale,” in the language of the
thirteenth century:—

Wiles that weder is so ille,
the sipes that arn on se fordriven
(loth hem is deth, and lef to liven)
biloken hem and sen this fis;
an eilond he wenen it is.
Thereof he aren swithe fagen,
and mid here migt tharto he dragen,
sipes onfesten,
and alle up gangen.
Of ston mid stel in the tunder
wel to brennen one this wunder,
warmen hem wel and heten and drinken;
the fir he feleth and doth hem sinken,
for sone he diveth dun to grunde,
he drepeth hem alle withuten wunde.

These examples may suffice to represent that new literature which began to
rise after the violent removal of the old. They do not belong to the history of
Anglo-Saxon literature except indirectly as a foil and a contrast. They show
how ready were new forms to take the place of the old. But while the
English language was thus following the natural and spontaneous course of
its development, there still survived a powerful interest in the old classical
Englisc. The seat of this literature was in the old monasteries, which
became strongholds of ancient culture and tradition. The old books were
perused and re-copied, and a scholarly knowledge of the old language was
made an object of study. This was sustained not only by sentiment, and
curiosity, and literary taste, but also by a sense of corporate interest. The
titles of the old monasteries to their lands were wholly or very largely
contained in Saxon writings, and these grew in importance with the
growing habits of documentary legality under Norman rule. A language
which was at once native and recondite, far more recondite than the Latin of
the ordinary scholar, could not but be impressive as a documentary medium.

The number of extant Saxon books and deeds which were either originally
composed after the Conquest, or at least re-copied and re-edited, is quite
enough to prepare us to receive what Matthew Parker said in the Latin
preface to his edition (1574) of “Asser”:—

“Furthermore; inasmuch as the medium of many legal documents
and venerable memorials and royal charters preserved in archives,
dating, some before, some after, the coming of the Normans into
England, is Saxon both in language and in writing, I will advise all
who study the institutions of this realm, to undergo the slight and
insignificant labour which is necessary to make themselves masters
of this language. If they will but do this, they will doubtless make
discoveries daily, and will bring to light things which now lie
hidden and remote; yea, they will without effort clear up the
intricacies and perplexities of a great number of things. And in ages
past there were societies of religious persons who were ordered by
our forefathers for this work, that some among them might be
trained in the knowledge of this tongue, and might transmit the
same in succession to those who came after. To wit, in Tavistock
Abbey, in the county of Devon, and in many other fraternities
(within my memory) this was an established thing; to the end, as I
suppose, that acquaintance with a literature whose language is
antiquated might not perish for lack of use.”

Thus we see that in the centuries between the Conquest and the
Reformation the old Englisc was a recognised subject of study; and that it
enjoyed, as the Latin did, the honours of an ancient language which was too
much esteemed to be allowed to perish. And, therefore, it was said above
that the Anglo-Saxon language and literature never died out; for the
knowledge of it was kept up till the time when, through the general Revival
of learning, new motives were supplied for its diligent study, and the very

man in whom the new movement is impersonated is he who testifies that
the study had lasted down to a time within his own memory.

14 Written and illustrated with miniatures by order of Æðelwold, Bishop of
5 Winchester, A.D. 963-984. Hexameter verses in a superior style of penmanship,
namely, the old Latin rustic, record the history of the book, and give the scribe’s
name as Godeman, perhaps the Abbot of Thorney, who began A.D. 970. The
illuminations are engraved in “Archæologia,” xxiv.
14 The “Leofric Missal,” edited by F. E. Warren, B.D., Clarendon Press, 1883.
6
14 Particulars may be found in my “English Plant Names from the Tenth to the
7 Fifteenth Century,” Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1880.

14 The medical treatises have been collected in three volumes (Rolls Series) by Mr.
8 Cockayne, under the title of “Saxon Leechdoms.”

14 There are four copies of it in the Cotton Library, and one in Cambridge University
9 library; some also in other collections. It has been printed from a Cotton manuscript
written, the editor says, about A.D. 990. “Popular Treatises on Science,” edited by
T. Wright, 1841.
15 “La Chanson de Roland,” par Léon Gautier, ed. 7 (1880), Introduction.
0
15 This poem, of which there are many external traces, had long been given up as lost,
1 was deplored by Tyrwhitt and by Ritson, and was accidentally discovered in a
Bodleian manuscript, latent amidst legends of saints. From this unique MS. it was
edited by Sir F. Madden; and again (1868) by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, who says in his
preface:—“There can be little doubt that the tradition must have existed from
Anglo-Saxon times, but the earliest mention of it is presented to us in the French
version of the Romance.... The story is in no way connected with France; ... From
every point of view, ... the story is wholly English,” p. iv.
15 An old English Miscellany, containing a “Bestiary,” &c., ed. R. Morris (E.E.T.S.),
2 1872, p. 17. The “Phisiologus” is quoted in Chaucer, apparently from this very
“Bestiary”; and Dr. Morris says that scraps of it are found even in Elizabethan
writers. I add a translation of the piece quoted:—“Whilst that weather is so bad, the
ships that are driven about on the sea (death is unwelcome, men love to live) look
about them and see this fish; they ween it is an island. They are very glad of it, and
with all their might they draw towards it, make the ships fast, and all go ashore.
With stone and steel and tinder they make a good fire on this monster, and warm
themselves well, and eat and drink; the whale feels the fire and makes them sink,
for he quickly dives to the bottom, he kills them all without wound.”

INDEX.
Abgar, Lay of, 241
Abingdon Chronicle, 32, 173
Ælfric, Abbot, 23, 40, 67, 207, 213, 221, 245
Bata, 40
Ælfheah, Archbishop, 224
Æthelberht, 81
Æthelred’s Laws, 164
Æthelweard, 183, 220
Æthelwold, Bishop, 25, 51, 181, 207, 219, 243
Aidan, Bishop, 99
Alcuin, 23, 99, 117
Aldhelm, 21, 53, 86
Alfred, 15, 24, 186 ff., 207, 244
Alfred Jewel, 49
Alfred’s Laws, 154 ff.
Andreas, the, 90, 233 f.
“Anglo-Saxon,” 206
Apollonius of Tyre, 18, 212
Apuleius, 245
Architecture, 52
Arnold, Thomas, 121, 136
Arthur, 59, 249
Arundel Marbles, 48
Ashburnham House, 32
Ashmolean Museum, 49
Asser, 43, 183, 187, 256
Athelstan’s Laws, 159
Augustine, Archbishop, 52
Avitus, Bishop, 14

Ballads, the, 145 ff.
Baron, Dr., 221
Beda, 21, 64, 81, 102 ff., 204, 245
Benedict of Nursia, 15
of Aniane, 209
Beowulf, the, 32, 45, 58, 68, 71, 120 ff., 225
Biscop, Benedict, 86, 99

Blickling Homilies, 47, 139, 213 ff.
Blume, Dr., 46
Bodleian Library, 34
Boethian Metres, 71, 202 ff.
Boethius, 14, 201 ff.
Boniface (Winfrid), 21
Bosworth, Dr., 44, 226
Bradford-on-Avon, 53
Buckley, Professor, 40
Burials, Saxon, 55
Byrhtnoth, 217

Cædmon, 14, 22, 39, 68, 99, 111
Cæsar, 62
Camden, William, 43, 183
Canons of Ælfric, 67, 220
Canterbury, 20, 79, 98
Carling Romances, 248
Cenwalh, 180
Ceolfrid, Abbot, 102
Charles the Great, 187, 248
Chaucer, 27, 242, 254
Chronicles, the, 20, 22, 61, 169 ff.
Cockayne, Oswald, 245
Colman, Bishop, 99
Conybeare, 45
Cotton Library, 32, 245
Cotton, Sir Robert, 31, 35
Coxe, Henry Octavius, 39, 40
Cuthbert, St., 99, 104
Cynewulf, 226 ff.

Danihel, Bishop, 21
Dasent, Sir George, 68
Day, John, 35, 42
Days of the Week, 73
Dialogues, Gregory’s, 16, 36, 193 ff.
of Solomon, &c., 210 ff.
Dietrich, Professor, 208, 227, 240
Documents, Legal, 167
Dunstan, Archbishop, 25, 43, 207, 219
Durham Ritual, 111, 243

Eadmer, 52
Ebert, Adolf, 103, 118
Edda, the, 65
Eddi, 21, 99
Edwin, King, 98
Egbert, Archbishop, 21, 99
Elene, the, 90, 234 ff.
Epinal Gloss, 91, 97

Ettmüller, Ludwig, 121, 134
Eusebius of Cæsarea, 241
of Emesa, 216
Evesham, 69
Exeter Book, 29, 88, 225 ff., 254.
Eynsham, 220

Felix, Bishop, 80
Florence, 184
Floriacum, 25
Frankish Art, 51
Graves, 56
Freeman, E. A., 54, 141, 184, 206
Futhorc, the, 239

Gibson, Edmund, 45
Gildas, 60
Glossaries, 90
Godeman, 243
Gospels in A.-S., 73, 205, 208
Gough, Richard, 39
Gregory the Great, 15, 20, 85
of Tours, 18, 19, 85
Grein, Dr., 121, 135, 208, 220, 239.
Grettir, Saga of, 137
Grimbald, 187
Grimm, Jacob, 46, 73, 153
Grundtvig, Dr., 121
Guthlac, St., 227, 232
Guthrum, 156, 159

Hadrian, Abbot, 21, 85
Harley, Robert, 34
Hatton, Lord, 36
Havelok the Dane, 254
Heliand, the, 22, 23, 68, 116
Henry of Huntingdon, 184
Heyne, Moritz, 121
Hickes, George, 44
Hickey, E. H., 144
Higden, 185
Hild, Abbess, 100
Homilies of Ælfric, 74, 102, 214 ff.
of Wulfstan, 222 ff.
see Blickling.
Horn, Romance of, 251 ff.
Hugo Candidus, 229

Illuminated Books, 51
Ine’s Laws, 151
Inscriptions, 47

Irish Teachers, 86
Isidore of Seville, 85

Jarrow, 103
Jerome, 217
Jewellery, 49
John of Saxony, 187
Joscelin, 43
Judith, the, 225
Juliana, St., 227, 232
Junius, Franciscus, 37, 44, 112

Kemble, J. M., 90, 121, 154, 210, 226, 228, 239
Kentish Dialect, 84, 90, 97
Laws, 80

Lambarde, William, 150 {footnote 91}
Lanferth, 219
Lappenberg, J. M., 46, 169
Laud, Archbishop, 34
Laws, the, 66, 150 ff.
Layamon, 27, 249
Leofric, Bishop, 28, 244
Missal, 29, 243
Lumby, Professor, 103
Lindisfarne, 117
Gospels, 33, 51, 111

Macray, W. D., 34
Madden, Sir F., 254
Maidulf, 86
Maine, Sir H., 154, 163
Marshall, Dr., 44
Matthew Parker, 29, 42, 256
Mayor, Professor, 103
Metcalfe, F., 44
Milton, John, 14, 112, 115, 232
More, Bishop, 41, 101
Morfil, W. R., 148
Morley, Henry, 134
Morris, Dr. R., 222, 254
Müllenhof, Dr. Karl, 134

Napier, Arthur, 222
Nicodemus, Gospel of, 209
Northumbria, 21
Northumbrian Dialect, 111
Notker, 15

Odin, 75
Odo, Archbishop, 25, 219

Orm, 27
Orosius, 13, 204
Oswald, Bishop, 219

Palgrave, Sir Francis, 152, 164
Panther, the, 231
Parker, Archbishop, 29, 42, 256
Parker, J. H., 54
Parker Library, 44, 244
Pastoral Care, the, 16, 36, 188 ff.
Paulinus, Bishop, 98
Pauli, Reinhold, 169
Paulus Diaconus, 23
Pericles (Shakespeare), 18
Peterborough Chronicle, 26, 36, 178, 181, 184
Phœnix, the, 9, 227, 230
Physiologus, the, 215, 231, 254
Pilate, Acts of, 209
Plegmund, Archbishop, 187
Psalter (Kentish), 94
(Poetical), 90, 208

Rawlinson, Richard, 38, 45
Riddles, 87, 240
Robert of Jumièges, 244
Rochester Book, 26
Ruined City, the, 140
Rule of St. Benedict, 40
Runes, 78, 111, 226, 238
Runic Poem, 239
Rushworth, John, 38
Ruthwell Cross, 111

Sanders, W. Basevi, 41
Schaldemose, 121
Schmid, Reinhold, 150
Scott, Sir Walter, 150, 228
Sculpture, 55
Sievers, Edouard, 116
Sigeric, Archbishop, 217
Simeon of Durham, 177, 184
Simposius, 10, 240 Transcriber’s note: Symposius and Simphosius in
text
Skeat, Professor, 44, 111, 218, 254
Smaragdus, 23
Solomon and Saturn, 209 ff.
Somner, William, 44
Spell, 75
Spelman, Sir Henry, 43, 44
Sir John, 44
Spenser, Edmund, 136, 249

St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, 20, 35
Stallybrass, J. S., 70
Stephens, Professor George, 47, 111, 117, 241
Stubbs, Professor, 162, 183, 185
Sweet, Mr., 33
Swithun, St., 69, 218, 219

Tacitus, 62
Tavistock, 256
Tennyson, Alfred, 136, 147, 249
Theodore, Archbishop, 21, 85, 100
Thorkelin, G. J., 45, 121
Thorney, 243
Thorpe, Benjamin, 46, 121, 150, 208, 222
Thwaites, Edward, 220
Trial by Jury, 163 ff.

Vercelli Book, 46, 90, 225, 233 ff.
Vigfusson, Dr. Gudbrand, 138

Wace, Robert, 27, 249
Walahfrid Strabo, 23
Waldhere (Fragment), 47
Wanley, Humphrey, 45
Warren, F. E., 244
Watson, R. Spence, 113
Wearmouth, 102
Weland, 58, 70
Werfrith, Bishop, 36, 187, 189, 193
Westwood, Professor, 30, 39, 51
Whale, the, 231, 255
Wheloc, Abraham, 43, 150
Whitby, 99
Widsith, the, 148
Wilfrid, 99, 100
Wilkins, Bishop, 150
Willebrord, 99
William of Malmesbury, 185
Winchester Chronicle, 171, 178
Winfrid (Boniface), 21, 99
Winton Book, 26
Woden, 66
Worcester Chartulary, 26
Chronicle, 32, 173
Wordsworth, Canon, 48
Wright, Thomas, 183, 226, 245
Wülcker, Professor, 112, 140
Wulfstan, Archbishop, 224
Wulstan, Latin poet, 219

York, 21

Zeuner, Rudolf, 33
Zupitza, Julius, 41

THE END.

WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.

CORRIGENDA.

Transcriber’s note: These corrections have been made
in the transcribed text, except the first, which refers to a
page heading.

Page 103, Heading, for “Anglican” read “Anglian.”

” 115, line 22, for “vora” read “wora.”

” 150, ” 23, for “Lombarde” read “Lambarde.” {footnote 91}

” 154, ” 16, for “History” read “history.”

” 208, ” 12, for “translations” read “translation.”

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