Chapter 21

_THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND PROSE LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS._

I.

Augustine, prior of St. Martin of Rome, sent by Gregory the Great, arrived in 597. To the Germanic pirates established in the isle of Britain, he brought a strange teaching. The ideas he tried to spread have become so familiar to us, we can hardly realise the amazement they must have caused. To these fearless warriors who won kingdoms at the point of their spears, and by means of their spears too won their way into Walhalla, who counted on dying one day, not in their beds, but in battle, so that the Valkyrias, "choosers of the slain," might carry them to heaven on their white steeds, to these men came a foreign monk, and said: Be kind; worship the God of the weak, who, unlike Woden, will reward thee not for thy valour, but for thy mercy.

Such was the seed that Rome, ever life-giving, now endeavoured to sow among triumphant sea-rovers. The notion of the State and the notion of the Church both rose out of the ruins of the Eternal City; ideas equally powerful, but almost contradictory, which were only to be reconciled after centuries of confusion, and alternate periods of violence and depression. The princes able to foresee the necessary fusion of these two ideas, and who made attempts, however rude, to bring it about were rare, and have remained for ever famous: Charlemagne in France and Alfred the Great in England.

The miracle of conversion was accomplished in the isle, as it had been on the Continent. Augustine baptized King AEthelberht, and celebrated mass in the old Roman church of St. Martin of Canterbury. The religion founded by the Child of Bethlehem conquered the savage Saxons, as it had conquered the debauched Romans; the difficulty and the success were equal in both cases. In the Germanic as in the Latin country, the new religion had to stem the stream; the Romans of the decadence and the men of the North differed in their passions, but resembled each other in the impetuosity with which they followed the lead of their instincts. To both, the apostle came and whispered: Curb thy passions, be hard upon thyself and merciful to others; blessed are the simple, blessed are the poor; as thou forgivest so shalt thou be forgiven; thou shalt not despise the weak, thou shalt _love_ him! And this unexpected murmur was heard each day, like a counsel and a threat, in the words of the morning prayer, in the sound of the bells, in the music of pious chants.

The conversion was at first superficial, and limited to outward practices; the warrior bent the knee, but his heart remained the same. The spirit of the new religion could not as yet penetrate his soul; he remained doubtful between old manners and new beliefs, and after fits of repentance and relapses into savagery, the converted chieftain finally left this world better prepared for Walhalla than for Paradise. Those who witnessed his death realised it themselves. When Theodoric the Great died in his palace at Ravenna, piously and surrounded by priests, Woden was seen, actually seen, bearing away the prince's soul to Walhalla.

The new converts of Great Britain understood the religion of Christ much as they had understood that of Thor. Only a short distance divided man from godhood in heathen times; the god had his passions and his adventures, he was intrepid, and fought even better than his people. For a long time, as will happen with neophytes, the new Christians continued to seek around them the human god who had disappeared in immensity, they addressed themselves to him as they had formerly done to the deified heroes, who, having shared their troubles, must needs sympathise with their sorrows. For a long time, contradictory faiths were held side by side. Christ was believed in, but Woden was still feared, and secretly appeased by sacrifices. Kings are obliged to publish edicts, forbidding their subjects to believe in the ancient divinities, whom they now term "demons"; but that does not prevent the monks who compile the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" from tracing back the descent of their princes to Woden: if it is not deifying, it is at least ennobling them.[70]

Be your obedience qualified by reason, St. Paul had said. That of the Anglo-Saxons was not so qualified. On the contrary, they believed out of obedience, militarily. Following the prince's lead, all his subjects are converted; the prince goes back to heathendom; all his people become heathens again. From year to year, however, the new religion progresses, while the old is waning; this phenomenon is brought about, in the south, by the influence of Augustine and the monks from Rome; and in the north, owing mainly to Celtic monks from the monastery of Iona, founded in the sixth century by St. Columba, on the model of the convents of Ireland. About the middle of the seventh century the work is nearly accomplished; the old churches abandoned by the Romans have been restored; many others are built; one of them still exists at Bradford-on-Avon in a perfect state of preservation[71]; monasteries are founded, centres of culture and learning. Some of the rude princes who reign in the country set great examples of devotion to Christ and submission to the Roman pontiff. They date their charters from the "reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, reigning for ever."[72] The Princess Hilda founds, in the seventh century, the monastery of Streoneshalch, and becomes its abbess; Ceadwalla dies at Rome in 689, and is buried in St. Peter's, under the _Porticus Pontificum_, opposite the tomb of St. Gregory the Great.[73] AEthelwulf, king of the West Saxons, goes also on a pilgrimage to Rome "in great state, and remains twelve months, after which he returns home; and then Charles, king of the Franks, gave him his daughter in marriage."[74] He sends his son Alfred to the Eternal City; and the Pope takes a liking to the young prince, who was to be Alfred the Great.

The notion of moderation and measure is unknown to these enthusiasts, who easily fall into despair. In the following period, after the Norman Conquest, when manners and customs were beginning to change, the chronicler, William of Malmesbury, trying to draw a correct picture of the ancient owners of the land, is struck by the exaggerations of the Saxons' temperament. Great numbers of them are drunkards, they lead dissolute lives, and reign as ferocious tyrants; great numbers of them, too, are pious, devout, faithful even unto martyrdom: "What shall I say of so many bishops, hermits, and abbots? The island is rendered famous by the relics of native saints, so numerous that it is impossible to visit a borough of any importance without hearing the name of a new saint. Yet the memory of many has vanished, for lack of writers to preserve it!"[75]

The taste for proselytism, of which the race has since given so many proofs, is early manifested. Once converted, the Anglo-Saxons produce missionaries, who in their turn carry the glad tidings to their pagan brothers on the Continent, and become saints of the Roman Church. St. Wilfrith leaves Northumberland about 680, and goes to preach the Gospel to the Frisians; St. Willibrord starts from England about 690, and settles among the Frisians and Danes[76]; Winfrith, otherwise called St. Boniface (an approximate translation of his name), sojourns in Thuringia and Bavaria, "sowing," as he says, "the evangelical seed among the rude and ignorant tribes of Germany."[77] He reorganises the Church of the Franks, and dies martyrised by the Frisians in 755. Scarcely is the hive formed when it begins to swarm. The same thing happened with all the sects created later in the English land.

II.

With religion had come Latin letters. Those same Anglo-Saxons, whose literature at the time of their invasion consisted in the songs mentioned by Tacitus, "carmina antiqua," which they trusted to memory alone, who compiled no books and who for written monuments had Runic inscriptions graven on utensils or on commemorative stones, now have, in their turn, monks who compose chronicles, and kings who know Latin. Libraries are formed in the monasteries; schools are attached to them; manuscripts are there copied and illuminated in beautiful caligraphy and splendid colours. The volutes and knots with which the worshippers of Woden ornamented their fibulae, their arms, the prows of their ships, are reproduced in purple and azure, in the initials of the Gospels. The use made of them is different, the taste remains the same.

The Anglo-Saxon missionaries and learned men correspond with each other in the language of Rome. Boniface, in the wilds of Germany, remains in constant communication with the prelates and monks of England; he begs for books, asks for and gives advice; his letters have come down to us, and are in Latin. Ealhwine or Alcuin, of York, called by Charlemagne to his court, freely bestows, in Latin letters, good advice on his countrymen. He organises around the great Emperor a literary academy, where each bears an assumed name; Charlemagne has taken that of David, his chamberlain has chosen that of Tyrcis, and Alcuin that of Horatius Flaccus. In this "hotel de Rambouillet" of the Karlings, the affected style was as much relished as at the fair Arthenice's, and Alcuin, in his barbarous Latin, has a studied elegance that might vie with the conceits of Voiture.[78]

Aldhelm (or Ealdhelm, d. 709) writes a treatise on Latin prosody, and, adding example to precept, composes riddles and a Eulogy of Virgins in Latin verse.[79] AEddi (Eddius Stephanus) writes a life, also in Latin, of his friend St. Wilfrith.[80]

The history of the nation had never been written. On the Continent, and for a time in the island, rough war-songs were the only annals of the Anglo-Saxons. Now they have Latin chronicles, a Latin which Tacitus might have smiled at, but which he would have understood. Above all, they have the work of the Venerable Bede (Baeda), the most important Latin monument of all the Anglo-Saxon period.

Bede was born in Northumbria, about 673, the time when the final conversion of England was being accomplished. He early entered the Benedictine monastery of Jarrow, and remained there till his death. It was a recently founded convent, established by Benedict Biscop, who had enriched it with books brought back from his journeys to Rome. In this retreat, on the threshold of which worldly sounds expired, screened from sorrows, surrounded by disciples who called him "dear master, beloved father," Bede allowed the years of his life to glide on, his sole ambition being to learn and teach.

The peaceful calm of this sheltered existence, which came to an end before the time of the Danish invasions, is reflected in the writings of Bede. He left a great number of works: interpretations of the Gospels, homilies, letters, lives of saints, works on astronomy, a "De Natura Rerum" where he treats of the elements, of comets, of winds, of the Nile, of the Red Sea, of Etna; a "De Temporibus," devoted to bissextiles, to months, to the week, to the solstice; a "De Temporum Ratione" on the months of the Greeks, Romans, and Angles, the moon and its power, the epact, Easter, &c. He wrote hymns in Latin verse, and a life of St. Cuthberht; lastly, and above all, he compiled in Latin prose, a "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum,"[81] which has remained the basis of all the histories composed after his. In it Bede shows himself as he was: honest, sincere, sedate, and conscientious. He quotes his authorities which are, for the description of the island and for the most ancient period of his history, Pliny, Solinus, Eutropius, Orosius, Gildas. From the advent of Augustine his work becomes his own; he collects documents, memoranda, testimonies, frequently legends, and publishes the whole without any criticism, but without falsifications. He lacks art, but not straightforwardness.

Latinist though he was, he did not despise the national literature in spite of its ruggedness. He realised it was truly a literature; he made translations in Anglo-Saxon, but they are lost; he was versed in the national poetry, "doctus in nostris carminibus," writes his pupil Cuthberht,[82] who pictures him on his deathbed, muttering Anglo-Saxon verses. He felt the charm of the poetic genius of his nation, and for that reason has preserved and naively related the episodes of Caedmon in his stable,[83] and of the Saxon chief comparing human life to the sparrow flying across the banquet hall.

Bede died on the 27th of May, 735, leaving behind him such a renown for sanctity that his bones were the occasion for one of those pious thefts common in the Middle Ages. In the eleventh century a priest of Durham removed them in order to place them in the cathedral of that town, where they still remain. St. Boniface, on receiving the news of this death, far away in Germany, begged his friends in England to send him the works of his compatriot; the homilies of Bede would assist him, he said, in composing his own, and his commentaries on the Scriptures would be "a consolation in his sorrows."[84]

III.

Anglo-Saxon monks now speak Latin; some, since the coming of Theodore of Tarsus,[85] even know a little Greek; an Anglo-Saxon king sleeps at Rome, under the portico of St. Peter's; Woden has left heaven; on the soil convulsed by so many wars, the leading of peaceful, sheltered lives, entirely dedicated to study, has become possible: and such was the case with Bede. Has the nation really changed, and do we find ourselves already in the presence of men with a partly latinised genius, such men as the English were hereafter to be? Not yet. The heart and mind remain the same; the surface alone is modified, and that slightly. The full infusion of the Latin element, which is to transform the Anglo-Saxons into English, will take place several centuries hence, and will be the result of a last invasion. The genius of the Teutonic invaders continues nearly intact, and nothing proves this more clearly than the Christian poetry composed in the native tongue, and produced in Britain after the conversion. The same impetuosity, passion, and lyricism, the same magnificent apostrophes which gave its character to the old pagan poetry are found again in Christian songs, as well as the same recurring alternatives of deep melancholy and noisy exultation.

The Anglo-Saxon poets describe the saints of the Gospel, and it seems as though the companions of Beowulf stood again before us: "So, we have learned, in days of yore, of twelve beneath the stars, heroes gloriously blessed." These "heroes," these "warriors," are the twelve apostles. One of them, St. Andrew, arrives in an uninhabited country; not a desert in Asia, nor a solitude in Greece; it might be the abode of Grendel: "Then was the saint in the shadow of darkness, warrior hard of courage, the whole night long with various thoughts beset; snow bound the earth with winter-casts; cold grew the storms, with hard hail-showers; and rime and frost, the hoary warriors, locked up the dwellings of men, the settlements of the people; frozen were the lands with cold icicles, shrunk the water's might; over the river streams, the ice made a bridge, a pale water road."[86]

They have accepted the religion of Rome; they believe in the God of Mercy; they have faith in the apostles preaching the doctrine of love to the world: peace on earth to men of good will! But that warlike race would think it a want of respect to see in the apostles mere _pacifici_, and in the Anglo-Saxon poems they are constantly termed "warriors."

At several different times these new Christians translated parts of the Bible into verse, and the Bible became Anglo-Saxon, not only in language, but in tone and feeling as well. The first attempt of this kind was made by that herdsman of the seventh century, named Caedmon, whose history has been told by Bede. He was so little gifted by nature that when he sat, on feast days, at one of those meals "where the custom is that each should sing in turn, he would leave the table when he saw the harp approaching and return to his dwelling," unable to find verses to sing like the others. One night, when the harp had thus put him to flight, he had, in the stable where he was keeping the cattle, a vision. "Sing me something," was the command of a mysterious being. "I cannot," he answered, "and the reason why I left the hall and retired here is that I cannot sing." "But sing thou must." "What shall I sing, then?" "Sing the origin of things." Then came at once into his mind "excellent verses"; Bede translates a few of them, which are very flat, but he generously lays the fault on his own translation, saying: "Verses, even the very best, cannot be turned word for word from one language into another without losing much of their beauty and dignity,"[87] a remark which has stood true these many centuries. Taken to the abbess Hilda, of Streoneshalch, Caedmon roused the admiration of all, became a monk, and died like a saint, "and no one since, in the English race, has ever been able to compose pious poems equal to his, for he was inspired by God, and had learnt nothing of men." Some tried, however.

An incomplete translation of the Bible in Anglo-Saxon verses has come down to us, the work apparently of several authors of different epochs.[88] Caedmon may be one of them: the question has been the cause of immense discussion, and remains doubtful.

The tone is haughty and peremptory in the impassioned parts; abrupt appositions keep the attention fixed upon the main quality of the characters, the one by which they are meant to live in memory; triumphant accents accompany the tales of war; the dismal landscapes are described with care, or rather with loving delight. Ethereal personages become in this popular Bible tangible realities. The fiend approaches Paradise with the rude wiles of a peasant. Before starting he takes a helmet, and fastens it tightly on his head. He presents himself to Adam as coming from God: "The all-powerful above will not have trouble himself, that on his journey he should come, the Lord of men, but he his vassal sendeth."[89]

Hell, the deluge, the corruption of the grave, the last judgment, the cataclysms of nature, are favourite subjects with these poets. Inward sorrows, gnawing thoughts that "besiege" men, doubts, remorse, gloomy landscapes, all afford them abundant inspiration. Satan in his hell has fits of anguish and hatred, and the description of his tortures seems a rude draft of Milton's awful picture.

Cynewulf,[90] one of the few poets of the Anglo-Saxon period known by name, and the greatest of all, feels the pangs of despair; and then rises to ecstasies, moved by religious love; he speaks of his return to Christ with a passionate fervour, foreshadowing the great conversions of the Puritan epoch. He ponders over his thoughts "in the narrowness of night ... I was stained with my deeds, bound by my sins, buffeted with sorrows, bitterly bound, with misery encompassed...." Then the cross appears to him in the depths of heaven, surrounded by angels, sparkling with jewels, flowing with blood. A sound breaks through the silence of the firmament; life has been given to "the best of trees," and it speaks: "It was long ago, yet I remember it, that I was cut down, at the end of a wood, stirred from my sleep." The cross is carried on the top of a mountain: "Then the young hero made ready, that was Almighty God.... I trembled when the champion embraced me."[91]

The poem in which St. Andrew figures as a "warrior bold in war," attributed also to the same Cynewulf, is filled by the sound of the sea; all the sonorities of the ocean are heard, with the cadence and the variety of the ancient Scandinavian sagas; a multitude of picturesque and living expressions designate a ship: "Foamy-necked it fareth, likest unto a bird it glideth over ocean;" it follows the path of the swans, and of the whales, borne by the ocean stream "to the rolling of the waters ... the clashing of the sea-streams ... the clash of the waves." The sea of these poets, contrary to what Tacitus thought, was not a slumbering sea; it quivers, it foams, it sings.

St. Andrew decides to punish by a miracle the wild inhabitants of the land of Mermedonia. We behold, as in the Northern sagas, an impressive scene, and a fantastic landscape: "He saw by the wall, wondrous fast upon the plain, mighty pillars, columns standing driven by the storm, the antique works of giants....

"Hear thou, marble stone! by the command of God, before whose face all creatures shall tremble, ... now let from thy foundation streams bubble out ... a rushing stream of water, for the destruction of men, a gushing ocean!...

"The stone split open, the stream bubbled forth; it flowed over the ground, the foaming billows at break of day covered the earth...."

The sleeping warriors are awakened by this "bitter service of beer." They attempt to "fly from the yellow stream, they would save their lives in mountain caverns"; but an angel "spread abroad over the town pale fire, hot warlike floods," and barred them the way; "the waves waxed, the torrents roared, fire-sparks flew aloft, the flood boiled with its waves;" on all sides were heard groans and the "death-song."[92] Let us stop; but the poet continues; he is enraptured at the sight; no other description is so minutely drawn. Ariosto did not find a keener delight in describing with leisurely pen the bower of Alcina.

The religious poets of the Anglo-Saxons open the graves; the idea of death haunts them as much as it did their pagan ancestors; they look intently at the "black creatures, grasping and greedy," and follow the process of decay to the end. They address the impious dead: "It would have been better for thee very much, ... that thou hadst been created a bird, or a fish in the sea, or like an ox upon the earth hadst found thy nurture going in the field, a brute without understanding; or in the desert of wild beasts the worst, yea, though thou hadst been of serpents the fiercest, then as God willed it, than thou ever on earth shouldst become a man, or ever baptism should receive"[93]

This soul should fly from me, And I be changed into some brutish beast All beasts are happy, for when they die Their souls are soon ditched in elements O soul! be changed into small water drops, And fall into the ocean; ne'er be found

So will, unknown to him, the very same thoughts be expressed by an English poet of a later day.[94]

Dialogues are not rare in these poems, but they generally differ very much from the familiar dialogue of the Celts. They are mostly epic in character, lyric in tone, with abrupt apostrophes causing the listener to start, like the sudden sound of a trumpet. When the idea is more fully developed the dialogue becomes a succession of discourses, full of eloquence and power sometimes, but still discourses. We are equally far in both cases from the conversational style so frequent in the Irish stories.[95]

The devotional poetry of the Anglo-Saxons includes translations of the Psalms,[96] lives of saints, maxims, moral poems, and symbolic ones, where the supposed habits of animals are used to illustrate the duties of Christians. One of this latter sort has for its subject the whale "full of guile," another the panther[97]; a third (incomplete) the partridge; a fourth, by a different hand, and evincing a very different sort of poetical taste, the phenix. This poem is the only one in the whole range of Anglo-Saxon literature in which the warmth and hues of the south are preserved and sympathetically described. It is a great change to find a piece of some length with scarcely any frost in it, no stormy waves and north wind. The poet is himself struck by the difference, and notices that it is not at all there "as here with us," for there "nor hail nor rime on the land descend, nor windy cloud." In the land of the phenix there is neither rain, nor cold, nor too great heat, nor steep mountains, nor wild dales; there are no cares, and no sorrows. But there the plains are evergreen, the trees always bear fruit, the plants are covered with flowers. It is the home of the peerless bird. His eyes turn to the sun when it rises in the east, and at night he "looks earnestly when shall come up gliding from the east over the spacious sea, heaven's beam." He sings, and men never heard anything so exquisite. His note is more beautiful than the sound of the human voice, than that of trumpets and horns, than that of the harp, than "any of those sounds that the Lord has created for delight to men in this sad world."

When he grows old, he flies to a desert place in Syria. Then, "when the wind is still, the weather is fair, clear heaven's gem holy shines, the clouds are dispelled, the bodies of waters stand still, when every storm is lull'd under heaven, from the south shines nature's candle warm," the bird begins to build itself a nest in the branches, with forest leaves and sweet-smelling herbs. As the heat of the sun increases "at summer's tide," the perfumed vapour of the plants rises, and the nest and bird are consumed. There remains something resembling a fruit, out of which comes a worm, that develops into a bird with gorgeous wings. Thus man, in harvest-time, heaps grains in his dwelling, before "frost and snow, with their predominance earth deck, with winter weeds." From these seeds in springtime, as out of the ashes of the phenix, will come forth living things, stalks bearing fruits, "earth's treasures." Thus man, at the hour of death, renews his life, and receives at God's hands youth and endless joy.[98]

There are, doubtless, rays of light in Anglo-Saxon literature, which appear all the more brilliant for being surrounded by shadow; but this example of a poem sunny throughout is unique. To find others, we must wait till Anglo-Saxon has become English literature.

IV.

Besides their Latin writings and their devotional poems, the converted Anglo-Saxons produced many prose works in their national tongue. Germanic England greatly differed in this from Germanic France. In the latter country the language of the Franks does not become acclimatised; they see it themselves, and feel the impossibility of resisting; Latin as in general use, they have their national law written in Latin, _Lex Salica_. The popular speech, which will later become the French language, is nothing but a Latin _patois_, and is not admitted to the honour of being written. Notwithstanding all the care with which archives have been searched, no specimens of French prose have been discovered for the whole time corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon period save one or two short fragments.[99] With the Anglo-Saxons, laws,[100] chronicles, and sermons for the common people were written in the national tongue; and, as Latin was only understood by few, to these monuments was added a series of translations.[101] The English country can thus pride itself upon a literature which for antiquity is unparalleled in Europe.

The chief promoter of the art of prose was that Alfred (or Aelfred) whom Pope Leo IV. had adopted as a spiritual son, and who reigned over the West Saxons from 871 to 901. Between the death of Bede and the accession of Alfred, a great change had occurred in the island; towards the end of the eighth century a new foe had appeared, the Scandinavian invader. Stormy days have returned, the flood-gates have reopened; human torrents sweep the land, and each year spread further and destroy more. In vain the Anglo-Saxon kings, and in France the successors of Charlemagne, annually purchase their departure, thus following the example of falling Rome. The northern hordes come again in greater numbers, allured by the ransoms, and they carry home such quantities of English coins that "at this day larger hoards of AEthelred the Second's coins have been found in the Scandinavian countries than in our own, ... and the national museum at Stockholm is richer in this series than our own national collection."[102] These men, termed Danes, Northmen, or Normans, by the Anglo-Saxon and French chroniclers, reappeared each year; then, like the Germanic pirates of the fifth century, spared themselves the trouble of useless journeys, and remained in the proximity of plunder. They settled first on the coasts, then in the interior. We find them established in France about the middle of the ninth century; in England they winter in Thanet for the first time in 851, and after that do not leave the country. The small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, alive only to local interests, and unable to unite in a common resistance, are for them an easy prey. The Scandinavians move about at their ease, sacking London and the other towns. They renew their ravages at regular intervals, as men would go fishing at the proper season.[103] They are designated throughout the land by a terribly significant word: "the Army." When the Anglo-Saxon chronicles make mention of "the Army" the northern vikings are always meant, not the defenders of the country. Monasteries are burnt by the invaders with no more remorse than if they were peasants' huts; the vikings do not believe in Christ. Once more, and for the last time, Woden has worshippers in Britain.

Harassed by the Danes, having had to flee and disappear and hide himself, Alfred, after a long period of reverses, resumed the contest with a better chance, and succeeded in setting limits to the Scandinavian incursions. England was divided in two parts, the north belonging to the Danes, and the south to Alfred, with Winchester for his capital.[104]

In the tumult caused by these new wars, what the Saxons had received of Roman culture had nearly all been swept away. Books had been burnt, clerks had forgotten their Latin; the people were relapsing by degrees into barbarism. Formerly, said Alfred, recalling to mind the time of Bede and Alcuin, "foreigners came to this land in search of wisdom and instruction, and we should now have to get them from abroad if we wanted to have them." He does not believe there existed south of the Thames, at the time of his accession, a single Englishman "able to translate a letter from Latin into English. When I considered all this, I remembered also how I saw, before it had been all ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God's servants, but they had very little knowledge of the books, for they could not understand anything of them, because they were not written in their own language." It is a great wonder that men of the preceding generation, "good and wise men who were formerly all over England," wrote no translation. There can be but one explanation: "They did not think that men would ever be so careless, and that learning would so decay." Still the case is not absolutely hopeless, for there are many left who "can read English writing." Remembering which, "I began, among other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin Pastoralis, and in English Shepherd's Book ('Hirdeboc'), sometimes word for word, and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learnt it from Plegmund my archbishop, and Asser my bishop, and Grimbold my mass-priest, and John my mass-priest."[105] These learned men, and especially the Welshman Asser, who was to Alfred what Alcuin was to Charlemagne, helped him to spread learning by means of translations and by founding schools. They explained to him the hard passages, to the best of their understanding, which it is true was not always perfect.

Belonging to the Germanic race by his blood, and to the Latin realm by his culture, keeping as much as he could the Roman ideal before his eyes, Alfred evinced during all his life that composite genius, at once practical and passionate, which was to be, after the Norman Conquest, the genius of the English people. He was thus an exceptional man, and showed himself a real Englishman before the time. Forsaken by all, his destruction being, as it seemed, a question of days, he does not yield; he bides his time, and begins the fight again when the day has come. His soul is at once noble and positive; he does not busy himself with learning out of vanity or curiosity or for want of a pastime; he wishes to gather from books substantial benefits for his nation and himself. In his wars he remembers the ancients, works upon their plans, and finds that they answer well. He chooses, in order to translate them, books likely to fill up the greatest gaps in the minds of his countrymen, "some books which are most needful for all men to know,"[106] the book of Orosius, which will be for them as a handbook of universal history; the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, that will instruct them concerning their own past. He teaches laymen their duties with the "Consolation" of Boethius, and ecclesiastics with the Pastoral Rule of St. Gregory.[107]

His sole aim being to instruct, he does not hesitate to curtail his authors when their discourses are useless or too long, to comment upon them when obscure, to add passages when his own knowledge allows him. In his translation of Bede, he sometimes contents himself with the titles of the chapters, suppressing the rest; in his Orosius he supplements the description of the world by details he has collected himself concerning those regions of the North which had a national interest for his compatriots. He notes down, as accurately as he can, the words of a Scandinavian whom he had seen, and who had undertaken a voyage of discovery, the first journey towards the pole of which an account has come down to us:

"Ohthere told his lord, king Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the west sea.[108] He said, however, that that land is very long north from thence, but it is all waste, except in a few places where the Fins here and there dwell, for hunting in the winter, and in the summer for fishing in that sea. He said that he was desirous to try, once on a time, how far that country extended due north; or whether any one lived to the north of the waste. He then went due north, along the country, leaving all the way, the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on the left, for three days: he was as far north as the whale-hunters go at the farthest. Then he proceeded in his course due north as far as he could sail within another three days. Then the land there inclined due east, or the sea into the land, he knew not which; but he knew that he there waited for a west wind, or a little north, and sailed thence eastward along that land, as far as he could sail in four days." He arrives at a place where the land turns to the south, evidently surrounding the White Sea, and he finds a broad river, doubtless the Dwina, that he dares not cross on account of the hostility of the inhabitants. This was the first tribe he had come across since his departure; he had only seen here and there some Fins, hunters and fishers. "He went thither chiefly, in addition to seeing the country, on account of the walruses, because they have very noble bones in their teeth; some of those teeth they brought to the king; and their hides are very good for ship ropes." Ohthere, adds Alfred, was very rich; he had six hundred tame reindeer; he said the province he dwelt in was called Helgoland, and that no one lived north of him.[109] The traveller gave also some account of lands more to the south, and even more interesting for his royal listener, namely Jutland, Seeland, and Sleswig, that is, as Alfred is careful to notice, the old mother country: "In these lands the Angles dwelt, before they came hither to this land."

When he has to deal with a Latin author, Alfred uses as much liberty. He takes the book that the adviser of Theodoric the Great, Boethius, had composed while in prison, and in which we see a personified abstraction, Wisdom, bringing consolation to the unfortunate man threatened with death. No work was more famous in the Middle Ages; it helped to spread the taste for abstract personages, owing to which so many shadows, men-virtues and men-vices, were to tread the boards of the mediaeval stage, and the strange plays called _Moralities_ were to enjoy a lasting popularity. The first in date of the numerous translations made of Boethius is that of Alfred.

Under his pen, the vague Christianity of Boethius[110] becomes a naive and superabundant faith; each episode is moralised; the affected elegance of the model disappears, and gives place to an almost childlike and yet captivating sincerity. The story of the misfortunes of Orpheus, written by Boethius in a very pretentious style, has in Alfred's translation a charm of its own, the charm of the wild flower.

Among the innumerable versions of this tale, the king's is certainly the one in which art has the least share, and in which emotion is most communicative: "It happened formerly that there was a harper in the country called Thrace, which was in Greece. The harper was inconceivably good. His name was Orpheus. He had a very excellent wife who was called Eurydice. Then began men to say concerning the harper that he could harp so that the wood moved, and the stones stirred themselves at the sound, and the wild beasts would run thereto, and stand as if they were tame; so still that though men or hounds pursued them, they shunned them not. Then said they that the harper's wife should die, and her soul should be led to hell. Then should the harper become so sorrowful that he could not remain among other men, but frequented the wood, and sat on the mountain both day and night, weeping and harping, so that the woods shook, and the rivers stood still, and no hart shunned any lion, nor hare any hound; nor did cattle know any hatred, or any fear of others, for the pleasure of the sound. Then it seemed to the harper that nothing in this world pleased him. Then thought he that he would seek the gods of hell and endeavour to allure them with his harp, and pray that they would give him back his wife."

He goes down to the nether region; at the sweetness of his harping, Cerberus "began to wag his tail." Cerberus was "the dog of hell; he should have three heads." "A very horrible gatekeeper," Charon by name, "had also three heads," according to the calculation of Alfred, whose mythology is not very safe. Charon welcomes the harper, "because he was desirous of the unaccustomed sound"; all sufferings cease at the melody of the harp; the wheel of Ixion ceases to turn; the hunger of Tantalus is appeased; the vulture ceases to torment King Tityus; and the prayer of Orpheus is granted.

"But men can with difficulty, if at all, restrain love!" Orpheus retraces his steps, and, contrary to his promise, looks behind and stretches his hand towards the beloved shadow, and the shadow fades away. Moral--for with Alfred everything has a moral--when going to Christ, never look behind, for fear of being beguiled by the tempter: a practical conclusion not to be found in Boethius.[111]

Following the king's example, the bishops and monks set to work again. Werferth, bishop of Worcester, translates the famous dialogues of St. Gregory, filled with miracles and marvellous tales.[112] In the monasteries the old national Chronicles, written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, are copied, corrected, and continued. These Chronicles existed before Alfred, but they were instilled with a new life owing to his influence. Seven of them have come down to us.[113] It is not yet history; events are registered in succession, usually without comment; kings ascend the throne and they are killed; bishops are driven from their seats, a storm destroys the crops; the monk notes all these things, and does not add a word showing what he thinks of them.[114] He writes as a recorder, chary of words. The reader's feelings will be moved by the deeds registered, not by the words used. Of kings the chronicler will often say, "he was killed," without any observation: "And king Osric was killed.... And king Selred was killed...." Why say more? it was an everyday occurrence and had nothing curious about it. But a comet is not seen every day; a comet is worth describing: "678.--In this year, the star [called] comet appeared in August, and shone for three months every morning like sunbeam. And bishop Wilfrith was driven from his bishopric by king Ecgferth." We are far from the art of Gibbon or Carlyle. Few monuments, however, are more precious than those old annals; for no people in Europe can pride itself on having chronicles so ancient written in its national language.

"Every craft and every power," said Alfred once, speaking there his own mind, "soon becomes old and is passed over in silence, if it be without wisdom.... This is now especially to be said, that I wished to live honourably whilst I lived, and, after my life, to leave to the men who were after me my memory in good works."[115] It happened as he had wished. Long after his death, his influence was still felt; he was the ideal his successors strove to attain to; even after the Norman Conquest he continued to be: "Englene herde, Englene derling."[116]

V.

Alfred disappears; disturbances begin again; then, in the course of the tenth century, comes a fresh period of comparative calm. Edgar is on the throne, and the archbishop St. Dunstan rules under his name.[117]

Helped by Bishop AEthelwold, Dunstan resumed the never-ending and ever-threatened task of teaching the people and clergy; he endowed monasteries, and like Alfred created new schools and encouraged the translation of pious works. Under his influence collections of sermons in the vulgar tongue were formed.[118] Several of these collections have come down to us: one of them, the Blickling Homilies (from Blickling Hall, Norfolk, where the manuscript was found), was compiled before 971[119]; others are due to the celebrated monk AElfric, who became abbot of Eynsham in 1005, and wrote most of his works about this time[120]; another collection includes the sermons of Wulfstan, bishop of York from 1002 to 1023.[121]

These sermons, most of which are translated from the Latin, "sometimes word for word and sometimes sense for sense," according to the example set by Alfred, were destined for "the edification of the ignorant, who knew no language" except the national one.[122]

The congregation being made up mostly of rude, uneducated people, must be interested in order that it may listen to the sermons; the homilies are therefore filled with legendary information concerning the Holy Land, with minute pictures of the devil and apostles, with edifying tales full of miracles. In the homilies of Blickling, the church of the Holy Sepulchre is described in detail, with its sculptured portals, its stained-glass and its lamps, that threefold holy temple, existing far away at the other extremity of the world, in the distant East.[123] This church has no roof, so that the sky into which Christ's body ascended can be always seen; but, by God's grace, rain water never falls there. The preacher is positive about his facts; he has them from travellers who have seen with their own eyes this cathedral of Christendom.

AElfric also keeps alive the interest of the listeners by propounding difficult questions to them which he answers himself at once. "Now many a man will think and inquire whence the devil came?... Now some man will inquire whence came his [own] soul, whether from the father or the mother? We say from neither of them; but the same God who created Adam with his hands ... that same giveth a soul and life to children."[124] Why are there no more miracles? "These wonders were needful at the beginning of Christianity, for by these signs was the heathen folk inclined to faith. The man who plants trees or herbs waters them so long until they have taken root; when they are growing he ceases from watering. Also, the Almighty God so long showed his miracles to the heathen folk until they were believing: when faith had sprung up over all the world, then miracles ceased."[125]

The lives of the saints told by AElfric recall at times tales in the Arabian Nights. There are transformations, disparitions, enchantments, emperors who become hermits, statues that burst, and out of which comes the devil. "Go," cries the apostle to the fiend, "go to the waste where no bird flies, nor husbandman ploughs, nor voice of man sounds." The "accursed spirit" obeys, and he appears all black, "with sharp visage and ample beard. His locks hung to his ankles, his eyes were scattering fiery sparks, sulphureous flame stood in his mouth, he was frightfully feather-clad."[126] This is already the devil of the Mysteries, the one described by Rabelais, almost in the same words. We can imagine the effect of so minute a picture on the Saxon herdsmen assembled on Sunday in their little mysterious churches, almost windowless, like that of Bradford-on-Avon.

One peculiarity makes these sermons remarkable; in them can be discerned a certain effort to attain to literary dignity. The preacher tries his best to speak well. He takes all the more pains because he is slightly ashamed, being himself learned, to write in view of such an illiterate public. He does not know any longer Alfred's doubts, who, being uncertain as to which words best express the meaning of his model, puts down all those his memory or glossary supply: the reader can choose. The authors of these homilies purposely write prose which comes near the tone and forms of poetry. Such are almost always the beginnings of literary prose. They go as far as to introduce a rude cadence in their writings, and adapt thereto the special ornament of Germanic verse, alliteration. Wulfstan and AElfric frequently afford their audience the pleasure of those repeated sonorities, so much so that it has been possible to publish a whole collection of sermons by the latter in the form of poems.[127] Moreover, the subject itself is often poetic, and the priest adorns his discourse with images and metaphors. Many passages of the "Blickling Homilies," read in a translation, might easily be taken for poetical extracts. Such are the descriptions of contemporaneous evils, and of the signs that will herald the end of the world, that world that "fleeth from us with great bitterness, and we follow it as it flies from us, and love it although it is passing away."[128]

Such are also the descriptions of landscapes, where even now, in this final period of the Anglo-Saxon epoch, northern nature, snow and ice are visibly described, as in "Beowulf," with delight, by connoisseurs: "As St. Paul was looking towards the northern region of the earth, from whence all waters pass down, he saw above the water a hoary stone, and north of the stone had grown woods, very rimy. And there were dark mists; and under the stone was the dwelling-place of monsters and execrable creatures."[129]

* * * * *

Thus Anglo-Saxon literature, in spite of the efforts of Cynewulf, Alfred, Dunstan, and AElfric goes on repeating itself. Poems, histories, and sermons are conspicuous, now for their grandeur, now for the emotion that is in them; but their main qualities and main defects are very much alike; they give an impression of monotony. The same notes, not very numerous, are incessantly repeated. The Angles, Saxons, and other conquerors who came from Germany have remained, from a literary point of view, nearly intact in the midst of the subjugated race. Their literature is almost stationary; it does not perceptibly move and develop. A graft is wanted; Rome tried to insert one, but a few branches only were vivified, not the whole tree; and the fruit is the same each year, wild and sometimes poor.

The political state of the country leaves on the mind a similar impression. The men of Germanic blood established in England remain, or nearly so, grouped together in tribes; their hamlet is the mother country for them. They are unable to unite against the foreign foe. Their subdivisions undergo constant change, much as they did, centuries before, on the Continent. A swarm of petty kings, ignored by history, are known to have lived and reigned, owing to their name having been found appended to charters; there were kings of the Angles of the South, kings of half Kent, kings with fewer people to rule than a village mayor of to-day. They are killed, and, as we have seen, the thing is of no importance.

The Danes come again; at one time they own the whole of England, which is thus subject to the same king as Scandinavia. Periods of unification are merely temporary, and due to the power or the genius of a prince: Alfred, AEthelstan, Cnut the Dane; but the people of Great Britain keep their tendency to break up into small kingdoms, into earldoms, as they were called in the eleventh century, about the end of the period; into tribes, in reality, as when they inhabited the Germanic land. Out of this chaos how can a nation arise? a nation that may give birth to Shakespeare, crush the Armada, people the American continent? No less than a miracle is needed. The miracle took place: it was the battle of Hastings.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] "Hengest and Horsa ... were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils was the son of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden. From Woden sprang all our royal kin, and the Southumbrians also" (year 449, "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," Peterborough text). "Penda was the son of Pybba, Pybba of Cryda ... Waermund of Wihtlaeg, Wihtlaeg of Woden" (_Ibid._ year 626). Orderic Vital, born in England, and writing in Normandy, in the twelfth century, continues to trace back the descent of the kings of England to Woden: "a quo Angh feriam [iv]am Wodenis diem nuncupant" ("Hist. Eccl.," ed. Le Prevost, vol. iii. p 161). "Wodenis dies" has become Wednesday. In the same fashion, and even more characteristically, the feast of the northern goddess Eostra has become "Easter": "Eostur-monath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea eorum quae Eostre vocabatur ... nomen habuit." Bede, "De Temporum Ratione" in Migne's "Patrologia," xc., col. 357. Similar genealogies occur in Matthew Paris, thirteenth century, "Chronica Majora," vol. i. pp. 188-9, 422 (Rolls).

[71] This unique monument seems to be of the eighth century. _Cf._ "Pre-Conquest Churches of Northumbria," an article by C. Hodges in the "Reliquary," July, 1893.

[72] For example, charter of Offa, dated 793, "Matthaei Parisiensis ... Chronica Majora," ed. Luard (Rolls), vol. vi., "Additamenta," pp. 1, 25, &c.: "Regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo in perpetuum."

[73] "King Ceadwalla's tomb in the ancient basilica of St. Peter," by M. Tesoroni, Rome, 1891, 8vo.

[74] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year 855. The princess was Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald. Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, blessed the marriage.

[75] "Quid dicam de tot episcopis ..." &c. "Willelmi Malmesbiriensis.... Gesta regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p. 417.

[76] See his will and various documents concerning him in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 535 _et seq._

[77] "Fraternitatis vestrae pietatem intimis obsecramus precibus ut nos inter feras et ignaras gentes Germaniae laborantes, vestris sacrosanctis orationibus adjuvemur." Boniface to Cuthberht and others, year 735, in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 735.

[78] "Ideo haec Vestrae Excellentiae dico ... ut aliquos ex pueris nostris remittam, qui excipiant nobis necessaria quaeque, et revehant in Franciam flores Britanniae: ut non sit tantummodo in Eborica hortus conclusus, sed in Turonica emissiones Paradisi cum pomorum fructibus, ut veniens Auster perflare hortos Ligeris fluminis et fluant aromata illius...." Migne's "Patrologia," vol. c., col. 208. Many among Alcuin's letters are directed to Anglo-Saxon kings whom he does not forbear to castigate, threatening them, if need be, with the displeasure of the mighty emperor: "Ad Offam regem Merciorum;" "Ad Coenulvum regem Merciorum," year 796, col. 213, 232.

[79] Works in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix. col. 87 _et seq._ They include, besides his poetry ("De laude Virginum," &c.), a prose treatise: "De Laudibus Virginitatis," and other works in prose. He uses alliteration in his Latin poems.

[80] "Vita Sancti Wilfridi episcopi Eboracensis, auctore Eddio Stephano," in Gale's "Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae Scriptores x." Oxford, 1691, 2 vols. fol., vol. i. pp. 50 ff.

[81] Ed. G. H. Moberly, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1881, 8vo (or Stevenson, London, 1838-41, 2 vols. 8vo). Complete works in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. xc. ff.

[82] Letter of Cuthberht, later abbot of Jarrow, to his friend Cuthwine, on the death of Bede, printed with the "Historia ecclesiastica." Bede is represented, on his death-bed, "in nostra lingua, ut erat doctus in nostris carminibus, dicens de terribili exitu animarum e corpore:

Fore the nei-faerae Naenig uniurthit Thonc snoturra...."

Bede had translated the Gospel of St. John, but this work is lost.

[83] See below, p. 70.

[84] Letter of the year 735, "Cuthberto et aliis"; letter of 736 to Ecgberht, archbishop of York. He receives the books, and expresses his delight at them; he sends in exchange pieces of cloth to Ecgberht; letter of the year 742; "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix.

[85] Archbishop of Canterbury, seventh century.

[86] J. M. Kemble, "Codex Vercellensis," London, AElfric Society, 1847-56; Part I., ll. 1 ff., 2507 ff., "Andreas," attributed to Cynewulf. On this question, see Gollancz, "Cynewulf's Christ," London, 1892, p. 173.

[87] "Neque enim possunt carmina, quamvis optime composita ex alia in aliam linguam ad verbum sine detrimento sui decoris ac dignitatis transferri." "Historia Ecclesiastica," book iv. chap. xxiv.

[88] "Caedmon's metrical paraphrase of parts of the Holy Scripture in Anglo-Saxon, with an English translation," by B. Thorpe, London, Society of Antiquaries, 1832, 8vo. An edition by Junius (Francis Dujon by his true name, born at Heidelberg, d. at Windsor, 1678) had been published at Amsterdam in 1655, and may have been known to Milton (_cf._ "Caedmon und Milton," by R. Wuelcker, in "Anglia," vol. iv. p. 401). Junius was the first to attribute this anonymous poem, or rather collection of poems ("Genesis," "Exodus," "Daniel," "Christ and Satan") to Caedmon. "Genesis" is made up of two different versions of different dates, clumsily put together. German critics, and especially Prof. Ed. Sievers ("Der Heliand," Halle, 1875), have conclusively shown that lines 1 to 234, and 852 to the end, belong to the same and older version (possibly by Caedmon); lines 235 to 851, inserted without much care, as they retell part of the story to be found also in the older version, are of a more recent date, and show a strong resemblance to the old Germanic poem "Heliand" (Healer, Saviour) in alliterative verse, of the ninth century.

Another biblical story was paraphrased in Anglo-Saxon verse, and was the subject of the beautiful poem of "Judith," preserved in the same MS. as "Beowulf." Grein's "Bibliothek," vol. i.

[89] "Metrical Paraphrase," pp. 29 ff.

[90] Four poems have come down to us signed by means of an acrostic on the Runic letters of his name: "Elene" (on the finding of the cross), "Fates of the Apostles" (both in "Codex Vercellensis"), "Juliana" and "Christ" (in "Codex Exoniensis"); a separate edition of "Christ" has been given by M. Gollancz, London, 1892, 8vo. Many other poems, and even the whole of "Codex Vercellensis," have been attributed to him. The eighty-nine riddles of "Codex Exoniensis," some of which continue to puzzle the readers of our day, are also considered by some as his: one of the riddles is said to contain a charade on his name, but there are doubts; ample discussions have taken place, and authorities disagree: "The eighty-sixth riddle, which concerns a wolf and a sheep, was related," said Dietrich, "to Cynewulf;" but Professor Morley considers that this same riddle "means the overcoming of the Devil by the hand of God." Stopford Brooke, "Early English Literature," chap. xxii. Many of those riddles were adapted from the Latin of Aldhelm and others. This sort of poetry enjoyed great favour, as the Scandinavian "Corpus Poeticum" also testifies. What is "Men's damager, words' hinderer, and yet words' arouser?"--"Ale." "Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 87.

[91] "Elene," in "Codex Vercellensis," part ii. p. 73, and "Holy Rood" (this last of doubtful authorship), _ibid._ pp. 84 ff. Lines resembling some of the verses in "Holy Rood" have been found engraved in Runic letters on the cross at Ruthwell, Scotland; the inscription and cross are reproduced in "Vetusta Monumenta," vol. iv. p. 54; see also G. Stephens, "The old Northern Runic monuments of Scandinavia and England," London, 1866-8, 2 vols. fol., vol. i. pp. 405 ff. Resemblances have also been pointed out, showing the frequence of such poetical figures, with the Anglo-Saxon inscription of a reliquary preserved at Brussels: "Rood is my name, I once bore the rich king, I was wet with dripping blood." The reliquary contains a piece of the true cross, which is supposed to speak these words. The date is believed to be about 1100. H. Logeman, "L'Inscription Anglo-Saxonne du reliquaire de la vraie croix au tresor de l'eglise des SS. Michel et Gudule," Gand, Paris and London, 1891, 8vo (with facsimile), pp. 7 and 11.

[92] "Codex Vercellensis," part i. pp. 29, 86 ff. "Andreas" is imitated from a Greek story of St. Andrew, of which some Latin version was probably known to the Anglo-Saxon poet. It was called "[Greek: Praxeis Andreou kai Matthaiou];" a copy of it is preserved in the National Library, Paris, Greek MS. 881, fol. 348.

[93] "Departed Soul's Address to the Body," "Codex Vercellensis," part ii. p. 104.

[94] Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." See also, "Be Domes Daege," a poem on the terrors of judgment (ed. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1876).

[95] See examples of such dialogues and speeches in "Andreas", "The Holy Rood" (in "Cod Vercell"); in Cynewulf's "Christ" ("Cod. Exoniensis"), &c. In this last poem occurs one of the few examples we have of familiar dialogue in Anglo Saxon (a dialogue between Mary and Joseph, the tone of which recalls the Mysteries of a later date); but it seems to be "derived from an undiscovered hymn arranged for recital by half choirs." Gollancz, "Christ," Introd., p. xxi. Another example consists in the scene of the temptation in _Genesis_ (_Cf._ "S. Aviti ... Viennensis Opera," Paris, 1643 p. 230). See also the prose "Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus" (Kemble, AElfric Society, 1848, 8vo), an adaptation of a work of eastern origin, popular on the Continent, and the fame of which lasted all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; it was well known to Rabelais: "Qui ne s'adventure n'a cheval ni mule, ce dict Salomon.--Qui trop s'adventure perd cheval et mule respondit Malcon." "Vie de Gargantua." Saturnus plays the part of the Malcon or Marcol of the French version; the Anglo-Saxon text is a didactic treatise, cut into questions and answers: "Tell me the substance of which Adam the first man was made.--I tell thee of eight pounds by weight.--Tell me what they are called.--I tell thee the first was a pound of earth," &c. (p. 181).

[96] MS. Lat. 8824 in the Paris National Library, Latin and Anglo-Saxon, some pen-and-ink drawings: "Ce livre est au duc de Berry--Jehan." It has been published by Thorpe: "Libri Psalmorum, cum paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica," London, 1835, 8vo. See also "Eadwine's Canterbury psalter" (Latin and Anglo-Saxon), ed. F. Harsley, E.E.T.S., 1889 ff., 8vo.

[97] In "Codex Exoniensis." Series of writings of this kind enjoyed at an early date a wide popularity; they were called "Physiologi"; there are some in nearly all the languages of Europe, also in Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopian, &c. The original seems to have been composed in Greek, at Alexandria, in the second century of our era (F. Lauchert, "Geschichte des Physiologus," Strasbourg, 1889, 8vo). To the "Physiologi" succeeded in the Middle Ages "Bestiaries," works of the same sort, which were also very numerous and very popular. A number of commonplace sayings or beliefs, which have survived up to our day (the faithfulness of the dove, the fatherly love of the pelican), are derived from "Bestiaries."

[98] "Codex Exoniensis," pp. 197 ff. This poem is a paraphrase of a "Carmen de Phoenice" attributed to Lactantius, filled with conceits in the worst taste:

Mors illi venus est; sola est in morte voluptas; Ut possit nasci haec appetit ante mori. Ipsa sibi proles, suus est pater et suus haeres. Nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi; Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, quae est ipsa nec ipsa est....

"Incerti auctoris Phoenix, Lactantio tributus," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. vii. col. 277.

[99] The most important of which is the famous Strasbourg pledge, February 19, 842, preserved by the contemporary historian Nithard. See "Les plus anciens monuments de la langue francaise," by Gaston Paris, Societe des anciens Textes, 1875, fol.

[100] Thorpe, "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," London, 1840, 1 vol. fol.; laws of Ina, king of Wessex, 688-726, of Alfred, AEthelstan, &c. We have also considerable quantities of deeds and charters, some in Latin and some in Anglo-Saxon. See J. M. Kemble, "Codex Diplomaticus AEvi Saxonici," English Historical Society, 1839-40, 6 vols. 8vo; De Gray Birch, "Cartularium Saxonicum, or a Collection of Charters relating to Anglo-Saxon History," London, 1885 ff. 4to; Earle, "A Handbook to the Land Charters, and other Saxonic Documents," Oxford, 1888, 8vo.

[101] Translations of scientific treatises such as the "De Natura Rerum" of Bede, made in the tenth century (Wright's "Popular Treatises on Science," 1841, 8vo); various treatises published by Cockayne, "Leechdoms, Wortcunnings and Starcraft ... being a Collection of Documents ... illustrating the History of Science ... before the Norman Conquest," 1864, 3 vols. 8vo (Rolls).--Translation of the so-called "Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem" (Cockayne, "Narratiunculae," 1861, 8vo, and "Anglia," vol. iv. p. 139); of the history of "Apollonius of Tyre" (Thorpe, London, 1834, 12mo).--Translations by King Alfred and his bishops, see below pp. 81 ff. The monuments of Anglo-Saxon prose have been collected by Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsaechsischen Prosa," ed. Wuelker, Cassel, 1872 ff.

[102] Grueber and Keary, "A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum," Anglo-Saxon series, vol. ii. 1893, 8vo, p. lxxxi.

[103] According to evidence derived from place-names, the Danish invaders have left their strongest mark in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and after that in "Leicestershire, Rutland, Nottingham, and East Anglia." Keary, "Vikings in Western Christendom," 1891, p. 353.

[104] Peace of Wedmore, sworn by Alfred and Guthrum the Dane, 878. The text of the agreement has been preserved and figures among the laws of Alfred.

[105] H. Sweet, "King Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, with an English translation," London, Early English Text Society, 1871-72, 8vo, pp. 2 ff. Plegmund was an Anglo-Saxon, Asser a Welshman, Grimbold a Frank, John a Saxon from continental Saxony.

[106] Preface of Gregory's "Pastoral Care."

[107] King Alfred's "Orosius," ed. H. Sweet, Early English Text Society, 1883, 8vo. Orosius was a Spaniard, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century.--"The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People," ed. T. Miller, E.E.T.S., 1890. The authenticity of this translation is doubtful; see Miller's introduction.--"King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius," ed. S. Fox, London, 1864, 8vo.--"King Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's Pastoral Care," ed. H. Sweet, E.E.T.S., 1871-2. This last is the most faithful of Alfred's translations; he attached great importance to the work, and sent a copy of it to all his bishops. The copy of Werferth, bishop of Worcester, is preserved in the Bodleian Library.

[108] The sea to the west of Norway, that is the German Ocean.

[109] To-day Helgeland, in the northern part of Norway. Alfred's "Orosius," Thorpe's translation, printed with the "Life of Alfred the Great," by Pauli, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library, pp. 249 ff.; Anglo-Saxon text in Sweet, "King Alfred's Orosius," 1883, p. 17. Alfred adds the account of yet another journey, undertaken by Wulfstan.

[110] The researches of Usener have placed beyond a doubt that Boethius was a Christian; but Christianity is scarcely visible in the "Consolatio," which is entirely "inspiree d'Aristote et de Platon." Gaston Paris, _Journal des Savants_, 1884, p. 576.

[111] S. Fox, "King Alfred's Boethius," 1864, 8vo, chap. xxxv.

[112] The Anglo-Saxon translation made by Werferth (with a preface by Alfred) is still unpublished. Earle has given a detailed account of it in his "Anglo-Saxon Literature," 1884, pp. 193 ff.

[113] These seven Chronicles, more or less complete, and differing more or less from one another, are the chronicles of Winchester, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Abingdon, Worcester, Peterborough, the bilingual chronicle of Canterbury, and the Canterbury edition of the Winchester chronicle. They begin at various dates, the birth of Christ, the crossing of Caesar to Britain, &c., and usually come down to the eleventh century. The Peterborough text alone continues as late as the year 1154. The Peterborough and Winchester versions are the most important; both have been published by Plummer and Earle, "Two of the Saxon Chronicles," Oxford, 1892, 8vo. The seven texts have been printed by Thorpe, with a translation. "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," 1861, 2 vols. 8vo (Rolls). The Winchester chronicle contains the poems on the battle of Brunanburh (_supra_, p. 46), the accession of Edgar, &c.; the MS. is preserved in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge; the Peterborough MS. is in the Bodleian Library (Laud, 636).

[114] Except in some very rare cases. For example, year 897: "Thanks be to God, the Army had not utterly broken up the Angle race." Comments are more frequent in the latter portions of the Chronicles, especially at the time of and after the Norman invasion.

[115] S. Fox, "King Alfred's Boethius," London, 1864, 8vo, chap. xvii. p. 61. This chapter corresponds only to the first lines of chap. vii.