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HAXDBOLXD 
AT  THE 


l-'M\ERSITV  OF 
TORONTO  PRESS 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 


UNDER  THE 


ANGLO-SAXON    KINGS. 


VOL.  I. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 


UNDER  THE 


ANGLO-SAXON    KINGS. 


TRANSLATED  FROM 


THE  GERMAN 


OF 


Dr.  J.  M.  LAPPENBERG,  For.  F.S.A., 

KEEPKB  OF  THE  ARCHIVES  OP  THE  CITY  OF  IIAMBUBC, 


BY 

BENJAMIN  THORPE,  F.S.A. 

WITH  ADDITIONS  AND  CORRECTIONS  BY  THE  AUTHOR 
AND  THE  TRANSLATOR. 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


LONDON: 

JOHN  MURRAY,  ALBEMARLE  STREET. 
MDCCCXLV. 


LONDON : 

PRINTED  BY  RICHARD  AND  JOHN  E.  TAYLOR, 

RED   MON   COURT,    FLEET   STREET. 


130 

V.I 


FLAM  MAM. 


-L^ 


f. 


PREFACE. 


By  many  it  will,  without  doubt,  be  thought  singular 
that  the  history  of  a  state,  which  has  always  been  of 
prominent,  and  often  of  paramount  importance  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world,  should  have  been  undertaken  by 
one  who  cannot,  in  the  vocation  or  position  of  a  pro- 
fessor, have  found  either  an  excuse  for  venturing  on  a 
task,  however  desirable,  yet  of  difficult  execution,  or 
superior  means  of  accomplishing  it.  As  unfitting  too, 
and  even  obnoxious  to  the  charge  of  presumption,  an 
individual  must  appear,  who,  in  addition  to  the  above- 
mentioned  objections,  has  not  unlimited  leisure  to  be- 
stow on  so  great  a  theme,  but,  on  the  contrary,  has  for 
many  years  been  attached  to  a  practical  calling,  which, 
though  favourable  to  particular  historical  and  juridical 
investigations,  and  to  the  elaboration  of  his  native  hi- 
story, is,  nevertheless,  wont  to  stand  opposed  to  a  sus- 
ceptibility for  the  more  general  views,  to  a  conception 
of  the  more  agitated  life,  and  to  the  poetic  and  moral 
elements  of  general  history,  and  at  the  same  time  ad- 
verse to  every  attempt  at  vivid  powerful  description  and 
individual  feeling,  as  foreign  and  obstructive  to  the  mat- 
ter.    These  considerations  seem  to  render  a  few  words 


vi  PREFACE. 

necessary  regarding  the  personal  circumstances  of  the 
author  in  reference  to  his  work. 

The  editors  of  '  The  History  of  the  European  States' ' 
had  for  some  years  been  seeking  for  a  person  willing 
and  qualified  to  undertake  the  History  of  England,  but 
had  generally  found  that  the  external  as  well  as  internal 
difficulties  attending  that  study  had  held  German  scholars 
aloof.  The  first  historical  inquirer  of  our  time,  to  whom 
the  affairs  of  England  were  familiar  from  his  youth, 
whose  premature  loss  we  have  never  ceased  to  deplore, 
had,  it  is  said,  at  an  early  period,  fostered  the  hope  of 
being  one  day  enabled  to  undertake  such  a  work.  The 
most  acute  also  of  living  historians  had,  at  a  later  period, 
actually  undertaken  it,  when  another  direction  given  to 
his  investigations  withdrew  him  from  all  thoughts  of 
England.  May  both  names  remain  concealed,  in  order 
not  to  excite  unfavourable  comparisons  and  vain  regrets 
for  that  which  is  denied  to  us-!'*  The  question  when 
put  to  me,  '  What  is  to  be  done  ? '  I  could  at  the  time 
answer  only  by  naming  certain  German  scholars,  but 
whose  limited  leisure  and  other  circumstances  proved 
unfavourable  to  the  undertaking,  or  Englishmen  in- 
clined to  devote  themselves  to  the  later  centuries  only 
of  English  history.  Influenced  by  these  considerations, 
and  as  a  resolution  must  be  taken — some  volumes  of 
'  The  History  of  the  European  States'  having  already 
appeared — I  accepted  the  honourable  invitation  to  com- 

'  Geschiclite  der  europaischen  Staaten,  herausgegeben  von  A.  H.  I.. 
Heeren  und  F.  A.  Ukeit. 

^  The  literary  reader  will  hardly  fail  to  recognise  in  the  one  the  cele- 
brated historian  of  Rome,  Bakthold  George  Niebuhr,  and  in  the  other, 
the  learned  and  enlightened  L:  oi'or.D  Ranke. — T. 


PREFACE.  vii 

pose  the  history  of  a  country  rendered  estimable  to  me 
by  long  residence  there  in  early  days.  Having  completed 
the  arrangement  of  the  archives  of  this  city',  and  con- 
sequently possessed  of  a  larger  share  of  leisure,  I  had 
commenced  several  historical  and  juridical  works,  of 
which  some  are,  either  complete  or  in  part,  in  the  hands 
of  the  friends  of  German  history  ;  but  the  time  consumed 
in  the  elaboration  of  records  and  other  ancient  docu- 
ments was  not  at  the  moment  sufficiently  taken  into 
account,  while  too  much  reliance  was  placed  on  a  bodily 
frame  by  no  means  possessing  the  vigour  of  youth  ; 
though  the  unimpaired  consciousness  of  what  England 
and  many  of  its  worthiest  natives  had  been  to  me,  to- 
gether with  the  magic  of  other  unobliterated  delightful 
recollections,  had  inspired  me  with  sentiments  well  be- 
fitting him  who  should  recount  to  his  dear  native  land 
the  advantages  and  defects,  and  so  many  to  us  extra- 
ordinary phenomena  in  the  political  existence  of  the 
English  people. 

The  abode  of  the  author  in  the  city  of  his  birth,  the 
libraries  of  which,  in  works  relative  to  the  insular  king- 
dom, are  richer  than  most  others  of  Germany ;  the 
valuable  community  of  possession  there  in  knowledge 
relative  to  the  commerce,  the  industry  and  other  cir- 
cumstances of  the  present  England  ;  the  proximity  to 
that  country,  alike  favourable  to  literary  intercourse  and 
personal  observation  ;  the  illustrations  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  tongue  which  in  common  life  offer  themselves 
even  at  this  day  to  the  Lower  Saxon, — such  were  the 
points  urged  against   the  doubts   of  the   author  as  to 

'  They  perished  in  the  calamitous  fire  in  May  1842. — T. 


viii  PREFACE. 

whether  he  should  or  should  not  devote  himself  to  the 
undertaking,  while  various  occupations  connected  with 
the  history  of  the  commerce  of  the  middle  age,  the  use 
of  valuable  records,  of  which  some  are'  preserved  at 
Hamburg,  which  city,  previously  to  the  great  elevation 
of  England  in  the  latter  years  of  Queen  EHzabeth,  was 
frequently  in  intimate  connexion  with  the  English  court, 
might  tend  to  foster  the  hope  of  being  useful,  even  to 
the  scholar,  through  some  new  disclosures. 

When,  however,  the  wished-for  leisure  for  forming 
the  plan  of  the  new^  undertaking  arrived,  greater  diffi- 
culties than  had  been  anticipated  presented  themselves, 
more  particularly  with  reference  to  the  earlier  part  of  the 
history.  The  defects  of  the  edited  authorities  are  not 
unknown  in  England,  and  the  conviction  of  the  neces- 
sity of  a  thorough  revisal  of  them  had  been  expressed 
by  Gibbon,  who,  in  his  great  work,  could  apply  only  a 
very  partial  remedy  to  the  evil.  Of  modern  writers,  the 
greater  number,  though  industrious,  were  wanting  both 
in  criticism  and  in  knowledge  of  general  history  ;  while 
to  the  German  it  could  not  be  difficult  to  gather  new 
views  with  regard  to  old  English  history,  on  the  paths 
opened  to  him  by  some  honoured  countrymen  and  pro- 
fessors, in  which  the  lovers  of  that  study  are  but  too  apt 
to  feel  delighted  and  consider  themselves  rich ;  but  for 
the  conffi-mation  and  establishment  of  such  views,  even 
in  cases  where  they  could  be  proved  indisputably  just, 
all  authorities  and  preliminary  labours  were  wanting. 
Even  the  simple  work  of  procuring  the  most  important 
original  authors   demanded   much  time,  which   should 

^  For  are  we  may  now  substitute,  were  before  the  confiagralion, — T. 


PREFACE.  ix 

rather  have  been  devoted  to  the  work  itself.  A  welcome 
and  stimulating  phenomenon,  therefore,  while  my  volume 
was  in  progress,  was  the  work  of  Sir  Francis  Pal- 
grave',  which,  by  the  novelty  of  its  view^s,  and  the 
variety  and  abundance  of  its  matter,  both  imparted  in- 
struction and  invited  to  a  completer  establishment  of  the 
notions  it  set  forth.  Not  less  propitious  to  my  under- 
taking was  a  correspondence  accidentally  established  with 
Charles  Purton  Cooper,  Esq.,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Parliamentary  Commission  on  the  Public  Records,  who 
not  only  made  me  acquainted  with  some  new  sources, 
but  afforded  me  an  opportunity  of  applying  more  con- 
formably to  the  objects  of  that  Commission  many  hi- 
storic and  literary  notices,  which  must  otherwise  have 
found  a  place  only  as  a  sort  of  literary  ballast  in  my 
work. 

That  the  progress  of  my  labour  has  been  less  rapid 
than  could  be  wished,  is  partly  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
necessity  of  a  new  verification  and  reference  of  the  ac- 
counts to  their  first  sources,  which  will  henceforth,  in 
consequence  of  the  better  materials  at  hand,  be  more 
rarely  requisite  ;  and  partly  also  to  the  interest,  never  yet 
sufficiently  considered,  which  the  history  of  the  unmixed 
German  race  in  Britain,  before  their  Romanizing  by  the 
Normans,  must  possess  among  their  continental  brethren. 
Of  everything,  therefore,  which  could  contribute  to  the 
groundwork  of  a  history  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  and 
which  admitted  of  historic  proof,  I  deemed  it  right  not 
to  be  sparing.  Much  other  matter  relative  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  myths,  the  old  Britons,  and  the  historic   sagas 

'  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Commonwealth.    See  Literary  Intro- 
duction, p,  Ixviii. — T. 


X  PREFACE. 

connected  with  the  north  of  England,  will  probably  be 
communicated  in  another  work.  The  genealogic  tables', 
which  I  have  drawn  up  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  royal  houses, 
will  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 

My  earnest  endeavour  to  know  and  make  known 
those  sources  of  old  English  history,  which  are  at  present 
accessible,  would  have  been  far  from  successful,  had  not 
the  chiefs  of  the  libraries  at  Gottingen,  Hanover,  Kiel 
and  Wolfenbiittel  most  kindly  favoured  me  with  the  long 
and  uninterrupted  use  of  many  rare  works  and  manu- 
scripts necessary  for  such  investigations.  While  feeling 
it  my  duty  to  express  to  these  estimable  friends  my  sin- 
cerest  gratitude  for  the  confidence  and  benevolence  shown 
me,  I  feel  myself  called  on  again  to  mention  my  valued 
friend  Mr.  Cooper,  to  whose  influential  mediation  I 
am  indebted  not  only  for  many  highly  interesting  and 
important  works  for  the  Norman  and  later  portions  of 
English  history,  but  also  for  the  communication,  before 
the  completion  of  the  present  work,  of  several  valuable 
materials,  prepared  under  the  Record  Commission,  for 
Anglo-Saxon  history,  which  he  granted  to  the  then  per- 
sonally unknown  foreigner,  for  his  particular  use,  pre- 
viously to  their  publication.  May  that  which  is  here 
given  appear  not  wholly  unworthy  of  such  honourable 

confidence  ! 

J.  M.  L. 

Hamburg,  l6th  September,  1833. 


'  These,  in  the  present  translation,  have  not  only  been  revised  by  me 
throughout,  but  also  augmented  by — 1.  a  table  of  the  ancestors  of  Woden, 
showing  also  the  descents  from  his  several  sons ;  2.  the  ancestors  up  to 
Woden  of  the  founders  of  the  Germanic  states  in  Britain  ;  3.  the  genealogy 
of  the  princes  or  ealdormen  of  Lindisse  (Lindsey). — T. 


TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 


Following  the  example  of  my  worthy  and  learned 
friend,  the  author,  and  in  compliance  with  the  general 
usage  on  such  occasions,  I  will  endeavour,  as  hriefly  as 
possible,  to  lay  before  the  few  who  will  honour  this  hi- 
story with  a  perusal,  an  account  of  the  part  I  have  taken 
in  it  bevond  that  of  a  mere  translator. 

Having  been  presented  by  Dr.  Lappenberg  with  a 
copy  of  his  work  immediately  on  its  publication  at 
Hamburg  in  1834,  the  interest  excited  in  me  by  its 
perusal  was  such  that  I  resolved  on  attempting  a  version 
of  it  into  English  ;  for  although  histories  of  the  same 
period  in  the  mother-tongue  and  of  good  repute  were 
not  wanting,  yet  it  appeared  to  me  that  in  this  were 
contained  many  particulars,  especially  with  reference  to 
chronological  criticism,  and  to  what  may  be  called  the 
German  portion  of  Anglo-Saxon  history,  not  elsewhere 
to  be  found  in  a  condensed  form,  as  well  as  much  other 
information,  which  the  author's  pursuits  in  the  field  of 
old  Teutonic  literature  had  enabled  him  to  introduce 
almost  as  matter  of  course,  at  a  time  when  that  field 
was  a  sort  of  terra  incognita  to  most  lovers  of  historic 
literature  in  England. 


xii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

My  resolve  was  partly  executed,  a  translation  to  the 
end  of  the  so-called  Heptarchy  was  completed,  when,  to 
my  mortification,  I  found  that  not  one  of  the  booksellers 
to  whom  it  was  offered  would  risk  anything  in  its  pub- 
lication :  nor  indeed  were  they  to  blame,  for  it  seemed 
at  the  time  that  few  persons  in  the  country  interested 
themselves  much  about  old  history,  a  study  which,  from 
some  unknown  cause,  had  unfortunately  never  found  that 
favour  among  us  with  which  it  has  for  ages  been  re- 
garded in  Italy,  France,  and  Germany  ;  though  the  fruits 
of  the  Record  Commission,  and  more  especially  the  hope 
of  the  immediate  publication  of  a  volume  of  the  late  Mr. 
Petrie's  '  Corpus  Historicum,'  certainly  justified  the 
expectation  of  better  days.  Discouraged  by  this  some- 
what discreditable  stateof  things,  and  far  from  satisfied 
with  my  translation  (which  was  a  translation  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word,  without  the  slightest  attempt 
at  addition  or  rectification  by  reference  to  the  sources 
of  our  early  history),  I  destroyed  the  labour  of  many 
months  ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  winter  of  1842  that  cir- 
cumstances induced  me  again  to  think  of  a  translation 
of  Lappenberg's  Anglo-Saxon  History. 

During  the  intermediate  time  I  had  laboured  sedulously 
in  the  field  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature,  and  having,  while 
editing  for  the  Government  the  *  Ancient  Laws  and 
Institutes  of  England,'  been  put  in  possession  of  Mr. 
Petrie's  unfinished  volume  and  other  authorities,  I  could 
lot  withstand  the  temptation  thus  thrown  in  my  way  to 
test  and  enlarge  the  text  of  Dr.  Lappenberg's  history 
by  the  help  of  the  original  writers  so  fortunately  placed 
within   my  reach.     This   task  led  ultimately  to  a  new 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  xiii 

translation  of  the  whole,  with  many  alterations  and  cor- 
rections, and  such  additions  as  appeared  indispensable 
to  the  original,  in  which  the  narrative  had  been  abridged 
and  several  facts  unnoticed,  in  compliance  with  the  ne- 
cessity of  conciseness  imposed  on  the  author  by  the  cir- 
cumstance, that  his  volume,  forming  one  of  a  collection, 
could  not  be  extended  beyond  a  certain  limit. 

On  the  first  notice  of  my  intention  to  translate  his 
work.  Dr.  Lappenberg  most  kindly  supplied  me  with  a 
considerable  quantity  of  matter,  both  as  additions  to  and 
corrections  of  the  original,  the  substance  of  which  will 
be  chiefly  found  in  the  text,  in  new  annotations,  or 
embodied  with  the  old  ones  ;  while  my  own  additions 
and  modifications  have  more  especial  reference  to  the 
text,  though  a  few  notes  by  me'  will  be  met  with  occa- 
sionally scattered  throughout  the  volumes.  In  fulfilling 
this  part  of  my  task  it  has  been  my  endeavour  to  impart 
our  early  story  as  faithfully  as  possible,  and  as  fully  as 
the  bounds  which  good  taste  forbids  us  to  transgress 
would  allow.  The  passages  from  the  ancient  historians, 
occasionally  interwoven  into  the  text,  I  have  rendered, 
not  from  the  author's  German  version,  but  directly  from 
the  originals. 

Should  it  be  objected  by  any  one,  that  unnecessary 
pains  have  sometimes  been  bestowed  in  recording,  from 
charters  and  other  sources,  the  names  of  petty  kings 
(subreguli),  of  whom  little  or  nothing,  beyond  the  fact 
that  they  once  existed,  is  known  to  us,  an  answer  is  at 
hand,  that  the  knowledge  of  a  name,  especially  if  in 
combination  with  a  date,  may,  in  the  progress  of  in- ' 

'  These  are  distinguished  by  the  initial  T. 


xiv  TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 

quiry,  lead  to  the  knowledge  of  a  fact,  and,  for  numis- 
matic pursuits,  such  notices  are  often  of  the  highest 
utility.  Even  legends  are  not  to  be  indiscriminately 
rejected,  as  void  of  value,  in  recording  the  history  of 
times,  of  which  it  may  be  said,  that  the  germ  of  many 
an  important  event,  connected  with  the  estabhshment  and 
progress  of  religion,  as  well  as  many  a  main  spring  of 
action,  may  sometimes  be  found  in  a  legend. 

In  conclusion,  1  will  venture  to  express  a  hope  that, 
when  a  new  edition  of  the  original  shall  be  called  for  in 
Germany — as  I  trust  will  ere  long  be  the  case — the 
author  will  not  reject,  as  unworthy  of  his  notice,  some 
at  least  of  the  variations  and  additions  introduced  by  me 
into  this  translation.  I  am  here  reminded  of  the  kind 
interest  taken  in  my  labour  by  my  old  and  much- 
esteemed  friend  Mr.  Richard  Taylor,  who  has  not 
only  supplied  me  with  several  works  of  reference,  but 
also  obliged  me  with  some  judicious  observations  while 
the  volumes  were  in  the  press — services  which  claim 
and  have  my  best  thanks. 

Should  this  translation  meet  with  a  favourable  recep- 
tion, it  is  my  intention,  if  life  be  granted  me,  to  com- 
municate to  English  readers  the  author's  '  History  of 
England  under  the  Norman  Kings,'  or  to  the 
accession   of  the  house  of  Plantagenet.     This  will  be 

comprised  in  a  single  volume. 

B.  T. 


CONTENTS. 

VOL.  I. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

Page 

Necessity  of  a  Literary  Introduction     xxiii 

COLLECTIONS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CHRONICLES. 

Parker. — Savile. — Camden    xxiii 

Twysden. — Fell. — Gale. — Sparke xxiv 

Wharton. — Hearne. — Record  Commission xxv 

BRITISH  OR  WELSH  AND  IRISH  AUTHORITIES. 

The  Bards xxvi 

The  Triads. — Gildas xxvii 

Nennius „ xxviii 

Jeffrey  of  Monmouth , xxix 

Tysilio     xxx 

Ponticus  Virunnius. — Le  Brut  of  Robert  Wace. — Layamon  xxxi 
Caradoc    of  Llancarvan.  —  John   Brechfa.  —  Chronicon 

Walliae. — Chronicon  Cambrite  (Annales  Cambrise), .  . .  xxxii 
Brut   y   Tywysogion. — Rerum    Hibernicarum   Scriptores 

Veteres    xxxiii 

ANGLO-SAXON  AND  EARLY  ENGLISH  AUTHO- 
RITIES. 

Beda    xxxiv 

Earlier  Anglo-Saxon  Sources,  Necrologies,  Genealogies,  etc.     xxxv 
Asser xxxviii 


xvi  CONTENTS.       ' 

Page 

The  Saxon  Chronicle xxxix 

Sources  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle     xli 

Authors  of  the  same xliii 

Ethelwerd   xliv 

Florence  of  Worcester. — Marianus  Scotus xlvii 

Simeon  of  Durham Chronicle  of  Melrose. — Henry  of 

Huntingdon    xlviii 

Roger  of  Hoveden. — Alured  of  Beverley 1 

Ingulf , li 

Ailred  of  Rievaux lii 

William  of  Malmesbury. — Matthew  of  Westminster    ....  liii 

John  Wallingford   liv 

NORMAN  AUTHORITIES. 

Dudo  of  St.  Quentin. — William  of  Jumieges. —  Robert 

Wace   Iv 

Benoit  de  Ste.  More — GefFrei  Gaimar Ivi 

William  of  Poitiers. — Ordericus  Vitalis. — Guy  (Wido)  of 

Amiens    Ivii 

Chronicon  Danorum Iviii 

ENGLISH  METRICAL  CHRONICLERS. 

Robert    of   Gloucester.  —  Peter    Langtoft.  —  Robert    de 

Brunne     Iviii 

LATER  CHRONICLERS,  etc. 

John  Bromton. — Douglas  of  Glastonbury lix 

Charters,  Laws  (Anglo-Saxon,  Welsh) Ix-lxii 

MODERN  HISTORIANS. 

Caxton Ixii 

Milton. — Langhorne Ixiii 

Spelman. — Rapin. — Carte. — Hume. — Gibbon. — Burke   . .  Ixiv 

Mackintosh Ixv 

Whitaker     Ixvii 

Henry. — Turner. — Lingard   Ixvii 

Palgrave Ixviii 


CONTENTS.  xvii 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

Page 

Earliest  knowledge  of  Britain. — Phcenicians,  Carthaginians, 

Greeks,  Romans 1 

Tin  Islands  and  Commerce    4 

Descent  and  Traditions 6 

Language    7 

Druids 9 

Bards 11 

Chieftains  and  Kings 12 

Customs,  manner  of  fighting 13 

Triads  of  Dyvnwal  Moelmud    14 

Tribes 15 

Invasion  by  C.  Julius  Caesar 17 

Invasion  by  Caligula 22 

Invasion  by  Claudius 23 

Caractacus  (Caradoc) 24 

Conquest  of  Mona 27 

Boudicea     28 

Agricola 29 

Division  and  form  of  Government    32 

Collegia  (Guilds). — Preservation  of  the  Celtic  tongue    ....  36 

British  Princes   , 38 

Law  of  Gavelkind. — State  of  the  country  under  the  Caesars  39 

Saxon  pirates 43 

Carausius     45 

Constantine  the  Great. — Christianity 47 

High  roads 51 

Roman  structures 52 

Picts  and  Scots .54 

Attacotti  and  Dalreudini. — Princely  families 56 

Rebellions  of  the  Roman  generals     57 

British  settlement  in  Armorica 59 

Departure  of  the  Roman  legions 60 

St.  Germain. — State  of  Christianity 62 

Pelagius 65 


VOL,  I. 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

PART  I. 

FROM  THE  LANDING  OF  HENGEST  AND  HORSA  TO 
THE  ACCESSION  OF  ECGBERHT. 

Page 

British  traditions. — Vortigern 67 

Anglo-Saxon  traditions    71 

Chronology  of  the  Anglo-Saxons    75 

Anglo-Saxon  Runes    79 

National  Traditions Saxons 83 

Angles 89 

Jutes 96 

Frisians,  etc 97 

The  various  races  in  ]3ritain    99 

Resistance  of  the  Lloegrians   100 

Ambrosias  Aurelianus. — Arthur     , 101 

South  Saxons. — JEWe 104< 

Gewissas  or  West  Saxons. — Cerdic    107 

East  Saxons Ill 

East  Angles 112 

Mercia 113 

Angles  and  Warni    115 

Northumbria  (Bernicia  and  Deira)     117 

Britons 119 

Cymry  or  Welsh 120 

Cumbria   122 

Germanizing  of  Britain    123 

The  Dignity  of  Bretwalda 125 

Ceavvlin  of  Wessex 128 

Conversion  of  Kent 130 

The  British  Church 131 

Conversion  of  Essex    142 

Raedwald  of  East  Anglia 144 

^thelfrith  of  Northumbria. — Eadwine 145 

Paulinas 149 

Conversion  of  Deira     151 

Conversion  of  East  Anglia 154 

Penda  of  Mercia 155 

Oswald 1 57 

Aidan 158 


CONTENTS.  xix 

Page 

Ceohvulf  of  Wessex 159 

Tewdric  of  Morganwg     160 

Cynegils  and  Cwichelm. — Conversion  of  Wessex 161 

Oswiu   163 

Defeat  and  death  of  Penda 166 

Progress  of  Christianity 167 

Synod  of  Whitby 169 

Archbishop  Theodore 171 

Bisliop  Wilfrith    173 

The  Arts  in  England    ]  76 

Eegfrith  of  Xorthunibria 179 

Anglo-Saxon  foundations  abroad     181 

Scottish  foundations  abroad     182 

Wilfrith     184. 

Ceadwealla  186 

Aldfrith  of  Northumbria 1 87 

Ecclesiastical  Institutions    190 

Bishoprics     192 

Monasteries  and  Churches    195 

Clergy 197 

Tithes 198 

Canon  Law 200 

The  Mother-tongue  the  language  of  the  Church. — Versions 

of  the  Scriptures 202 

Church  Music 203 

Saxon  School  at  Home    204' 

Superstitions. — Pilgrimages. — Relics 207 

Venerable  Beda    209 

The  Monk  Ecgberht   210 

Decline  of  Northumbria. — Succession  of  kings 211 

Ceohvulf.— Eadberht 213 

^thehvald  Moll,  etc 214 

i^thelred 216 

Eardw  ulf 217 

State  of  Mercia    221 

^thelred  and  Osthryth   222 

Ceolred.— .^thelbald 224 

Offa , 227  , 

Ofia's  Dyke 230 

Charles  the  Great    231 


^^  CONTENTS. 

Page 

Archbishopric  of  Lichfield '^^^ 

Council  of  Cealchyth ^^^ 

TEthelbcrht  of  East  Anglia. 235 

EcgfcMth  of  Mercia.~Cenwulf 238 

Kadberht  Praeii    238 

Cenhelin  of  Mercia 241 

East  Anglia • "  •  •  •  •  241 

East  Saxons 243 

Kent 245 

South  Saxons   

Smaller  States.— Middlesex,  Surrey,  Hwiccas,  etc 249 

Gradual  Preponderance  of  Wessex     251 

Cynegils  and  Cvvichelm 251 

Cenwealh 252 

Sexburh    255 

Centwine •  •  -^" 

The  Britons  and  Arnioricans. — Yvor 256 

Ceadwealla 258 

Subjection  and  Partition  of  Sussex.— Isle  of  Wight 259 

Arwald  and  his  Sons.— Mul    260 

Inc    261 

Laws  of  Ine 264 

Aldhelm   264 

Boniface 265 

Abdication  and  Pilgrimage  of  Ine 266 

^thelheard 267 

Cuthred.— War  with  iEthelbald  of  Mercia    268 

Sigebyrht 270 

Cynewulf 270 

Beorhtric 272 

Ecgberht 2/2 

First  Landing  of  the  Northmen 273 

Eadburh 273 

Additional  Notes 275 

Genealogies 284 


ERRATA. 

P.  xiii  1.  12,  dele  chiefly. 

—  xlvi  1.  \^,for  Athelm  read  ^thelm. 

—  83  1.  16, ybr  preceding  rea<f  following. 

—  83  1.  \7,for  same  rearf  preceding. 


LITERARY    INTRODUCTION. 


As  all  our  knowledge  of  ancient  times  necessarily  depends  on 
an  acquaintance  with  the  original  sources  of  history,  it  is  only 
when  such  sources  are  supposed  to  be  already  sufficiently 
known,  that  an  accurate  specification  of  them  can  be  dis- 
pensed with.  The  want  of  such  a  specification  for  the  History 
of  England  is  felt  even  in  the  literature  of  England  itself, 
but  is  more  particularly  disadvantageous  to  the  natives  of 
other  countries,  where  the  most  extensive  libraries  are  too 
often  but  sparingly  supplied  with  these  original  authorities. 
But  if  it  be  the  object  of  an  historic  work  to  promote  a  critical 
knowledge  of  history,  and  to  aid  the  solitary  student  in  his 
researches,  mere  literary  or  bibliographic  notices  will  be  found 
wholly  inadequate;  and,  as  a  basis  for  such  researches,  an 
accurate  review  of  the  several  authorities,  of  their  peculiarities 
and  deviations  from  each  other,  must  be  set  forth.  Among 
no  historic  writers  are  we  more  to  seek  for  such  information 
than  among  those  of  England,  with  the  exception,  perhaps, 

^  The  work  of  Nicolson  (English,  Scotch  and  Irish  Historical  Libraries, 
3rd  edit.  Lond.  1736.  fol.)  is  not  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  the  present  da}-. 
On  the  chronicles  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  may  be  consulted  with  advantage 
a  very  sensible  article  in  '  Hermes,'  Bd,  xxx.,  by  Dr.  Reinhold  Schmid. 

VOL.  I.  C 


xxii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

of  Lingard  and  Palgrave,  and  even  these  seem  to  have  been 
guided  rather  by  a  correct^,  though  not  always  followed,  tact, 
than  by  a  scientifically  founded  view.  Hence  by  English  hi- 
storians, chroniclers  are  not  unfrequently  adduced  as  autho- 
rities, who  in  the  present  work  are  either  not  cited  at  all,  or  in 
those  rare  cases  only  M'hen  their  original  sources  cannot  be 
traced :  such  are  Matthew  of  Westminster,  Roger  of  Hoveden, 
John  Bromton,  WilHam  Knyghton,  and  others.  With  correct 
and  critical  editions  of  the  several  authorities,  which  might 
serve  as  a  compass  whereby  to  steer  on  the  dark  ocean  of  hi- 
story, England  is  but  ill  provided.  An  analysis  of  the  chro- 
nicles, for  the  purpose  of  separating  that  which  is  verbally 
borrowed,  and  that  Avhich  is  remodelled,  from  that  which  is 
original  communication  ;  the  comparison  of  the  latter  with, 
and  confirmation  by,  contemporary  records  and  other  autho- 
rities ;  the  illustration  of  the  political  position  of  the  author ; 
the  examination  of  his  language — all  this  in  England,  as  in 
other  countries,  belongs  to  the  rarely  possessed  requisites  for 
historic  research  ;  so  that  historic  composition,  like  other 
arts,  must  continue  far  behind  its  theory. 

The  following  notices  and  critical  remarks  are  given  with 
due  regard  to  brevity,  and  have  reference  solely  to  the  most 
important  sources  of  Anglo-Saxon  history,  to  the  exclusion  of 
Greek,  Roman,  Northern,  and  German  authorities,  as  Avell  as 
of  separate  biographies,  which  will  be  found  cited  under  the 
several  periods  with  which  they  are  connected. 

The  study  of  English  history  would  have  been  exceedingly 
facilitated,  had  the  edition  of  the  English  historians  to  the 
year  1500,  commenced  under  the  authority  of  the  late  Par- 
liamentary Commission,  appointed  for  the  preservation  and 
publication  of  British  historical  and  legal  monuments,  been 
carried  on  to  completion  ;  there  being  not  only  many  excellent 
manuscripts  still  unused  of  the  chronicles  already — though 
for  the  most  part  very  indifferently — edited,  but  also  a  con- 
siderable number  of  important  historic  sources  that  have  never 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 

yet  appeared  in  prints  Had  this  design  been  carried  on  in 
a  way  commensurate  with  the  means  possessed  by  the  Com- 
mission, England  might,  at  no  distant  period,  have  exulted  in 
a  collection  of  historical  and  legal  monuments  excelling  those 
of  other  countries  in  as  great  a  degree  as  her  present  printed 
chronicles  are  inferior  to  the  historical  collections  of  Italy, 
France,  Germany  and  Denmark. 

The  larger  printed  collections  of  English  chroniclers  belong 
for  the  most  part  to  the  seventeenth,  and  some  even  to  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  earliest  is  that  of  Dr.  Matthew  Parker, 
archbishop  of  Canterbury^,  containing  the  British  History  of 
Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  his  epitomiser  Ponticus  Virunnius, 
Beda's  Ecclesiastical  History,  Gildas,  William  of  Newburgh, 
and  an  extract  translated  into  Latin  from  Froissart.  Besides 
the  above,  Parker,  as  early  as  1570,  had  caused  Matthew  of 
Westminster,  and,  in  the  following  year,  Matthew  Paris  to  be 
printed;  and,  in  1574,Walsingham,  andAsser's  Life  of  Alfred, 
the  latter  with  Anglo-Saxon  types.  This  collection  was  fol- 
lowed by  that  of  Sir  Henry  Savile,  under  the  title  of '  Rerum 
Anglicarum  Scriptores  post  Bedam  Praecipui  V  containing  the 
three  principal  works  of  William  of  Malmesbury,  Henry  of 
Huntingdon,  Roger  of  Hoveden,  Ethelwerd  and  Ingulf — a 
great  acquisition  for  history,  though  so  uncritically  edited,  that 
a  considerable  portion  of  Henry  of  Huntingdon  is  reprinted 
verbatim  in  Hoveden.  The  chronicles  of  Matthew  of  West- 
minster and  Florence  of  Worcester  were  printed  separately  in 
the  same  year.  A  few  years  later  that  unrivalled  antiquary 
William  Camden  (ob.  1623)  increased  the  number  of  collec- 
tions with  his  ^Anglica,  Normannica,  Hibernica,  Cambrica, 
a  Veteribus  Scripta^,'  containing  a  new  but  faulty  edition  of 

'  For  the  plan  of  this  collection  and  the  preliminary  labours  of  the  Com- 
mission, see  Cooper's  '  Account  of  the  most  important  public  Records  of 
Great  Britain,  and  the  publications  of  the  Record  Commissioners,'  vol.  ii. 
pp.  144-178  and  365-3/0. 

^  Rerum  Britannicarum Scriptores VetustioresetPrsecipui.Lugd. 1587.  fol. 

3  Londini  1590.     Francofurti  1601.  fol.  *  Francof.  1603.  fol. 

c2 


xxiv  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

Asser's  Life  of  .Alfred,  William  of  Jumieges,  Walsingham 
(to  which  is  needlessly  appended  an  extract  from  the  same 
work,  the  Hypodigma  Neustria^),  Giraldi  Cambrensis  Itine- 
rarium,  Descriptio  Cambriae,  Topographia  Hiberniae,  and 
Hibernia  Expugnata.  As  a  proof  of  the  little  interest  taken 
in  England  for  fundamental  historic  knowledge,  it  may  be 
mentioned,  that  so  far  from  other  and  more  effective  editions 
being  there  produced,  these  collections  could  only  be  reprinted 
in  Germany  ;  nor  till  a  lapse  of  fifty  years  was  an  edition  of 
the  Saxon  Chronicle  brought  forth,  though  next  after  Beda 
the  most  important  source  of  Anglo-Saxon  history,  and  the 
basis  of  the  portion  relating  to  that  period  of  the  principal  of 
the  before-mentioned  Latin  chronicles. 

The  '  Historiae.  Anglicanre  Scriptores  Decern,'  edited  by 
Sir  Roger  Twysden^,  is  chiefly  useful  for  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period  on  account  of  Simeon  of  Durham  contained  in  it  (who 
not  only  frequently  supplies  the  deficiencies  of  Florence,  but 
also  gives  many  particulars  not  to  be  found  elsewhere),  also 
the  abbot  of  Rievaux,  '  De  Genealogia  Regum  Anglorum,' 
and  his  Life  of  Edward  the  Confessor.  Of  greater  interest 
for  the  ante-Norman  period  are  the  collections  printed  at 
Oxford,  of  which  that  by  Dr.  Fell,  bishop  of  that  city,  con- 
tains the  best  edition  of  Ingulf,  the  History  of  Peter  of  Blois, 
and  the  Chronicle  of  the  Abbey  of  Melrose^.  In  the  other, 
edited  by  Dr.  Gale,  are  comprised  Gildas,  Nennius,  ^dde's 
Life  of  Wilfrith,  John  Wallingford,  the  valuable  Chronicles 
or  Histories  of  the  Abbeys  of  Ely  and  Ramsey,  besides  other 
works  of  importance  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  of  English 
history^.     From  this  time  no  similar  collection  has  appeared, 

^  Londini  1652.  fol. 

"  Rerum  Anglicarum  Scriptorum  Veterum  t.  i.  Oxon.  1684.  fol.  Of 
this  collection  no  more  appeared.  As  Fell's  name  is  not  mentioned  in  the 
volume,  the  work  is  frequently  confounded  with  the  similarly  printed  one 
of  Gale. 

^  Historiae  Britannicce,  Saxonicse,  Anglo-Danicse  Scriptores  xv.  opera 
Thomte  Gale.  Oxon.  1691.      This  volume,  containing  the  earlier  writers. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxv 

unless  we  may  include  in  the  list  that  of  Sparke,  under  the 
title  of  *  Historiae  Anglicanae  Scriptores  varii  ^,'  the  chief 
portion  of  which  has  reference  to  the  abbey  of  Peterborough, 
or  to  the  Life  of  Thomas  a  Becket.  Of  greater  interest  for  us, 
though  exclusively  confined  to  church  history,  is  the  *  Anglia 
Sacra'  of  Wharton^,  a  valuable  collection  of  the  chronicles  of 
various  dioceses  and  monastenes,  as  well  as  Lives  of  celebrated 
ecclesiastics.  Many  English  chronicles  were,  in  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century,  edited  by  the  indefatigable  Thomas 
Hearne,  though  less  critically  and  carefully  than  could  be 
wished.  His  publications  being  detached  and  independent 
of  each  other,  are  consequently  not  easily  collected^.  For 
our  present  purpose  the  Scottish  chronicle  of  Fordun'*  is 
perhaps  the  only  one  of  them  possessing  any  interest. 

The  wish  for  a  complete  collection  of  the  English  historians 
of  the  middle  age  was  first  publicly  expressed  by  Gibbon^ : 
that  his  wish  was  not  carried  into  efYect  is  matter  of  deep 
regret,  except  in  the  case  that  no  other  individual  than  the 
object  of  his  choice,  John  Pinkerton,  had  been  selected  for 
that  purpose. 

The  unfinished  first  volume  of  the  edition  of  English  Hi- 
storians^", to  have  been  published  under  the  Record  Com- 

is  usually  regarded  as  the  first,  though  the  second,  containing  some  writers 
of  the  Norman  period,  is  dated  1687. 

^  Londini  1723,  in  two  small  folios.  -  Londini  l691,ii.  torn,  folio. 

^  The  collection  sometimes  cited  under  his  name,  '  Collectio  Scriptorum,' 
etc.,  contains  of  the  chronicles  only  the  most  unimportant — that  of  William 
of  Worcester. 

■'  Johannisde  Fordun  Scotichronicon  genuinum,  edit. Th.  Hearne,  v.  torn. 
8vo.  Oxon.  1722.  ^  See  his  Miscellaneous  Works. 

^  Just  as  the  manuscript  of  this  work  was  about  to  be  sent  to  press 
(1833),  the  author  had  the  pleasure,  through  the  particular  kindness  of 
his  highly  respected  friend,  C.  P.  Cooper,  Esq.,  to  receive  the  first  volume 
of  Mr.  Petrie's  '  Materials  for  English  History,'  or  'Corpus  Historicum,* 
as  far  as  that  work  was  printed  ;  the  execution  of  which,  it  is  hoped,  will 
satisfy  all  reasonable  expectations.  Though  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
Introduction,  containing  an  account  of  and  remarks  on  the  work,  the  seve- 
ral authors  and  manuscripts,  is  not  yet  printed,  its  present  contents  enable 
us,  nevertheless,  to  place  greater  confidence  in  our  views  regarding  the  con- 


xxvi  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

mission,  contains — after  extracts  from  the  Greek  and  Latin 
geographers  and  historians — Gildas,  Nennius,  Beda's  Chro- 
nicon  and  Ecclesiastical  Histoiy,  the  Saxon  Chronicle  with 
an  English  translation,  Asser's  Life  of  Alfred,  the  Chronicles 
of  Ethelwerd,  Florence  of  Worcester^,  Simeon  of  Durham, 
and  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  L'Estorie  des  Engles  of  Geffrei 
Gaimar,  the  Annales  Cambriae,  the  Brut  y  Tywysogion,  or 
Chronicle  of  the  Princes  of  Wales  (with  an  English  trans- 
lation), ascribed  to  Caradoc  of  Llancarvan  (all  down  to  the 
year  1066),  and  the  '^  Carmen  de  Bello  Hastingensi.'  Four 
volumes  were  destined  to  comprise  all  the  chronicles  (omit- 
ting in  the  later  all  matter  copied  verbatim  from  the  earlier 
ones),  and  whatever  could  be  found  illustrative  of  English 
history  to  the  period  of  the  Norman  conquest. 

The  hope  once  fostered  by  the  historic  inquirer,  of  deriving 
considerable  information  respecting  the  earliest  history  of 
Britain  from  Welsh  sources,  has  not  been  realized.  The  hi- 
story of  Wales  and  Cornwall  has  undoubtedly  received  illus- 
tration :  highly  interesting  is  it  also  to  have  determined  the 
very  great  antiquity  of  the  poems  of  the  bards  Aneurin, 
Tahesin,  Llywarch  Hen  and  Merddyn,  some  of  which  may 
probably  be  assigned  to  the  sixth  century^.  Yet  do  these 
poetic  spirits  set  before  us  the  subject  rather  than  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  history  of  their  time.  We  find  in  their  glowing  love 
of  country,  in  their  intense  hatred  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  in 
the  outbreak  of  strong  enthusiasm  exulting  in  its  subject,  in 
the  vain-glory  ever  exhibiting  itself  more  pompously  with  the 

nexion  of  the  known  sources  of  English  history,  and  to  avail  ourselves  of 
some  hitherto  unused  authorities. 

^  The  genealogies  given  at  the  end  of  Florence  are  from  a  MS.  belonging 
to  C.  C.  Coll.  Oxford,  collated  for  the  purpose  by  the  translator  of  the  pre- 
sent work. — T. 

2  This  estimable  treasure  of  old  British  literature  is,  with  other  rehcs, 
published  in  the  Myvyrian  Archaiology  of  Wales,  a  collection  of  historical 
documents  from  ancient  MSS.  3  voU.  8vo.  Lond.  1801-7.  Compare 
Turner's  Dissertation  on  the  age  of  those  poems  in  his  History  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxvii 

fall  of  former  greatness — we  find  in  all  this  the  germ  of  that 
world  of  fiction,  which  the  Welsh  of  after-ages  have  passed 
off  for  a  History  of  Britain.  When  we  think  of  these  and  of 
similar  Scandinavian  compositions,  the  full  worth  of  the  love 
of  truth  pervading  our  modest  monkish  chronicles  cannot  fail 
most  forcibly  to  strike  us.  Servile  as  that  faithfulness  may 
appear,  easily  as  the  earnestness  and  the  strength  of  belief 
may  be  mistaken,  which,  by  the  old  chroniclers,  were  esteemed 
as  the  greatest  virtues ;  absurd  as  the  accuracy  is  with  which 
they  copy,  without  the  omission  of  a  syllable,  every  w^ord  of 
a  predecessor,  and  although,  as  fi-om  virtue  a  vice  may  spring, 
80  from  their  dull  fidelity  the  most  insipid  pedantry  and 
grossest  falsehood  may  grow  and  often  has  grown,  yet  to 
that  schoolboy  fidehty  alone  are  we  indebted  for  a  chrono- 
logical clew  through  the  labyrinth  of  the  middle  age,  the 
bridge,  as  it  were,  which  connects  the  old  with  the  new  world 
over  the  rushing,  ever-agitated,  sparkling  waves  of  the  stream 
of  time. 

The  historic  Triads  of  the  Welsh  contain  considerable  in- 
formation, but  require  much  illustration  for  the  satisfactory 
understanding  of  them.  Adherence  to  an  originally  perhaps 
well-adapted  form,  can,  in  its  later  wholly  unfitting  appU- 
cation,  only  counteract  the  object  of  the  composition,  and 
cause  it  to  degenerate  into  insipidity  \ 

The  oldest  know^n  British  historian — if  his  work,  '  Liber 
querulus  de  Excidio  Britanniae,'  called  also  '  Historia,'  can 
give  him  any  pretension  to  that  title — is  Gildas^,  born  a.d. 
516,  a  scholar  of  St.  Iltut  and  monk  of  Bangor,  who,  after  a 
life  spent  partly  in  travel  or  pilgrimages,  partly  in  solitude, 
is  said  to  have  died  and  been  buried  in  the  abbey  of  Glaston- 

'  See,  besides  the  Myvyrian  Archaiology,  Edw.  Lhuyd,  Archaeologia 
Britannica.  Oxon.  1707.  Davies,  Celtic  Researches.  Lond.  1804.  8vo. 
Edw.  Williams,  Lyrical  and  Pastoral  Poems.  Lond.  1794.   12mo.  vol.  ii. 

2  See  p.  133.  He  was  born  in  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Bath,  which 
Beda,  from  a  misconception  of  the  text  of  Gildas,  places  in  493. 


xxviii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

bury.  To  Gildas  is  also  ascribed  an  ^  Epistola/  wherein  he 
pours  forth  the  bitterest  lamentations  over  the  corruption 
and  general  wickedness  of  his  time.  The  History  must  have 
been  composed  in  the  year  560,  the  Epistle  before  547 S  in 
which  Maglocun,  king  of  Gwynedd,  who  is  mentioned  in  it, 
died^.  Beda,  Alcwine  and  Lupus  cite  Gildas,  surnamed  the 
Wise^.  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth  appeals  to  a  larger  historical 
work  of  Gildas,  which  is  no  longer  extant,  unless  it  be  latent 
in  the  '  Historia  Britonum,'  bearing  the  name  of  Nennius^. 

This  last-mentioned  work,  entitled  also  '  Eulogium  Bri- 
tannia,' is  usually  ascribed  to  Nennius,  abbot  of  Bangor,  a 
pupil  of  Elbod,  archbishop  of  Gwynedd^.  The  year  688,  as- 
signed as  that  of  its  composition,  can,  therefore,  have  refer- 
ence only  to  the  work  in  its  original  form,  that  which  has 
reached  our  time  having  many  additions  and  interpolations. 
The  preface  to  the  common  manuscripts  places  its  compo- 
sition in  the  year  858^,  a  date  reconcileable  with  809,  that  of 
the  death  of  Elbod.  A  valuable  manuscript  of  this  work  in 
the  Vatican,  of  the  tenth  century,  in  which  the  greater  part 
of  those  additions  are  wanting,  names  Mark  the  Hermit  as 
the  author  or,  perhaps,  the  copier  only,  in  the  year  945.  An 
edition  from  this  manuscript,  with  learned  and  excellent  re- 
marks, was  published  by  the  Rev.  W.  Gunn'.  Nennius  names 
as  his  authorities  the  Annales  Romanorum,  Chronica  S.  S. 

^  Both  works  are  printed  in  Gale,  t.  i.;  the  first  also  in  C.  Bertrami 
Britannicarum  Gentium  HistoriEe  antiquse  Scriptores  III.  Havnise,  1758. 
8vo.  Since  the  first  edition  by  Polydore  Vergil  (Lond.  1526.  Bvo),  Gildas 
has  been  frequently  printed. 

^  Annales  Cambrise  h.a.  King  Constantine,  who  is  likewise  mentioned 
by  Gildas,  was  living  in  the  year  589.     See  Annal.  Camb. 

3  See  also  Will.  Malmesb.  de  Antiq.  Glaston.  ap.  Gale,  t.  i.  p.  296.  A 
Life  of  Gildas,  "  scripta  amonacho  Ruyensi,"  is  printed  in  the  '  Bibliotheca 
Floriacensis.'  Lugd.  1645.  8vo.  [See  Stevenson's  edition,  printed  uniformly 
with  Gildas,  for  the  English  Historical  Society. — T.] 

*  This  is  Turner's  opinion.     History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  vol.  i.  p.  201. 

^  See  Stevenson's  edit.  pref.  p.  viii. 

•^  Also  in  cap.  xi.,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  work. 

^  Historia  Britonura  by  Mark  the  Hermit.  Lond.  1819.  8vo. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxix 

Patrum,  and  Scripta  Scotorum  Anglorumque  et  Traditio 
Veterum.  The  Welsh  Triads  are  undoubtedly  comprised  in 
the  last,  as  his  work  abounds  in  trilogies^.  An  important 
circumstance  for  criticism  seems  to  have  been  overlooked, 
viz.  that  a  considerable  portion  of  this  work  has  been  inserted, 
and  often  verbatim,  by  Henry  of  Huntingdon  into  his  Chro- 
nicle, though  without  mention  of  the  name  either  of  Nennius 
or  of  Mark  the  Hermit.  Thus  (p.  695,  edit.  Petrie),  "  apud 
quendam  auctorem  (Nenn.  ix.)  reperi."  (lb.  p.  707)  "  dicitur 
a  quibusdam^'  (Nenn.  xxxviii.  xxxix.).  In  one  place  (p.  712) 
he  quotes  him  under  the  name  of"  Gildas  historiographus-." 
The  chronology  followed  by  Nennius  is  that  of  Eusebius, 
though,  in  the  manuscripts,  particularly  in  that  of  Mark, 
much  corrupted. 

JefFx'ey  ap  iVrthur,  born  at  Monmouth  in  1152,  bishop  of 
St.  Asaph,  is  the  English  foster-brother  of  the  Danish  Saxo 
Grammaticus.  In  the  choicest  Latin  of  his  time  he  has  com- 
posed a  history  of  the  Britons^,  consisting  of  the  grossest 
fables,  interspersed  with  some  historic  traditions.  In  later 
times  authors  seem  to  have  unanimously  agreed  in  an  un- 
qualified rejection  of  the  entire  work,  and  have  therefore  failed 
to  observe,  that  many  of  his  accounts  are  supported  by  nar- 
ratives to  be  found  in  writers  wholly  unconnected  with  and 
independent  of  Jeffrey'*.  He  professes  to  have  merely  trans- 
lated his  work  from  a  chronicle  in  the  British  tongue,  called 

'  Cap.  vii.  "  Venerunt  ties  filii  cujusdam  militis  Hispanise  cum  xxx. 
chiulis  apud  illos,  cum  xxx.  mulieribus  in  unaquaque  chiula ; "  Cap.  xxv. 
"  Nonus  (3  X  3)  fuit  Constantinus  ; "  Cap.  xxvii.  "  Tiibus  vicibus  occisi 
sunt  duces  llomanorum  a  Brittannis  ; "  Cap.  xxviii.  "  tres  chiulse ;  " 
Cap.  xlvii.  three  battles  with  the  Saxons  ;  Cap.  xlviii.  "  Hengistus  elegit 
ccc.  railites/'  etc. 

^  The  passages  from  Nennius  to  be  found  in  Henry  of  Huntingdon  are 
particularly  from  cc.  2-4,  9,  10,  16,  23,  28,  36,  38,  47-49,  51,  54,  61,  62. 
Some  passages  in  Huntingdon  accord  most  closely  with  the  Vatican  MS. 
e.  g.  p.  712,  ed.  Petrie,  "  Arthurus  belliger." 

^  Editio  princeps  ab  Ascensio,  1508,  4to,  from  three  Parisian  MSS. 

*  See  p.  45,  note  ". 


XXX  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

*  Brut  y  Brenhined/  or  '  History  of  the  Kings  of  Britain/ 
found  in  Brittany,  and  communicated  to  him  by  Walter, 
archdeacon  of  Oxford  ^  The  ^Brut'  of  Tysilio^  has,  with 
some  probability,  been  regarded  as  the  original  of  Jeffrey's 
work,  though  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  may  not  itself  be  rather 
an  extract  from  Jeffrey^.  The  Latin  elaboration  of  the  British 
original  seems  to  have  been  completed  about  the  year  1128. 
That  the  whole  is  not  a  translation,  appears  from  passages 
interpolated,  in  many  places  verbatim,  from  the  existing  work 
of  Gildas'*,  of  whom  (lib.iv.  20,  vi.  13,  xii.  6)  he  cites  another 
work,  '  De  Victoria  Ambrosii,'  no  longer  extant.  From  Beda, 
of  whom  he  speaks  (lib.  xii.  14),  Jeffrey  has  rarely  extracted 
verbatim,  though  he  seems,  in  many  places,  to  have  had 
before  him  either  Nennius  or  his  original '^5  where  the  simi- 
larity of  thought  and  expression  can  hardly  be  accidental^. 

Among  the  writers  who  copy  from  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth, 
we  must  not  reckon  either  William  of  Malmesbury  or  Henry 
of  Huntingdon,  both  of  whom  he  mentions  at  the  end  of  his 
own  work.  Ordericus  Vitalis  is  probably  the  first  who  (though 
without  naming  him)  has  exceqated  from  him,  viz.  lib.  xii., 
the  prophecy  of  Merlin  (Galfr.  lib.  vii.  3).  After  him  is  Alfred 
of  Beverley,  who  cites  the  '  Historia  Britonum,'  without  men- 
tion of  the  author,  and  does  not  conceal  his  doubts  as  to  its 
credibility.     The  '  Historia  Britonum,'  cited  in  the  Chronicle 

'  Not  Walter  Mapes,  as  is  generally  supposed,  but  an  earlier  Walter 
Calenius.     See  Douce  in  Warton,  H.  E.  P.  vol.  i.  p.  60,  edit.  1840. 

*  Translated  by  P.  Roberts,  and  printed  in  the  Welsh  Archaiology, 
vol.  ii.,  under  the  title  of  '  A  Chronicle  of  British  Kings.'  See  Dissertation 
on  the  origin  of  Romantic  fiction  in  Europe,  in  Warton,  H.  E.  P. 

3  Turner,  H.  of  the  A.-SS.  vol.  i.  p.  159. 

*  All  doubt  will  vanish  on  comparing  Jeffrey  vi.  3.  with  Gildas  cc.  xiv- 
xvi.  Cf.  also  Jeffrey  v.  3.  with  Gildas  viii.  Jeffrey  v.  3,  14.  with  Gildas  x., 
and  xii.  6.  with  Gildas  xix. 

^  Compare  particularly  Jeflfrey  vi.  12-15, 17,40-42,  with  Nennius  xxxvi., 
xlv.,  xlvii.,  l.-lii. 

"  The  edition  of  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth  in  Parker's  collection  is  extremely 
faulty.  An  edition  from  the  excellent  MS.  in  the  library  of  the  Prince  of 
Schaumburg-Lippe  at  Biickeburg  would  remove  many  critical  doubts. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 

of  Albericus,  is  probably  that  of  Jeffrey  ^.  Gervase  of  Tilbury 
gives  copious  extracts  from  him,  and  is  said  to  have  written 
four  books  of  Illustrations  of  his  work ;  and  Ponticus  Virun- 
nius  of  Treviso^,  who  lived  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, made  an  epitome  of  it  in  six  books. 

Several  writers,  even  contemporaries  of  Jeffrey,  have  ex- 
pressed themselves  strongly  against  his  propagation  of  the 
sagas  about  Arthur^,  under  the  guise  of  authentic  history, 
among  whom  WiHiam  of  Newburgh  and  Giraldus  are  the 
most  conspicuous  ;  and  at  an  earlier  period  William  of  Mal- 
mesbury  had  also  declared  himself  against  the  British  tra- 
ditions of  Arthur.  On  the  other  hand,  the  welcome  reception 
given  to  this  garb  and  embellishment  of  the  old  favourite  tra- 
ditions was  greatly  promoted  by  the  policy  of  Henry  the  Fu'st; 
the  composition  of  Jeffrey's  work  might  indeed  have  been 
occasioned  by  it^  In  conclusion,  we  will  venture  to  express 
the  hope  of  one  day  seeing  what  is  historical  in  Jeffrey  of 
Monmouth  separated  from  that  which  is  fabulous ;  the  latter 
honoured  as  a  pleasing  relic  of  the  times  of  old,  and  the  rest 
exalted  into  useful  matter  for  the  national  history. 

^Le  Brut  d'Angleterre '  of  Robert  Wace-^  appears  to  be  a 
French  imitation  of  Jeffrey*^,  an  old  English  translation  of 
which,  made  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  Layamon,  a  priest 
dwelling  on  the  banks  of  the  Severn  7,  proves  the  delight 
taken  by  the  people  in   these  traditions.      In  his  preface, 

^  See  p.  5,  and  aa.  434,  442,  etc.;  also  about  Merlin's  prophecies,  aa. 
717,  1136,  1139. 

^  In  Parker's  collection. 

^  A  sensible  defence  of  Jeffrey  is  prefixed  to  Wynne's  Caradoc. 

*  This  supposition  is  rendered  very  probable  by  Turner.  See  History  of 
England,  vol.  iv.  pp.  339-355. 

^  An  edit,  of  this  work,  by  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  has  been  printed  at 
Rouen,  in  2  voll.  8vo.   1S36,  1838. 

"  Cf.  Warton,  H.  E.  P.  vol.  i.  p.  58,  edit.  1840  ;  also  the  Abbe  de  la  Rue's 
papers  in  the  Archseologia,  voll.  xii.-xiv. 

^  Of  this  translation,  so  important  for  the  old  language  of  England,  ai> 
edition,  accompanied  by  a  prose  version  in  modern  English,  is  in  prepa- 
ration by  Sir  F.  Madden,  for  the  Society  of  Antiquaries. 


xxxii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

Layamon  informs  us  that  he  did  not  merely  translate  Wace, 
but  made  use  of  other  historic  sources. 

The  chronicle  of  Caradoc,  a  monk  of  Llancarvan,  has  been 
estimated  too  highly  with  reference  to  English  history.  This 
work,  which  reaches  to  the  year  1156,  has  been  translated 
and  edited,  first  in  1584  by  H.  Llwyd  and  Dr.  Powell,  and 
secondly  in  169/  by  H.  Wynne '.  Its  chief  basis  is  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  and  a  Welsh  chronicle,  into  which  the 
author  has  interwoven  many  British  traditions,  though  very 
uncritically  and  unchronologically.  It  is  believed  to  have  been 
composed  in  the  monastery  of  Strata  Florida.  Some  manu- 
scripts are  as  early  as  the  year  14 10-.  A  similar  work  by 
John  Brechfa  is  likewise  much  esteemed  by  inquirers  into 
Welsh  history,  an  edition  of  which,  as  well  as  of  other  British 
monuments  hitherto  little  known,  or  possibly  wholly  unknown 
to  us,  would,  wdthout  doubt,  shed  considerable  light  on  the 
history  of  the  remnant  of  a  great  people,  which  has,  with 
remarkable  tenacity,  preserved  its  nationality  throughout  a 
period  of  two  thousand  years. 

The  Welsh  chronicle  used  by  Caradoc  is  probably  the 
'  Chronicon  Walliae,'  from  the  year  444  to  954,  together  with 
the  beginning  of  the  continuation  of  the  same,  or  the  *  Chro- 
nicon Cambriae,'  to  the  year  1286.  An  edition  of  both  is 
given  in  the  *  Corpus  Historicum'  under  the  title  of  '  Annales 
Cambriae.^  The  chronology  followed  in  these  Annals  is  not 
reckoned  from  the  birth  of  Christ,  but  begins  with  a  year 
which  may  possibly  be  intended  for  that  of  the  coming  of  the 
Saxons,  but  which  would  indicate  an  adherence  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  chronology,  while  among  the  Welsh  we  might  rather 
expect  to  find  a  continuation  of  the  Roman  annals.  The  un- 
certainty arising  from  this  mode  of  calculating  is  the  more  to 
be  regretted,  as  these  few  pages,  notwithstanding  their  brevity 
of  detail,  contain  valuable  notices   of  the  rulers  and  of  the 

'  A  new  edition  was  published  at  Shrewsbury  in  1832. 
^  See  Cooper  on  the  Public  Records,  vol.  ii.  p.  457. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxxiii 

military  history  of  all  the  British  tribes  ;  and  the  general  hi- 
story of  the  Britons,  as  it  has  hitherto  been  known  to  us  from 
Caradoc,  acquires  from  them  numerous  as  well  as  important 
additions  and  rectifications.  '  The  Chronicle  of  the  Princes  of 
Wales/  written  in  Welsh,  entitled  'Brut  y  Tywysogion/  begins 
with  the  abdication  of  Cadwaladyr,  in  the  year  681,  in  which 
Tysilio  and  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth  terminate,  and  is  continued 
to  the  conquest  of  Wales  by  Edward  the  First.  This  work 
(which,  to  the  end  of  the  ninth  century,  appears  to  have  been 
translated  from  the  '  Annales  Cambriae ')  has  been  erroneously 
attributed  to  Caradoc  of  Llancarvan.  The  Welsh  text,  to  the 
year  1066,  accompanied  by  an  EngHsh  version,  is  comprised 
in  the  '  Corpus  Historicum.*  The  '  Brut  y  Saeson'  is  merely 
a  manuscript,  somewhat  varying  from  the  '  Brut  y  Tywy- 
sogion,'  interpolated  with  passages  from  the  Annals  of  Win- 
chester (ascribed  without  sufficient  reason  to  Richard  of 
Devizes)  and  other  chronicles. 

The  oldest  Irish  chronicles,  written  partly  in  Irish  and 
partly  in  Latin,  contain  but  little  useful  matter  for  Anglo- 
Saxon  history,  though  they  report  some  circumstances  illus- 
trative of  the  battles  of  the  inhabitants  of  Scotland  and  Wales 
with  the  Anglo-Saxons,  with  a  few  otherwise  unknown  par- 
ticulars and  some  variations,  which  cannot,  however,  shake 
our  faith  in  Beda  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  chroniclers,  but  de- 
serve attention  as  originating  from  other  records  of  history. 
Dr.  Charles  O'Connor  published  a  collection  of  these  Annals 
under  the  auspices  of  the  late  duke  of  Buckingham  and  Chan- 
dos,  entitled  'Rerum  Hibernicarum  ScriptoresVeteres,auctore 
Carolo  O'Connor,  S.T.D.  Buckinghamiae,'  1814-1826.iv.tom. 
The  first  volume  contains  introductions,  giving  very  instruc- 
tive accounts  of  Irish  manuscripts,  the  chronology  of  the  Irish 
kings,  the  oldest  proofs  of  the  history  of  Ireland  from  the 
Greek  and  Roman  authors,  as  well  as  from  native  historians 
and  poets.  The  second  contains — I.  Annales  Tigernachi  ab 
anno  305  a.  C.  ad  1088  p.  C.    II.  Annales  Inisfalenses  ab  anno 


xxxiv  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

428  ad  1088.  III.  Annales  Buelliani  ab  anno  420  ad  1245. 
The  third  volume  contains  the  Quatuor  Magistrorum  Annales 
Hibernici  usque  ad  annum  1172,  collected  about  the  year 
1634  by  Michael  O'Clery,  a  Franciscan  friar,  and  other 
learned  Irishmen.  In  the  fourth  volume  is  given  a  complete 
edition  of  the  Annales  Ultonienses  ab  anno  431  ad  1131, 
previously  known  only  from  some  printed  fragments.  The 
General  Index  to  the  whole,  which  closes  the  last  volume, 
can  hardly  be  said  to  correspond  to  the  industry  displayed  in 
the  work  itself. 

Beda's  great  work,  'The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the 
Angles,'  must  be  reckoned  among  the  most  complete,  and, 
for  posterity,  most  important  works  of  that  age.  The  first 
twenty-two  chapters  of  the  first  book  are  chiefly  verbatim 
extracts  from  Orosius,  Gildas,  a  legend  of  St.  Geraianus, 
with  a  few  others,  the  sources  of  which  cannot  with  certainty 
be  indicated.  In  the  greater  and  more  important  portion  of 
his  history,  Beda  confirms  the  credibility  of  his  narrative  by 
naming  the  experienced  archbishops,  bishops  and  abbots 
among  his  countrymen  and  contemporaries,  who  had  sup- 
plied him  with  all  necessary  information  from  their  own  and 
even  from  the  papal  archives.  Many  other  individuals  were 
also  questioned  by  him,  the  substance  of  whose  testimony, 
with  regard  to  contemporary  events  and  credible  tradition, 
is  embodied  in  his  admirable  work^ 

The  other  historical  writings  of  Beda  are — two  Lives  of 
St.  Cuthberht  (one  in  hexameters),  and  the  History  of  the 

^  Cf.  Schmid,  1.  cit.,  and  his  Introduction  to  the  Laws  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons.  See  also  p.  209  of  this  volume.  The  best  edition  of  the  Latin 
text,  and  of  the  A.-S,  version  of  Beda's  history,  as  well  as  of  the  smaller 
historical  pieces,  is  that  of  John  Smith,  Cantab.  1722.  folio.  Regarding  a 
MS.  of  the  church  history  of  the  eighth  centur}"^,  and  a  projected  edition 
by  the  Archivarius  de  Ram  at  Mechlin,  see  Mone,  '  Quellen  und  For- 
schungen,'  Th.  i.  [An  excellent  edition  of  Beda's  historical  works  has 
been  published  by  Mr.  Stevenson,  in  2  voll.  8vo,  for  the  English  Historical 
Society.  An  edition  of  all  Beda's  works  has  also  been  recently  published 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Giles.— T.] 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxxv 

Abbots  of  Wearmouth,  viz.  Benedict,  Ceolfrith,  Eosterwine, 
Sigefrith  and  Hwoetberht.  His  '  Chronicon '  also  contains 
some  historic  notices,  which  have  been  used  by  Paul  Warne- 
frid  in  his  History  of  the  Lombards,  and  at  a  later  period 
have  been  transferred  into  the  numerous  works  to  which 
Beda's  Chronicle  has  served  as  a  foundation. 

Meritorious  and  comprehensive  works  have  often  been  pre- 
judicial to  historic  research,  by  casting  into  oblivion  the 
materials  out  of  which  they  have  been  formed.  This  obser- 
vation applies  particularly  to  the  History  of  Beda,  and  we  feel 
its  truth  the  more  acutely,  as  it  is  evident  that  he  must  have 
found  much  recorded  matter  relative  to  the  history  of  his 
country,  which  the  plan  of  his  work  did  not  permit  him  to 
insert :  hence  our  information  with  regard  to  Wessex,  the 
most  important  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  states,  is  extremely 
scanty.  Among  such  records  may  be  enumerated,  Genealo- 
gies of  the  royal  races.  Lists  of  the  successions  of  kings  and 
eminent  ecclesiastics.  Necrologies  or  Obituaries,  and  Diony- 
sian  tables. 

Of  the  oldest  genealogies,  that  deserves  especial  notice 
which  is  given  at  the  end  of  a  manuscript  of  Nennius,  written 
in  a  British  hand,  containing  some  important  matter  relating 
to  the  eastern  and  northern  kingdoms  of  England.  Others, 
hitherto  incompletely  printed,  are  inserted  into  the  texts  of 
the  Saxon  Chronicle  and  Florence  of  Worcester,  whence  they 
have  passed  into  other  chronicles^.  With  reference  to  North- 
umbria,  much  matter  of  this  kind  is  to  be  found  in  Simeon  of 
Durham. 

Many  regal  tables  are  blended  with  the  genealogies.  Such 
a  table  of  the  West  Saxon  kings  has  been  repeatedly  printed-, 
and  because  it  concludes  with  iElfred,  has,  without  sufficient 
ground,  been  attributed  to  that  monarch.    It  not  only  deviates 

'  See  Textus  RofFensis,  cc.  xxxvi.  xxxvii. 

^  Prefixed  to  Wheelocke's  edit,  of  Beda,  p.  5  ;  after  Spelman's  Vita 
iElfredi,  p.  199-  Inserted  by  Gibson  and  Ingram  in  the  Sax.  Chron. 
a.  495. 


xxxvi  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

materially  from  the  common  accounts,  with  respect  to  the 
regnal  years  of  the  West  Saxon  kings,  in  assigning  to  Cerdic 
a  reign  of  sixteen  years  only  instead  of  thirty-six,  but  is  also 
inconsistent  Avith  itself,  by  placing  the  accession  of  Alfred 
396  years  after  the  year  494,  i.e.  in  890,  instead  of  a.d.  S^l. 
The  primitive  custom  of  dating  public  documents  from  the 
regnal  years  of  the  kings  must  have  made  an  accurate  know- 
ledge of  those  years  a  matter  of  general  necessity,  as  Beda 
also  testifies,  when  speaking  of  many  recorders  of  royal  reigns, 
who,  by  a  judicial  sentence,  blotted  from  their  list  the  names 
of  two  unworthy  kings  ^,  adding  the  year  of  their  reign  to 
those  of  their  worthier  successor. 

The  Necrologies  contain,  besides  the  day  of  the  death  of 
those  for  whose  souls  masses  were  to  be  celebrated,  an  ac- 
count of  the  donations  whereby  they  rendered  themselves 
worthy  of  that  benefit,  also  the  names  of  the  kindred  with 
whom  the  patronage  of  the  foundations  remained,  and  other 
particulars  often  of  general  interest^.  The  old  English  Calen- 
dar is  a  large  necrology,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  the 
names  of  Anglo-Saxon  saints  and  pious  benefactors,  bearing 
evident  signs  of  its  origin  from  the  obituaries  of  several 
metropolitan  churches. 

From  what  we  are  able  to  ascertain,  small  chronicles  were 
composed  before  the  time  of  Beda,  though  probably  not 
founded  on  the  Dionysian  nineteen-yearly  Easter  tables,  but 
rather  on  the  regnal  years  ^. 

^  Osric  of  Deira  and  Eanfrith  of  Bernicia.     See  p.  loG. — T. 

^  See  such  a  one  from  the  cathedral  of  Canterbury  in  '  Anglia  Sacra,'  t.  i. 
p.  52  sq. 

^  It  has  ah-eady  been  remarked  by  others,  that  the  Annales  Majores 
Juvavienses  (or  Annals  of  Salzburg,  printed  in  Mon.  Germ.  Histor.  t.  i.) 
bear  on  their  face  signs  of  their  Anglo-Saxon  origin.  Their  real  or  pre- 
sumed errors  will  be  discussed  in  another  place  ;  here  we  shall  merely  re- 
mark, that  they  alone  supply  us  with  the  day  of  the  death  of  Eadbald,  king 
jf  Kent,  viz.  xiii.  Kal.  Feb.  a.  640.  More  important,  however,  in  a  similar 
respect  are  the  Annales  Lauresham.  Alaraannici  et  Nazariani,  though  for 
their  just  appreciation  requiring  illustration :  we  must,  therefore,  in  the 
first  place,  observe,  that  "a.  713  mors  Alfrede  et  Adulfi  regis,"  is  not  an 


LITERARY  IIsTRODUCTION.  xxxvii 

Although  the  very  jDrobable  origin  of  the  oldest  German 
annals^  to  be  found  written  on  the  margins  of  the  Dionysian 
tables  in  the  Scottish  cloisters  of  Germany,  may  tend  to  show 
that  this  usage  was  carried  thither  from  Britain,  still  the 
practice  of  Scottish,  monks  would  prove  nothing  for  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  and  sufficient  traces  are,  moreover,  to  be 
found,  that  among  the  latter  an  era  was  in  use  dating  from 
their  coming  into  Britain,  which,  at  least  in  secular  matters, 
they  had  not  laid  aside  in  the  time  of  Beda.  This  chro- 
nology, combined  with  the  record  of  the  regnal  years,  has,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  Christian  era,  been  used  by  Henry  of 

erroneous  memorial  of  the  death  of  king  Ealdfrith  (Aldfrith),  who  died  in 
705,  but  of  ^Iflsed,  the  daughter  of  Oswiu  of  Northumbria,  born  in  654, 
who  died  in  her  59th  year  as  abbess  of  Whitby,  consequently  in  713  (see 
Beda,  iii.  24),  and  of  Ealdwulf  or  Aldulf,  king  of  the  E.  Angles,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  crown  in  664,  the  year  of  whoso  death  was  hitherto  unknown. 
In  the  '  Annales  Petav.' also  his  death  is  recorded  in  713,  under  the  name  of 
Agledulfus.  Under  the  name  of  the  abbot  Domnanus,  whose  death  is  placed 
in  705,  hardly  any  other  can  be  meant  than  the  celebrated  abbot  of  Hii  or 
lona,  Adamnan,  who,  as  we  know  from  Beda,  v.  1,  15,  died  about  that 
time.  Tlie  year  702  adopted  by  the  editors  is,  as  Smith  himself  confesses, 
arbitrary.  Tigernach,  Annal.  and  Fabricius  (Bibl.  Med.  .'Evi)  nearly  ap- 
proximate to  the  above  date,  viz.  ix.  Kal.  Oct.  704.  Disguised  as  this  name 
is,  as  well  as  those  of  other  bishops  and  abbots,  yet  their  sound  enables  us 
to  recognise  their  Irish  origin.  Anno  729,  Macflatheus  is  probably  the 
same  name  as  the  abbot  of  Bangor's,  Machlaisreus,  in  the  ancient  antipho- 
ner  of  that  cloister  (Muratori  Anect.  t.  iv.p.  159).  In  Dubdecris  abbas, 
ob.  726,  may  perhaps  be  concealed  a  successor  of  Adamnan  at  Hii,  who 
lived  between  716  and  729,  by  Beda  (v.  22)  named  Duunchadus.  Anno 
707,  "  Dormitio  Tigermal,"  probably  Tigernoth  or  Tigernach,  bishop  and 
confessor,  whose  death-day  was  celebrated  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  church  on 
the  5th  April.  Anno  705,  "  Canani  episcopi  "  we  must  not  seek  in  Caman, 
abbot  of  Bangor,  or  the  later  Cronan,  but  is  perhaps  bishop  Colman,  who 
had  left  Lindisfarne  in  664  and  returned  to  Hii.  An  abbot  is  mentioned 
to  have  died  in  7l6  in  Tigernach,  Annal.  h.  a.  Also  in  the  ancient  'Annales 
breves  Fuldenses'  (Monum.  Germ.  Hist.  ii.  237)  are  given,  besides  the  years 
of  the  death  of  the  Northumbrian  kings  Ecgfrith  and  Osred,  those  of  the 
Scottish  bishops  of  Lindisfarne,  Aidan,  Finan  and  Colman  :  the  year  of 
the  last  is,  however,  to  be  referred  to  that  of  his  above-mentioned  departure. 
In  the  'Fasti  sire  Annales  Corbeienses'  (ap.  Pertz,  Monum.  t.  iii.)  are 
likewise  to  be  found  notices  of  Finan,  Colman  and  Ecgfrith. 

VOL.  I.  d 


xxxviii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

Huntingdon  and  other  later  chroniclers,  and  justifies  the  in- 
ference of  sources  no  longer  in  existence. 

The  oldest  of  these  small  chronicles  known  is  a  Northum- 
brian one,  ending  shortly  after  the  death  of  Beda^  Of  some 
others,  mentioned  in  catalogues  of  manuscripts  in  the  libraries 
of  England,  we  are  without  the  means  of  judging,  whether 
they  are  earlier  than  Beda  and  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  or 
epitomes  of  them.  Some  larger  ancient  chronicles  also  still 
exist  in  manuscript  in  the  English  libraries  ;  among  them 
may  possibly  one  day  be  found  the  ^  Gesta  Anglorum,'  cited 
by  Adam  of  Bremen^  which  work  I  am  unable  to  recognise 
in  any  of  the  known  authorities. 

An  important  work  for  a  most  interesting  period  of  English 
history  is  the  Life  of  King  Alfred  by  his  friend  Asser,  bishop 
of  Shireburne.  Though  this  biography  itself  has  not  reached 
our  times  in  any  good  manuscript,  we  are  fortunately  enabled 
to  restore  it  in  many  places  from  Florence  of  Worcester,  who 
has  inserted  a  considerable  portion  of  it  verbatim  into  his 
Chronicle.  In  the  Cottonian  library  there  was  a  manuscript 
of  Asser  of  the  tenth  century,  which  was  slighted  because  it 
was  wanting  in  several  passages  to  be  found  in  the  other 
manuscripts,  though  they  were  also  wanting  in  Florence.  It 
was,  coiisequently,  pronounced  defective,  though  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  greater  number  of  these  passages  is  extremely 
questionable  :  as  an  instance  may  be  cited  the  celebrated  one 
relative  to  the  antiquity  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  which 
first  appeared  in  Camden's  edition,  and  the  non-appearance 
of  which  in  the  best  manuscripts  has,  in  the  judgement  of 
party-spirit,  rendered  them  obnoxious  to  suspicion.     These 

1  Printed  in  Wanley's  Catalogue,  p.  238  ;  in  Smith's  preface  to  Beda  ; 
and  in  Petrie,  Corpus  Historicum,  p.  290. 

-  Lib.  i.  c.  35,  and  ii.  15. 

3  Edit.  Parker,  1570.  Camden,  1600  and  1603.  Annales  Rerum  Ges- 
tarura  ^Ifredi,  auct.  Asserio,  rec.  F.  Wise.  Oxon.  1722.  8vo,  containing  a 
collation  with  the  Cottonian  MS.    Printed  also  in  the  Corpus  Historicum. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xxxix 

passages  have  at  a  later  period  been  inserted  into  Asser's  Life 
of  Alfred  from  a  work  to  which  the  name  of  Asser's  Annals 
has  erroneously  been  given  ^,  but  which  is  a  compilation  from 
the  Saxon  Chronicle, Dudo's  Norman  History,  several  legends, 
Asser's  Life  of  yElfred,  and  other  sources,  and  can  hardly  be 
earlier  than  the  eleventh  century.  To  these  Annals  the  title 
of  '  Chronicon  Fani  Sancti  Neoti '  was  given  by  Leland,  from 
his  having  found  them  in  that  place  ^. 

After  Beda,  the  chief  source  of  the  early  history  of  England, 
and  one  of  the  most  important  in  the  whole  historiography  of 
northern  Europe,  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle^,  composed 
in  the  language  of  the  country,  and,  in  the  later  centuries, 
abounding  in  contemporaneous  narratives.  A  thorough  cri- 
tical examination  of  its  authorities,  manuscripts  and  versions 
would  be  a  work  of  the  highest  utility  for  English  history, 
but  which  has  hitherto  been  but  very  partially  attempted, 
and  without  any  great  result.  Such  an  examination  is  the 
more  difficult,  as  the  texts  of  the  manuscripts,  or  rather  the 
elaborations  of  them,  which  have  been  written  in  various 
monasteries,  often  differ  from  each  other,  and  have,  in  the 
printed  editions,  been  by  their  editors  blended  together  with- 
out regard  either  to  dialect  or  locality.  Of  the  Latin  elabo- 
rations, some  still  exist  only  in  manuscript. 

The  oldest  known  manuscript  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle  is 
that  in  the  library  of  Corpus  Christi,  or  Bene't,  College, 
Cambridge,  written  to  the  year  891  in  the  same  hand,  which 
is  not  later  than  the  tenth  century*.  The  dialect  in  which  it 
is  composed  seems  to  be  the  Mercian,  while  the  other  copies 
are  in  that  of  Wessex.    It  is  continued  in  Anglo-Saxon  to  the 

^  In  Gale's  collection,  t.  i. 

^  See  Wise's  preface  to  his  edit,  of  Asser. 

•''  In  the  present  translation,  the  edition  constantly  cited  is  that  in  Petrie, 
'  Corpus  Historicum.'— T. 

■^  Accounts  of  the  several  MSS.  are  given  in  Ingram's  edition,  and  in 
Cooper  on  the  Public  Records,  ii.  p.  167. 


d2 


xl  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

year  IO70,  and  in  Latin  to  1075.  This  manuscript,  which 
should  serve  as  the  basis  of  a  text,  has  hitherto  been  only 
partially  used  by  the  editors  ^ 

The  other  manuscripts  are — 1.  One  formerly  belonging  to 
the  abbey  of  St.  Augustine  at  Canterbury,  now  in  the  Cot- 
tonian  library,  where  it  is  marked,  Tiberius  A.  vi.  It  extends 
to  the  year  997.  Another  copy  (Otho,  B.  xi.),  continued  to 
the  year  1001,  perished  in  the  fire  at  Ashburnham  House  in 
1731.  This  was  the  basis  of  Wheelocke's  edition-.  2.  A 
manuscript  presented  to  the  Bodleian  libraiy  by  archbishop 
Laud,  marked  Laud  E.  80^.  This  manuscript,  originally 
brought  down  to  the  year  1122,  has  been  continued  (with 
many  Normanisms  in  language  and  orthography)  to  1154. 
It  was  written  in  the  abbey  of  Medeshamstede  (Peterbo- 
rough), and  contains  many  demonstrably  false  documents 
relative  to  that  foundation.  From  which  circumstance — 
though  its  text  indisputably  belongs  to  the  more  recent  ones 
— it  has  sometimes,  though  rather  rashly,  been  concluded, 
that  tl^e  monks  of  Peterborough  were  the  original  authors  of 
the  Saxon  Chronicle.  3.  Greatly  abridged  and  Normanized, 
though  enriched  with  some  accounts  wanting  in  the  other 
copies,  is  a  manuscript  originally  perhaps  from  Canterbury, 
but  now  in  the  Cottonian  library  (Domitian  A.  viii.).  Both 
this  manuscript  and  the  one  last  mentioned  have  been  par- 
ticularly used  in  Gibson's  edition'^.  Gibson  used  also  a  Pe- 
terborough manuscript,  brought  down  to  the  year  1016,  and 
thence  continued  beyond  1080,  but  now  lost.  4.  Of  greater 
importance  are  two  manuscripts  used  by  Ingram  in  his  edi- 

*  In  the  edition  of  the  Chronicle  in  the  Corpus  Historicuni,  the  text  to 
the  year  975  is  from  the  C.  C.  MS.— T. 

"  Cantab.  1643.  foHo,  printed  at  the  end  of  his  edition  of  Beda's  history. 

^  Literal  translations  into  Latin  from  the  Laudian  MS.  are  contained  in 
the  Annales  Waverleienses  (ap.  Gale,  t.  ii.),  which  we  know,  however,  only 
from  the  year  1066.  Less  exact,  but  not  to  be  mistaken,  is  the  use  made 
of  this  MS.  by  Henry  of  Huntingdon.  ^  Oxon.  I692.  4to. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xli 

tion  of  the  Chronicle  ^,  one  containing  the  annals  of  the  abbey 
of  Abingdon  to  the  year  1066,  the  other  those  of  the  cathedral 
of  Worcester  to  the  year  1079,  both  in  the  Cottonian  library 
(Tiber.  B.  i.  and  B.  iv.).  These  are  nearly  allied  to  each  other, 
and  in  the  later  years  have  many  valuable  accounts,  which  in 
the  other  more  strictly  Saxon  Chronicles  are  given  more 
briefly  or  differently.  5.  A  transcript  from  an  unknown  ori- 
ginal, made  by  Lambarde  in  1563,  containing  the  history  from 
A.D.  1043  to  1079.  It  is  printed  in  the  Appendix  to  Lye's 
Dictionary,  and  agrees  verbatim  with  what  Ingram  gives  from 
the  Worcester  copy. 

This  slight  review  may  serve  to  call  the  attention  of  every 
one  familiar  with  such  studies,  who  are  desirous  to  use  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle — on  the  several  copies  of  which  the 
oldest  Latin  chronicles  of  England  are  based — in  any  original 
or  derived  form,  to  the  difficulties  attending  an  exact  critical 
examination  of  that  estimable  relic. 

As  from  the  time  of  Beda  to  that  of  William  of  Malmes- 
bury — a  space  of  near  four  hundred  years — England  pos- 
sessed no  chronicler  who  recorded  independently  of  the 
Saxon  Chronicle  the  history  of  the  whole  country,  an  inquiry 
into  the  sources  and  authors  of  that  work  is  the  more  de- 
sirable. 

For  the  earliest  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  to  the  year 
449,  Beda's  work  '  De  sex  hujus  mundi  ffitatibus,'  his  Church 
History,  Gildas  and  some  others  are  regarded  as  the  sources. 
I  find,  however,  that  it  is  only  in  the  accounts  of  the  ancient 
inhabitants  of  Britain  and  Ireland  that  Beda  (H.  E.  lib.  i.  c.  1.) 
is  used.  For  all  the  rest,  Eusebius  and  some  unimportant 
ecclesiastical  history  have  been  excerpted,  Beda  being  tacitly 
used  only  where  the  Chronicle  completes  or  deviates  from  his 
narrative.   (Compare  Sax.   Chron.  aa.   189,  435,  443,  with 

^  London,  1823.  4to,  with  an  English  translation  and  critical  remarks, 
An  English  translation  also  by  Miss  Gurney  was  printed  but  not  pub- 
lished :  it  is  highly  commended. 


xlii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

Beda,  lib.  i.  cc.  4, 11, 13.)  The  calculation  of  the  years  from 
the  creation  is  according  to  that  of  Eusebius  and  Orosius,  who 
from  that  epoch  to  the  birth  of  Christ  reckon  5198  years. 

From  the  year  449  to  597  the  Chronicle  contains,  with 
some  Kentish  accounts,  matter  almost  exclusively  relating  to 
Wessex,  in  which  Beda  is  unfortunately  so  deficient.  In  con- 
firmation of  the  general  veracity  of  the  Chronicle  is  the  correct 
notice  of  two  eclipses  of  the  sun,  in  the  years  538  and  540, 
and  again  in  664  and  733,  though  of  the  two  last  mentioned 
the  day  and  the  hour,  which  are  given  by  Florence,  are 
omitted  in  the  Chronicle.  In  the  following  time  to  the  year 
731,  when  Beda's  History  terminates,  the  events  are  probably 
for  the  most  part  derived  from  that  source;  the  accounts 
which  are  not  to  be  found  in  Beda  being  but  few,  and  chiefly 
derived  from  the  late  Laudian  manuscript  (as  in  the  years 
603,  616,  617),  though  the  better  manuscripts  have  also  some 
additions,  with  the  sources  of  which  we  are  unacquainted  (as 
in  the  years  693  and  710),  together  with  some  accounts 
which,  as  Florence  has  remarked,  deviate  from  Beda.  From 
732  to  845  the  Chronicle  is  the  primeval  source,  though 
during  this  period  unquestionable  errors  are  observable  in  the 
manuscripts ;  for  instance,  the  echpse  of  the  moon  in  796, 
correctly  given  by  Simeon  of  Durham,  is  in  the  Chronicle 
placed  under  the  year  795.  From  851  to  887  extracts  from 
Asser's  Life  of  ^Elfred,  with  a  few  variations,  are  transferred 
into  the  Chronicle. 

In  the  following  part  the  frequently  inaccurate  chronology 
might  excite  a  doubt  as  to  the  historic  fidelity  of  the  Chro- 
nicle (as  in  the  years  915 — 922),  but  we  ought  not  to  charge  it 
with  errors  originating  in  the  misconceptions  of  editors,  and 
which  may  often  be  rectified  by  the  various  readings  which 
they  have  themselves  collected,  though  more  frequently  by 
comparison  with  Florence  of  Worcester  and  Simeon  of  Dur- 
ham. 

The  year  977  forms  a  section  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chro- 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xliii 

nicle,  as  with  this  year  not  only  two  ancient  manuscripts  con- 
clude, but  also  their  oldest  Latin  copier  Ethelwerd.  From 
this  time,  but  more  particularly  from  the  year  1001,  which  is 
also  remarkable  for  the  ending  of  some  manuscripts,  the  de- 
viations become  more  considerable,  particularly  in  the  Abing- 
don and  Worcester  Chronicles ;  and  even  these,  though 
agreeing  together  much  more  closely  than  with  other  manu- 
scripts, yet  in  some  places  differ  considerably  from  each 
other,  as  in  the  years  1046,  1048,  1049,  1053,  the  former  has 
Mercian  accounts  which  are  wanting  in  the  latter. 

With  respect  to  the  origin  of  these  Chronicles,  the  first 
question  to  be  decided  seems  to  be,  whether  they,  like  so 
many  other  chronicles  of  other  nations,  written  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country,  have  not  been  originally  composed  by 
ecclesiastics  in  the  language  of  the  church,  and  afterwards 
translated  into  Anglo-Saxon.  When  we  call  to  mind  that 
Alfred  translated, or  caused  to  be  translated, into  Anglo-Saxon 
the  Church  History  of  Beda,  the  History  of  Orosius,  etc., 
and  that  before  Beda's  time  the  language  possessed  the  poetry 
of  Caedmon,  little  doubt  can  be  entertained  of  the  probability, 
that  these  Annals  were  also  composed  in  the  Latin  tongue, 
which  till  JElfred's  time  are  written  with  extreme  simplicity, 
and  even  to  be  pronounced  meagre.  Florence  of  Worcester 
repeatedly  cites  the  '  Chronica  Saxonica'  (aa.  672,  674,  734), 
by  Avhich  it  appears  on  comparison  that  he  means  our  Saxon 
Chronicle.  Whether,  besides  the  well-known  Latin  elements 
of  the  Chronicle,  a  West  Saxon  one,  written  in  the  language 
of  the  country,  may  have  contributed  to  form  its  basis,  it  is 
now  impossible  either  to  assert  or  contradict :  luckily  the 
credibility  of  its  scanty  notices  is  not  affected  by  our  igno- 
rance of  that  point.  The  continuations  of  the  Chronicle  are 
often  vvTitten  by  contemporaries,  to  identify  whom,  however 
desirable  for  criticism,  would  with  our  present  means  be  an 
impracticable  task.  Even  in  such  a  research,  the  question 
might  not  be  unimportant,  whether  it  really  was  or  was  not 


xliv  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

first  written  in  the  language  of  the  country.  On  comparing 
Florence  with  the  Chronicle,  we  find  that  the  former  bears 
the  nearest  resemblance  to  the  Worcester  manuscript ;  though 
Florence  has  many  details  wanting  in  the  latter,  as  in  the 
years  1040,  1041  and  1049;  while  vice  versa,  the  former  has 
some  notices,  viz.  under  the  years  693  and  710,  and  even 
1044,  relative  to  King  Eadward's  marriage,  which  in  the  latter 
are  wanting. 

Notwithstanding  the  variations  existing  among  the  several 
manuscripts,  their  general  resemblance,  particularly  a  striking 
agreement  in  many  chronological  errors,  both  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Latin  texts,  must  appear  very  remarkable.  In 
explanation  of  this,  Gibson  refers  to  an  account,  that  in  the 
monasteries  of  royal  foundation  in  England,  whatever  worthy 
of  remembrance  occurred  in  the  neighbourhood  was  com- 
mitted to  writing,  that  such  records  were  at  the  next  synod 
compared  with  each  other,  and  that  from  them  the  Chronicles 
were  composed.  It  must,  however,  be  remarked,  that  this 
account  given  by  Walter  Bower,  the  continuator  of  Fordun's 
Scotichronicon^,  who  wrote  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  cannot,  without  further  authority,  be  applied  to  the 
portion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicles  in  which  we  are  at 
present  interested. 

Till  the  year  1036  poetical  fragments  are  occasionally  in- 
serted into  the  Chronicle,  viz.  in  the  years  937j  941,  958, 973, 
975,  1011,  1036  and  1065.  That  these  verses  were  not  com- 
posed in  the  years  under  which  they  stand  is  sometimes 
manifest  from  their  w^ords,  as  in  the  year  958,  on  the  acces- 
sion of  Eadgar,  where  allusion  is  made  to  his  conduct  and 
character;  and  under  975,  where  the  j^ear  of  his  death  is 
spoken  of,  which  it  is  said  took  place,  according  to  the  cal- 
culation of  those  skilled  in  numbers,  in  the  month  of  July. 

Of  the  Latin  elaborations  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle  the  oldest 
is  that  of  Ethelwerd,  in  four  books,  to  the  year  975,  in  which, 
'  Edit.  Hearne,  t.  iv.  p.  1348. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xlv 

as  we  have  observed,  some  manuscripts  of  the  Chronicle  itself 
also  terminate.  With  the  pompousness  characteristic  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons  he  gives  (and  often  incorrectly  ^)  an  epitomised 
version  of  the  Chronicle,  and  would  without  the  aid  of  the 
original  be  the  more  difficult  to  understand,  as  the  only 
ancient  manuscript  of  the  work  perished  in  the  fire  at  the 
Cottonian  library,  and  is  made  known  to  us  solely  through 
the  printed  text  in  Savile's  collection.  The  fourth  book,  how- 
ever, contains  some  valuable  information  relative  to  the  reigns 
of  ^thelred  and  -Alfred,  not  to  be  found  in  Asser  and  the 
other  chroniclers,  and  not  to  be  ascribed  to  some  lost  manu- 
script of  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  but  rather  to  Ethelwerd  him- 
self, whose  adherence  to  the  Chronicle  is,  nevertheless,  to  be 
continually  recognised ;  and  even  the  verses  inserted  in  that 
record  under  the  year  975,  are  by  him  very  indifferently 
imitated  in  Latin. 

Ethelwerd  was  not  an  ecclesiastic,  but  an  ealdorman  de- 
scended from  king  ^thelred  the  First.  He  calls  himself,  in 
true  Anglo-Saxon  style,  Patricius  Consul  Fabius  Quaestor 
Ethelwerdus.  He  is  generally  supposed  to  have  been  the 
ealdorman  of  that  name^  who  died  in  the  year  1090,  a  suppo- 
sition which  appears  even  more  erroneous  than  that  which 
makes  him  a  son  of  king  -Alfred,  who  died  in  922.  Ethelwerd 
dedicates  his  work  to  a  relation  (consobrina)  named  Mathilda, 
who  was  descended  from  king  ^Elfred,  the  brother  of  his 
ancestor  (abavus)  .^thelred,  through  his  granddaughter  Ead- 
gyth,  the  wife  of  the  emperor  Otto  the  First.  Some,  on  the 
strength  of  the  words,  "  Eadgyde,  ex  qua  tu  principium 
tenes  nativitatis,"  and  "vera  Christi  ancillaV^  have  supposed 
this  Mathilda  to  have  been  the  daughter  of  Otto,  who  became 
abbess  of  Quedlinburg ;  but  this  abbess  was  not  his  daughter 
by  Eadgyth,  who  died  in  947,  but  by  his  second  wife  Adel- 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  710.  "  gefuhton  wiS  Gerente  "  he  renders  "bellum  gesse^ 
runt  contra  Uuthgirente."     Malmesbury  (lib.  i.)  severely  blames  his  style. 
-  Nicolson,  Engl.  Hist.  Library,  p.  48.  ^  Prolog.  lib.  i. 


xlvi  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

heid,  born  in  955  ^ ;  nor  can  the  relationship  intimated  be 
by  a  daughter,  but  only  by  a  granddaughter  of  Eadgyth,  as 
Alfred  is  called  not  the  abavus,  but  the  atavus  of  Mathilda^. 
Now  this  person  I  find  in  the  daughter  of  Liudolf^,  the  son 
of  Otto  and  Eadgyth,  by  Ida,  a  daughter  of  Hermann  duke 
of  Allemannia,  born  in  949,  and  married  to  Obizzone  of 
Milan,  the  ancestor  of  the  Visconti  family ;  a  conjecture 
which  finds  corroboration  in  the  request  of  Ethelwerd  to 
Mathilda,  that  she  would  inform  him  to  what  king  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Great  St.  Bernard  (juxta  Jupitereos 
montes)  the  sister  of  Eadgyth  had  been  given  in  marriage, 
and  what  offspring  they  had ;  to  learn  which  would  to  her 
be  an  easy  matter,  both  by  reason  of  her  influence  %  and  of 
the  proximity  of  her  abode.  From  Mathilda's  place  of  ha- 
bitation it  appears  why  a  layman  came  to  render  such  a 
work  into  Latin  for  a  lady.  According  to  our  hypothesis, 
the  period  when  Ethelwerd  lived  is  also  determined,  who 
must  have  composed  his  work  about  the  year  1000.  Which, 
however,  of  the  two  sons  of  iEthelred,  whether  Athelra  or 
^thelwold, — who  married  a  nun  whom  he  had  carried  off', 
and  in  905  fell  in  an  insurrection  in  East  Anglia,  against 
Eadward, — was  the  great-grandfather  of  Ethelwerd,  appears 
no  longer  ascertainable.  Three  eminent  men  of  his  name 
died  about  that  time — in  1001  the  heah-gerefa  of  the  king,  in 
1016  the  son  of  ^thelwine,  and  in  1017  the  son  of  ^thel- 
maere  the  Great.  Of  ^Ethel wine's  mother,  -^Ifwen,  the  wife 
of  the  under-king  ^thelstan  of  East  Anglia,  we  know  that 
she  was  of  royal  lineage,  and  that  the  education  of  king 

'  She  died  in  999.  Cf.  Annal.  Quedlinburg.  a.  955  sq.  ap.  Leibnitz, 
Script.  Rer.  Brunsvic.  t.  i.,  and  Pertz,  t.  iii.  "  Lib.  iv.  c.  2  f. 

^  She  also  became  abbess  of  Quedlinburg,  and  died  in  1011.  Anna!. 
Quedl.  "  Abstulit  (sacva  mors)  et  de  regali  stemmate  gemmara  Machtildam 
abbatissam,  Liudolfi  filiam."  Her  birth  is  registered  by  Annalista  Saxo, 
a.  949. 

■*  Prolog,  lib.  i.  "  Quae  non  solum  affinitate,  sed  et  potestate  videris  ob- 
pleta,  nulla  inter capedine  prohibente." 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xlvii 

Eadgar  was  entrusted  to  her :  she  may  possibly  be  the  hnk 
wantino-  in  the  descent  of  Ethelwerd  from  kino-  ^theh*ed. 

Soon  after  the  estabhshment  of  the  Norman  dynasty  on  the 
throne  of  England  the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue  rapidly  became 
cormpt,  and  fell  into  disuse  among  the  clergy,  who,  not  from 
any  parade  of  learning,  but  from  necessity,  wrote  the  annals 
of  the  kingdom  in  the  only  to  them  intelligible  language  of 
the  church.  Of  their  works,  several  composed  in  the  first 
half  of  the  twelfth  century  or  earlier  have  reached  our  time. 

The  most  estimable  translator  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle  is 
Florence,  a  monk  of  Worcester,  called  also  Bavonius,  who 
has  inserted  into  the  Universal  Chronicle  of  Marianus  Scotus, 
an  Irishman,  who  passed  his  life  in  the  abbey  of  Fulda  (ob. 
1086),  besides  a  translation  either  of  a  manuscript  of  the 
Saxon  Chronicle  resembling  the  existing  Worcester  manu- 
script, or  of  a  text  emended  and  enlarged  by  himself^,  extracts 
from  Beda,  the  greater  part  of  Asser's  Life  of  Alfred,  and 
many  valuable  genealogical  and  other  notices  down  to  1118, 
the  year  of  his  death.  Florence  had  not  only  excellent  manu- 
scripts before  him,  but  has  translated  the  Anglo-Saxon  more 
correctly  than  the  other  chroniclers.  That  he  made  use  of 
the  Historia  Eliensis  or  its  sources  seems  highly  probable, 
from  the  close  agreement  of  his  account  of  the  murder  of  the 
astheling  iElfred  with  that  in  the  History  (hb.  ii.  c.  32.),  which 
deviates  from  that  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle  (a.  1036)^.  Flo- 
rence's Chronicle  is  continued  by  another  monk  of  his  mo- 
nastery to  the  year  1141.  His  work  was  printed  at  London 
in  1592  in  4to,  and  at  Frankfurt  o.  M.  in  1601  in  folio,  after 
the  '  Flores  Historiarum'  of  Matthew  of  Westminster. 

Marianus  himself  has  but  few  special  accounts  relative  to 
Britain,  and  these  refer  chiefly  to  Scotland  and  to  certain 
ecclesiastics.  Florence  had  apparently  a  much  completer 
manuscript  of  Marianus  than   that   from   which    Pistorius 

^  Cf.  both  under  the  year  988. 

2  Cf.  Florence  a.  1070  with  the  Hist.  Eliensis,  lib.  ii.  c.  44. 


xlviii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

printed ;  hence  we  find  in  him  many  accounts  relating  to 
Germany,  even  to  the  abbey  of  Fulda,  by  Marianus,  an  exa- 
mination into  which  would  be  an  indispensable  preliminary 
labour  to  a  better  edition  of  this  chronicle. 

The  work  of  Florence  forms  in  great  measure,  word  for 
word,  the  basis  of  a  chronicle  of  events  from  the  year  848  to 
1129,  compiled  about  the  last-mentioned  year  by  Simeon, 
precentor  of  St.  Cuthberht's  at  Durham,  but  which  contains 
also  some  special  Northumbrian  and  Scottish  accounts  ^  Of 
such,  however,  more  are  to  be  found  in  another  work  of  the 
same  author,  entitled  ^  Historia  de  Gestis  Regum  Anglo- 
rum,'  from  the  year  616  to  957-  In  the  latter  he  makes  use 
of  Beda,  the  '  Historia  vel  Chronica  hujus  patriae,'  and  some 
legends  of  saints.  The  narrative  of  Harold's  visit  to  duke 
William,  inserted  in  his  Chronicle  under  the  year  1066,  is 
also  given  in  Eadmer's  *  Historia  Novorum,'  lib.  i.,  though 
somewhat  abridged ;  whence  it  is  evident  that  the  latter  can- 
not have  been  Simeon's  source.  The  '  Historia  Dunelmensis 
Ecclesia3,'  also  under  the  name  of  Simeon,  in  three  books, 
contains  much  interesting  matter  for  the  history  of  the  north 
of  England.  Of  this  work  it  is  supposed  that  Simeon,  to  the 
year  1097,  was  only  the  transcriber,  and  that  the  author  was 
the  prior  Turgot^,  who  after  1108  became  bishop  of  St. 
Andrew's. 

The  Chronicle  of  the  abbey  of  Melrose  (Mailros)^,  from  the 
year  735  to  12/0,  is  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  merely  an 
extract,  with  a  few  unimportant  additions,  from  Simeon  of 
Durham.     Its  value  has  been  much  overrated. 

Henry,  archdeacon  of  Huntingdon,  compiled  an  '  Historia 
Anglorum'  from  the  year  of  Julius  Caesar's  landing  to  1135, 

'  The  notices  relative  to  Normandy,  aa.  876  and  906,  agree  literally  with 
the  Chronicle  of  Rouen  (Chronicon  Rothomagense),  which  deserves  to  be 
noticed  on  account  of  the  chronology'. 

^  Simeon  is  printed  inTwysden's  collection,  and  to  1066  in  Petrie,  C.  H. 
Respecting  Turgot  see  Twysden's  preface. 

^  Printed  in  Fell's  collection,  t.  i. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  xlix 

which  is  continued  to  1 154.  The  first  six  books  embrace  the 
period  in  which  we  are  concerned,  for  which,  besides  the 
usual  sources,  Henry  has  availed  himself  of  many  traditions; 
while  for  the  later  period  lie  has  recorded  either  what  he  had 
witnessed  himself  or  received  from  eye-witnesses  ^  Some  of 
his  few  principal  sources  are  still  undiscovered  :  the  more 
important  of  the  known  ones,  exclusive  of  Eutropius,  Paulus 
Diaconus,  etc.,  are  Beda's  Chronicon  and  Ecclesiastical  Hi- 
story, Nennius  (whom  he  calls  Gildas),  and  the  Saxon  Chro- 
nicle, which  he  sometimes  misinterprets,  though  perhaps  less 
often  than  has  been  supposed.  His  chronology  is  extremely 
confused  and  frequently  inaccurate,  as  are  also  his  genealogi- 
cal notices.  Particularly  attractive,  however,  are  his  accounts 
of  battles,  which  often  appear  borrowed  from  old  poems ^.  A 
very  close  agreement  with  the  more  copious  Ailred  of  Rie- 
vaux,  which  leads  to  the  conclusion  of  a  common,  though  to 
us  unknown  source,  is  manifest  in  his  account  of  Eadmund 
Ironside.  A  striking  contrast  to  the  other  monastic  chro- 
niclers, who  cannot  bestow  sufficient  praises  on  Dunstan, 
appears  in  his  commendation  of  king  Eadwy  :  and  in  general, 
throughout  all  which  this  author  relates  or  suppresses  may 
be  recognised  the  patriotic  Anglo-Saxon,  equally  averse  both 
to  temporal  and  ecclesiastical  oppressors.  That  he  availed 
himself  of  Norman  sources  may,  perhaps,  be  inferred  from  his 
narrative  of  the  sons  of  Emma,  which  agrees  so  closely  with 
the  Roman  de  Rou ;  as  well  as  from  accounts  strictly  Norman 
given  by  him  alone  of  all  the  English  chroniclers,  as  a.d. 
1047,  of  the  battle  of  Val  des  Dunes,  also  William's  speech 
before  the  battle  of  Hastings.  From  similar  works  he  has 
probably  derived  his  old  British  stories,  as  that  of  the  princess 
Helena  and  others,  which  are  not  to  be  traced  either  to  Nen- 
nius or  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  according  to  our  manuscripts^. 

^  See  Prolog,  ad  lib.  i.  ^  e.  g.  The  battle  of  Brunanburh. — T. 

^  He  is  copied  literally  by  Rob,  du  Mont,  Wallingford,  Hoveden,  the 
Annal.  Waverl.,  R.  de  Diceto,  Matt.  Paris,  Bromton,  Gervasius,  Robert  of 
Gloucester,  etc. 


1  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

Henry's  work  is  dedicated  to  the  same  Alexander  bishop  of 
Lincohi  whom  Jeffrey  addresses  in  his  '  Historia  Britonum.' 
A  continuation  of  Henry  of  Huntingdon  from  1042  to  1275 
is  extant  in  manuscript  ^ 

Roger  of  Hoveden  in  Yorkshire,  chaplain  to  king  Henry 
the  Second,  a  jurist  and  professor  of  divinity  at  Oxford,  was 
living  in  the  year  1204.  This  writer  has  been  much  too  often 
quoted,  as,  even  to  the  last  year  of  his  Annals,  he  has  (ex- 
cepting a  few  trifling  additions)  copied  from  chronicles  known 
to  us,  and,  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  from  Simeon  of  Dur- 
ham and  Henry  of  Huntingdon.  The  beginnhig  of  his  work, 
including  the  '  Prologus,^  to  the  year  803  (edit.  Frankf.  pp. 
401-407),  is  from  Simeon  (pp.  90-119) ;  the  following  to  the 
year  849  (p.  414)  is  from  Huntingdon  (pp.  341-348) ;  hence 
to  the  year  1122  (pp.  414-477)  is  from  Simeon's  second  work 
(pp.  137-245);  after  which,  from  1122  to  1148  (p.  490), 
Roger  returns  to  Henry  of  Huntingdon. 

Alured,  or  ^Elfred,  treasurer  of  the  monastery  of  Beverley, 
has  in  his  Annals  excerpted  from  Beda,  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth 
and  Simeon  of  Durham.  He  ends  with  the  year  in  which  the 
last-mentioned  terminates ;  but  we  are  not  thence  justified  in 
concluding  that  he  wrote  in  that  year,  or  in  inferring  that  the 
work  of  Jeffrey,  which  is  known  to  have  followed  those  of 
Henry  of  Huntingdon  and  William  of  Malmesbury,  had 
already  appeared  in  1129.  Traces  of  an  immediate  use  of  the 
Saxon  Chronicle  are  occasionally  discernible  in  Alured,  as 
a.  879  (883),  relative  to  king  yElfred's  mission  to  India.  The 
lists  of  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  contained  in  the  sixth  book,  are, 
with  the  exception  of  the  introduction,  from  the  Appendix  to 
Florence  of  Worcester :  the  author's  own  additions  are  very 
short  and  unimportant^. 

These  are  the  principal  works  which,  on  account  of  their 
close  adherence  to  the  earliest  sources  of  Anglo-Saxon  history, 

^  Cooper  on  the  Public  Records,  ii.  p.  1G5. 

2  Alured  was  edited  bv  Thomas  Heajne,  Oxon.  1716. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  li 

must  here  be  cited.  In  the  first  centuries  after  the  Norman 
conquest  several  other  EngHsh  historic  writers  appeared,  who, 
devoted  to  the  new  dynasty,  excite  our  attention  chiefly  by 
reason  of  the  baneful  influence  which,  through  their  Norman 
prejutlices  and  false  criticism,  they  have  exercised  on  the 
early  history. 

The  work  ascribed  to  Ingulf,  an  Englishman,  born  about 
the  year  1030,  secretary  to  William  of  Normandy,  and  after- 
wards abbot  of  Croyland  (ob.  1109),  is  the  first  to  be  noticed  ^ 
In  this  composition  almost  all  the  charters  are  forgeries^,  a  cir- 
cumstance which  of  itself,  perhaps,  might  not  invalidate  the 
general  credibility  of  the  rest  of  the  work — which  consists  of 
a  history  of  Croyland  abbey,  interspersed  with  matter  relating 
to  the  kingdom  of  Mercia,  and,  at  a  later  period,  to  all  En- 
gland ; — but  the  narrative  of  Ingulf  not  only  abounds  in  gross 
errors  and  anachronisms  with  regard  to  contemporary  events, 
but  contains  matter  demonstrably  fabulous ;  such  is  the 
account  of  his  having  studied  Aristotle  at  Oxford^.  Even  in 
the  Life  of  abbot  Thurketul,  which,  though  composed  by  his 
relative,  the  younger  abbot  Egelric,  is  said  to  have  been  con- 
tinued by  Ingulf,  it  is  erroneously  stated,  that  Constantine 
king  of  Scotland  fell  in  the  battle  of  Brunanburh,  in  938 
(erroneously  for  that  king^s  son),  by  the  hand  of  Thurketul, 
and  that  the  emperor  Heniy  the  First  (who  it  is  well  known 
died  in  936),  after  that  battle  sought  the  hand  of  .^thelstan's 
daughter  for  his  son  Otto.  In  the  accounts  of  Alfred  and 
Eadward  the  Elder,  the  so-called  Ingulf  agrees  so  frequently, 
both  in  erroneous  matter  and  words,  in  chronology  and  facts, 
with  William  of  Malmcsbuiy,  that  it  will  be  difficult  not  to 
regard  this  part  of  his  chronicle  as  an  interpolation  from  that 

^  Cf.  Ingulf,  a.  1075,  where  an  account  of  his  Ufe  is  inserted. 

-  See  Hickes,  t.  iii.  p.  73. 

^  "  Primum  Westmonasterio,  postmodum  Oxoniensi  studio  traditus 
eram.  Cumque  in  Aristotele  arripiendo,"  etc.  For  a  judicious  and  intern 
esting  notice  of  Ingulf  see  Biographia  Britannica  Literaria,  vol.  ii,,  com- 
posed by  Mr.  Wright  for  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature. — T. 


lii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

author,  since  a  source  common  to  both  cannot  be  indicated. 
The  account  too  of  the  interment  of  two  relations  of  Thur- 
ketul  in  the  abbey  of  Malmesbury  is  to  be  found  in  both 
writers  ^,  for  which  the  latter  cites  as  his  authority  an  historic 
work  in  Latin  hexameters.  A  charter  also  of  Malmesbury 
of  the  year  974  is  given  more  fully  in  Ingulf  than  in  the 
printed  work  of  the  monk  of  that  cloister.  Even  in  that  part 
of  his  chronicle  in  which  contemporary  events  are  recorded, 
Ingulf,  as  we  have  already  observed,  is  not  trustworthy :  as 
in  the  years  1056  and  1062,  where  he  calls  count  Radulf, 
instead  of  the  son,  the  husband  of  Goda.  The  contemporary 
abbots  of  Croyland  are  confounded  by  him.  He  seems  to 
haVe  made  use  of  Ailred  of  Rievaux.  At  the  same  time  it 
must  be  allowed  that  the  continuation  of  IngulFs  work  by 
Peter  of  Blois  seems  to  impress  it  with  a  stamp  of  genuine- 
ness. From  the  foundation  of  his  abbey  till  its  destruction 
by  the  Danes  in  870,  Ingulf  appeals  to  five  older  chroniclers, 
viz.  Aio,  Thurgar,  Swetman,  etc.^  By  whom  the  history  from 
871  to  948  has  been  supplied  we  are  not  informed.  Hence 
it  seems  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  true  history  of 
Ingulf  has  not  reached  us,  but  that  in  the  work  before  us  we 
possess  a  compilation  made  at  an  early  period,  into  which  por- 
tions of  the  real  Ingulf  are  interwoven,  and  in  the  use  of 
which  the  utmost  caution  is  to  be  observed.  It  is  printed  in 
Savile's  collection,  and  in  that  of  Fell;  no  manuscript  is 
known  to  exist. 

Ailred  (iEthelred),  abbot  of  Rievaux  in  Yorkshire,  has 
collected  genealogical  notices  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings.  Of 
his  other  writings,  none  need  be  mentioned  except  his  Life, 
or  rather  Legend  of  Eadward  the  Confessor^.  His  praise  of 
Eadgar  and  account  of  Godwine's  death  remind  us  strongly 
of  Alured  of  Beverley. 

1  Ingulf,  p.  39 ;  W.  Malm.  lib.  ii.  6.    Cf.  also  in  both  the  passages  about 
Eadwine. 
^  lb.  a.  974,  and  at  the  close  of  the  work. 
3  Printed  in  Twvsden's  collection. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  liii 

The  works  of  William,  a  monk  and  librarian  of  Malmes- 
bury^  abbey  (ob.  about  1142),  are  remarkably  attractive,  both 
from  the  manner  in  which  he  treats  his  subject  and  from  his 
arrangement,  which  deviates  from  the  usual  chronological 
order.  These  are,  *  De  Gestis  Regum  Anglorum '  lib.  v.;  *  Hi- 
storias  Novellge  '  lib.  ii. ;  ^  De  Gestis  Pontificum  Anglorum ' 
lib.  V.  From  the  ^  Prologus '  to  the  first  book  of  his  principal 
work  it  appears,  that  Malmesbury  was  unacquainted  with  the 
invaluable  historic  productions  of  his  contemporaries.  The 
authors  named  by  him  are  Beda,  Ethelwerd,  and  Eadmer. 
In  the  words,  "  quaedam  vetustatis  indicia  chronico  more  et 
patrio  sermone,  per  annos  Domini  ordinata,"  he  evidently 
alludes  to  the  Saxon  Chronicle.  Together  with  many  inter- 
esting narratives  preserved  by  Malmesbury,  is  to  be  found  an 
abundance  of  insipid  tales  quite  irrelevant  to  his  subject,  but 
to  which  his  work  is  mainly  indebted  for  much  of  the  appro- 
bation which  it  has  received ;  for  after  Beda  and  Jeffrey  of 
Monmouth,  no  old  English  historic  writer  has  been  more 
resorted  to  by  chroniclers,  both  of  his  own  country  and  of 
the  continent,  than  William  of  Malmesbury.  Among  the 
more  ancient  of  the  latter  may  be  named  Alberic  des  Trois- 
fontaines  and  Vincent  of  Beauvais. 

To  Matthew,  a  monk  of  Westminster  abbey,  is  ascribed  an 
historic  work,  compiled  in  the  fourteenth  century  from  various 
chronicles,  entitled  ^  Flores  Historiarum^.^  From  a  kind  of 
inadvertence  this  chronicle  has  been  much  used,  because  it 
has  not  been  noticed  that  almost  all  his  sources  (for  the 
Anglo-Saxon  period)  have  been  preserved,  extracts  from 
which  have  by  him  only  been  abridged  and  often  unskilfully 
brought  together,  and,  when  dates  were  wanting,  not  un- 

^  Printed  in  Savile's  collection,  excepting  the  fifth  book  '  De  Gestis 
Pontificum/  which  is  to  be  found  in  Gale  and  Wharton.    [Of  the  two  first- 
mentioned  works,  an  excellent  edition  with  English  notes,  etc.  has  been_ 
published  by  T.  D.  Hardy,  Esq.  for  the  EngUsh  Historical  Society. — T.j 

-  Francofurti,  1601.  fol. 

VOL.  I.  e 


liv  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

frequently  inserted  under  wrong  years.     Of  his  sources  with 
which  we  are  concerned  may  be  mentioned  Nennius,  Beda, 
Asser,  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  Florence  of  Worcester,  Jeffrey 
of  Monmouth,  Wilham  of  Jumieges  (e.  g.  a.  887,  from  lib.  i. 
cc.  6-11  relative  to  Hsesting,  and  later  about  RoUo),  Mari- 
anus  Scotus,  and  William  of  Malmesbury,  whom  he  occasion- 
ally mentions  by  name  (as  aa.  979,  1035).     To  the  foregoing 
Henry  of  Huntingdon  might  perhaps  be  added,  though  some 
passages  in  him,  chiefly  concerning  the  north  of  England,  on 
which  that  supposition  is  founded,  are  more  fully  given  in 
Matthew,  and  may  therefore  have  been  more  circumstantially 
taken  from  a  source  common  to  both.     The  account  of  the 
single  combat  between  Eadmund  Ironside  and  Cnut  seems  to 
have  been  extracted  from  Ailred  of  Rievaux  (p.  364).     Many 
legends  are  recounted,  and  narratives  from  monastic  chro- 
nicles inserted  by  Matthew ;  hence  several  notices  are  to  be 
found  scattered  throughout   his  work  which  the  future  ga- 
therer of  materials  for  English  history  may  deem  it  worth  his 
while  to  collect. 

To  John  Wallingford,  abbot  of  St.  Albans  (ob.  1214),  Gale 
ascribes  a  chronicle  published  by  him  of  events  from  the  year 
449  to  1036  ^     This  author  makes  some  attempts  at  historic 
criticism,  in  which,  however,  he  is  eminently  unsuccessful. 
For  the  history  of  the  northern  Anglo-Saxon  provinces,  he 
gives  us  some  accounts  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.    He  makes 
great  use  of  the  first  six  books  of  William  of  Jumieges,  and 
also,  though  not  immediately,  of  Dudo  of  St.  Gluentin  ;  as  we 
find  in  Wallingford  the  narratives  of  the  latter,  together  with 
the  additions  and  continuations  of  the  former  of  these  two 
writers  (as  pp.  532  and  533,  from  Guil.  Gemet.  lib.  i.  cc.  3-5  ; 
also  p.  548,  from  lib.  v.  c.  8  ;  pp.  549,  550,  fi'om  lib.  vi.  cc.  10- 
13).    He  also  makes  mention  of  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  Henry 
of  Huntingdon  and  William  of  Malmesbury,  and  excerpts  the 
Lives  of  the  saints  Guthlac,  Cuthberht,  Neot  and  Eadward, 
^  Printed  in  Gale's  collection,  t.  i. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  Fv 

also  Britferth's  Life  of  St.  Dunstan.    His  quotation  from  the 
'  Historia  Gothorum '  is  copied  from  William  of  Jumieges. 

We  have  now  to  mention,  in  a  few  words,  those  Norman 
writers  who  have  touched  on  this  portion  of  English  history. 
In  this  respect  Dudo,  dean  of  St.  Quentin,  is  but  rarely  of  im- 
mediate interest,  though,  for  the  history  of  the  ancestors  of 
king  William  the  Conqueror,  he  is  not  only  the  source  of 
several  chronicles  generally  more  noticed,  but  is  also,  not- 
withstanding his  many  poetical  ornaments  and  chronological 
errors,  much  richer  in  undoubted  facts  than  the  learned  edi- 
tors of  the  '  Materials  for  French  History'  have  been  aware 
ofi. 

More  immediately  interesting  to  us  is  William,  a  monk  of 
Jumieges,  whose  ^  Historia  Normannorum '  reaches  to  the 
conquest  of  England  by  the  Normans.  His  work  being  de- 
dicated to  the  Conqueror,  it  follows  that  what  forms  the  end 
of  the  seventh  and  the  eighth  book,  which  is  continued  to  the 
year  1137,  cannot  have  been  written  by  him-.  He  has,  as  we 
have  seen,  been  excerpted  by  many  English  chroniclers. 
Both  these  writers  are  contained  in  Du  Chesne's  collection 
of  ^Scriptores  Rerum  Normannicarum;'  the  latter  also  in 
Camden's  ^Anglica  Normannica,'  etc.,  an  edition  much  in- 
ferior to  that  of  Du  Chesne,  which  is  founded  on  two  manu- 
scripts from  the  library  of  De  Thou. 

Of  much  importance  for  historic  research,  notwithstanding 
its  poetic  garb,  is  the  '  Roman  de  Rou^,'  a  history  of  the 
dukes  of  Normandy,  interwoven  with  many  traditions,  by 
Robert  Wace,  a  native  of  Jersey,  bred  at  Caen,  and  after- 
wards, by  appointment  of  Henry  the  Second,  a  prebendary 
of  Bayeux.      Of  his  ^Brut,'  written  about  the  year  1155, 

'  See  Bouquet,  t.  X.  Preface,  and  p.  141,  The  proofs  of  my  assertion 
cannot  be  given  here,  but  will  appear  in  a  chapter  on  the  history  of  Nor- 
mandy before  the  year  1066,  prefixed  to  the  '  History  of  England  under  the 
Norman  Kings.' 

^  Bouquet,  t.xi.  Pref.  No,  xii.,  and  t.  xii.  Pref.  No.  xlix. 

»  Written  after  1170.     See  v.  16538  sq. 

e2 


Ivi  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

niention  has  already  been  made.  In  the  *  Roman  de  Rou' 
is  to  be  found  much  exclusive  and  credible  matter  for  the 
history  of  the  eleventh  century,  in  the  use  of  which,  how- 
ever, due  allowance  is  to  be  made  for  the  national  prejudices 
of  the  Norman.  This  work  also  seems  to  have  served  as  a 
source  to  some  of  the  English  chroniclers.  It  has  for  the  first 
time  been  printed  by  M.  Pluquet^ 

Anterior  to  Wace  was  Benoit  de  S*^  More,  or,  as  he  is 
styled  by  Wace,  Maistre  Beneit,  who  wrote  in  French  a 
metrical  chronicle  of  the  dukes  of  Normandy,  consisting  of 
48,000  verses.  The  only  ancient  manuscript  known  of  this 
work  is  in  the  British  Museum  (Harl.  1717).  It  has  recently 
been  published  at  Paris  from  a  transcript  made  by  M.  Fran- 
cisque  Michel,  by  the  direction  of  M.  Guizot,  while  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction^.  Further  notice  of  this  work  is  re- 
served for  ^The  History  of  England  under  the  Norman 
Kings.' 

In  the  language  of  the  Gallo-Normans,  but  written  in 
England  for  the  lords  of  the  land  a  century  after  the  Con- 
quest, is  '  L'Estorie  des  Engles  solum  la  translation  Maistre 
Geffi*ei  Gaimar,'  a  metrical  chronicle  of  England  from  the 
landing  of  Cerdic  in  the  year  495  to  the  death  of  William 
Rufus  in  1099.  It  seems  to  have  been  composed  about  the 
middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  follows  the  Saxon  Chro- 
nicle, which  the  author  frequently  misunderstands.  It  con- 
tains, however,  many,  though  not  always  historic  additions, 
by  which  Gaimar,  as  the  oldest  known  authority — though  he 
refers  to  an  earlier — is  rendered  of  importance.     This  work, 

^  Rouen,  1827.  2  voll.  8vo,  and  '  Remarques'  by  Le  Prevost  and  Ray- 
nouard,  1829.  [For  a  very  able  prose  version  of  the  portion  of  the  Roman 
de  Rou  relating  to  the  conquest  of  England,  with  highly  valuable  and  in- 
teresting illustrations,  the  public  are  indebted  to  a  most  worthy  and  amiable 
man  and  excellent  scholar  lately  deceased,  under  the  title  :  '  Master  Wace 
his  Chronicle  of  the  Norman  Conquest  from  the  Roman  de  Rou,  translated 
with  notes  and  illustrations  by  Edgar  Taylor,  Esq.,  F.S.A.'  London,  1837. 
8vo.— T.] 

2  Chroniques  des  Dues  de  Normandie,  2  torn.  4to.  1836,  1838. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  Ivii 

to  the  year  1066,  appears  for  the  first  time  in  the  '  Corpus 
Historicum^' 

Of  great  moment  for  the  illustration  of  the  downfall  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  dynasty  in  England  is  the  biography  of  William 
the  Conqueror  by  William  of  Poitiers,  archdeacon  of  Lisieux. 
Though  valuable  for  his  matter,  this  author  is  objectionable 
on  account  of  his  style,  in  which  he  is  an  imitator  of  the 
Roman  classics,  particularly  Sallust,  and  not  only  inserts 
fabricated  speeches  into  his  narrative,  but  not  unfrequently 
sacrifices  a  part  of  the  truth  for  the  sake  of  sparkhng  anti- 
theses and  oratorical  pomp.  He  is  sometimes  copied  by 
William  of  Jumieges,  but  more  copiously  by  Ordericus  Vi- 
talis ;  so  much  so  indeed,  that  some  defective  passages  in  our 
manuscript  of  William  of  Poitiers  can  be  supplied  from  Orde- 
ricus with  tolerable  security.  His  work  is  printed  in  Du 
Chesne's  collection,  and  in  a  separate  edition  by  Baron  Ma- 
seres^. 

Ordericus  Vitalis,  born  in  the  year  1075  at  Attingesham 
on  the  banks  of  the  Severn,  a  monk  in  the  monastery  of  St. 
Evroult  en  Ouche  (Uticum),  has  but  few  details  relative  to 
Anglo-Saxon  history  in  his  '  Historia  Ecclesiastica,^  though 
his  extracts  from  William  of  Poitiers  are  not  without  some 
additional  information. 

Mention  must  also  be  made  of  the  ^  Carmen  de  Bello  Has- 
tingensi '  discovered  at  Brussels  by  Dr.  Pertz,  and  printed  for 
the  first  time  in  the  English  Corpus  Historicum^.  Several 
gallicisms  in  the  poem  prove  the  author  to  have  been  a  French- 
man, such  as  ^ter  quinque  dies,'  quinze  jours,  for  a  fortnight, 
etc.     I  have  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  poem  spoken  of  by 

^  See  also  extracts  in  Dapping,  Histoire  des  expeditions  maritimes  des 
Normands,  and  Corpus  Historicum,  p.  764  note ;  and  Michel,  Chron. 
Anglo-Norm.,  t.  i.     Cf.  also  Wiener  Jahrb.  Th.  7Q.  p.  259  sq. 

*  Historiae  Anglicanae  circa  tempus  Conquestus  Anglife  a  Gulielmo  Notho, 
Normannorum  Duce,  Selecta  Monumenta,  etc.  London  1807.  4to. 

^  It  is  also  printed  in  Mr.  Cooper's  unpublished  Report  on  Rymer,  and 
in  the  Chroniques  Anglo-Normandes  par  M.  Michel,  t.  iii. 


Iviii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

William  of  Jumieges  (lib.  vii.  c.  44)  and  Ordericus  Vitalis. 
(lib.  iii.  p.  504),  as  the  composition  of  Guy  (Wido)  bishop  of 
Amiens  (ob.  1075),  who  lived  for  some  time  at  the  court  of 
Mathilda,  the  queen  of  the  Conqueror.  The  first  verses  of 
this  poem  may  therefore  be  supplied  thus : 

Quern  probitas  celebrat,  sapientia  munit  et  ornat, 
Erigit  et  decorat,  L(anfrancum)  W(ido)  salutat. 

To  these  Norman  writers  appears  to  have  belonged  the 
author  of  the  *  Chronicon  Danorum  in  Anglia  regnantium,' 
mentioned  by  Thomas  Rudborne  in  the  '  Historia  Major 
Wintoniensis '  (ap.  Wharton,  A.  S.  t.  i.),  for  the  purpose  of 
quoting  from  him  a  tradition  respecting  the  birth  of  William 
the  Conqueror. 

Of  English  metrical  chronicles,  that  of  Robert  of  Glou- 
cester, written  about  the  year  1280,  is  one  of  the  most  valu- 
able ^  It  begins  with  the  tales  of  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth, 
but  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  portion  follows  chiefly  William  of 
Malmesbury,  and  sometimes  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  as  in  the 
story  of  Cnut  on  the  sea-shore,  the  speech  of  William  before 
the  battle  of  Hastings,  etc.  His  relation  of  the  single  combat 
between  Eadmund  and  Cnut,  with  the  prolix  speech,  is  ap- 
parently an  imitation  of  Ailred  of  Rievaux. 

A  similar  chronicle,  written  in  French  verse  ^,  by  Peter 
Langtoft,  a  canon  regular  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustine,  at 
Bridlington  in  Yorkshire,  whence  he  is  also  called  Pers  of 
Bridlynton,  though  extant  in  manuscript,  is  known  to  us 
only  through  the  English  metrical  version  of  Robert  Man- 
nyng,  or,  as  he  is  more  usually  called,  Robert  de  Brunne^. 
The  editor  has  omitted  the  part  copied  from  '  Le  Brut.'  This 
chronicle,  which  ends  with  the  death  of  Edward  the  First  in 
1307,  was  without  doubt  composed  and  translated  not  long 
after  that  time.     The  little  contained  in  it  of  Anglo-Saxon 

^  Edited  by  Thomas  Hearne.  Oxon.  1724.  2  voll.  8vo. 

2  Extracts  from  the  French  text  are  printed  intheChron.  Anglo-Norm.  t.i. 

2  Edited  by  Thomas  Hearne.  Oxon.  1725.  2  voll.  8vo. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  lix 

history,  for  which  Gildas,  Beda,  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  and 
WiUiam  of  Malmesbury  are  cited,  are  old  Enghsh  sagas  in- 
serted by  Robert  de  Brunne,  of  which  that  of  Havelok,  king 
Gunter's  son  ^,  he  says  expressly  is  not  to  be  found  in  Pers  of 
Bridlynton. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that  the  majority  of  the 
later  chroniclers  are  from  Yorkshire  or  the  neighbouring 
counties,  which  may,  perhaps,  be  attributed  to  a  longer  pre- 
served nationality  in  those  parts.  Their  chief  sources  are 
rarely  the  Saxon  Chronicle  and  Florence,  but  rather  Henry 
of  Huntingdon  and  William  of  Malmesbury,  whose  traditions 
and  fables  are  by  them  generally  transcribed  in  greater 
breadth.  This  remark  is  particularly  applicable  to  the  work, 
too  often  appealed  to,  ascribed  to  John  Bromton,  abbot  of 
Jorvaulx  in  Yorkshire,  who  lived  towards  the  end  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  It  comprises  the  period  from  the  year 
588  to  1198,  whence  it  might  be  suspected  to  be  the  produc- 
tion of  some  earlier  writer,  did  it  not  contain  mention  of  the 
marriage-contract  of  Johanna,  sister  of  Edward  the  Third, 
with  David,  afterwards  king  of  Scotland.  Besides  the  chro- 
niclers just  enumerated,  Bromton  also  copies  Florence  and 
the  Flores  Historiarum :  he  likewise  mentions  the  chronicle 
of  Walter  of  Giseborne.  Norman  anecdotes  he  relates  in  the 
same  order  as  Wace  in  the  Roman  de  Ron. 

The  only  merit,  with  reference  to  Anglo-Saxon  history, 
hitherto  possessed  by  Bromton — that  of  being  the  earliest 
source  of  many  interesting  sagas,  is  now  effaced,  as  we  find 
the  same  sagas  in  Gaimar ;  and  they  are  also  to  be  found, 
though  in  an  abridged  form,  in  the  unprinted  chronicle  of 
Douglas  of  Glastonbury,  the  Hamburg  vellum  manuscript  of 
which  reaches  to  the  time  of  Edward  the  Third,  in  which  the 
names,  disguised  like  those  in  Gaimar,  sufficiently  betray 
the  use  of  a  Norman  source^.    In  the  earher  part  of  his  chro- 

1  Seep.  116. 

2  Thus,  cap.  iii.  Renaude  for  Reginald  ;  cap.  cxii.  Estrildefor  iElfthryth, 


Ix  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

nicle  Douglas  follows  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth ;  in  the  later 
portion  he  has  accounts  exclusively  his  own,  relating  to  the 
wars  between  England  and  Scotland  in  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  which  are  valuable  through  the  com- 
munication of  contemporary  ballads. 

We  have  occasionally,  in  the  course  of  our  researches,  made 
use  of  smaller  historic  M'orks,  but  of  which  many  monastic 
histories  and  Lives  of  Saints  are  still  in  manuscript  only. 
Letters  also,  homilies  and  other  documents  have  been  but 
partially  brought  to  light,  of  which  several,  connected  with 
later  times,  will  be  noticed  hereafter. 

Of  other  helps  to  Anglo-Saxon  history,  the  first  to  be  men- 
tioned are  the  Charters,  a  complete  collection  of  which  is  now 
in  course  of  publication  by  the  English  Historical  Society. 
Of  these  important  documents  two  volumes  have  already  ap- 
peared^, containing  charters  of  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  ealdor- 
men  and  prelates  to  the  year  966.  To  the  first  volume  is 
prefixed  an  Introduction  by  the  learned  editor,  embracing  an 
ample  fund  of  information  illustrative  of  the  use  and  nature 
of  those  instruments,  their  dates,  tests  of  their  genuineness, 
etc.,  indispensable  to  those  who  have  not  made  such  monu- 
ments a  particular  branch  of  study.  Older  collections,  which 
are  in  great  measure  superseded  by  this  highly  useful  pub- 
lication, are — the  Textus  RofFensis,  belonging  to  the  cathe- 
dral of  Rochester,  containing,  besides  many  valuable  charters, 
etc.,  the  only  copy  extant  of  the  Laws  of  the  Kentish  kings. 
This  manuscript,  compiled  by  bishop  Ernulphus  in  the  twelfth 
century,  was  communicated  to  the  world  by  that  laborious 
and  meritorious  antiquary  Thomas  Hearne  :  also  Hemming's 
Chartulary  of  the  church  of  Worcester.     Many  charters  are 

the  queen  of  Eadgar  ;  cap.  cvii.  in  "  Alured  that  Dolphynes  was  called  "  it 

is  not  Dauphin,  but  Gaimar's  (v.  3023  sq.) "  Elueret,  Edelwolfing  ert 

apelez;"  also,  cap.  cvii.  "a  Dane  that  me  called  Roynt/'  from  Gaimar, 
V.  3016,  "un  Daneis,  un  tyrant,  ki  Sumerlede  ont  nun  le  grant." 

^  Codex  Diploraaticus  .^Evi  Saxonici.  Opera  Johannis  M.  Kemble, 
torn.  i.  and  ii. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  Ixi 

also  to  be  found  dispersed  in  Hickes's  Thesaurus,  Smith's 
edition  of  the  historic  works  of  Beda,  the  monastic  histories 
of  Ely  and  Glastonbury,  etc.  The  greater  number,  however, 
of  these  documents  having  reference  to  churches  and  con- 
vents, those  of  the  latter  description  are  consequently  col- 
lected in  the  *  Monasticon  Anglicanum,'  originally  edited  by 
William  Dugdale  and  Roger  Dodsworth,  in  3  voll.  folio,  1682, 
continued  by  J.  Stevens  in  2  voll.  folio,  and  lastly  edited 
anew  by  John  Cayley,  Esq.,  Henry  Ellis,  Esq.,  and  the  Rev. 
B.  BandineP. 

The  edition  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Laws,  commenced  by  the 
late  Mr.  Price,  under  the  authority  of  the  Commission  on  the 
Public  Records,  but  continued  and  completed  by  the  trans- 
lator of  the  present  work^,  exhibits  a  purer  text,  accompanied 
by  collations  from  every  known  manuscript,  than  that  of  the 
earlier  editions.  In  the  ecclesiastical  portion  of  the  work  is 
printed  for  the  first  time  the  Penitential  of  archbishop  Theo- 
dore, the  prototype  of  most  of  the  later  penitentials,  particu- 
larly that  of  archbishop  Ecgberht.  In  this  work  also  some  in- 
teresting secular  documents  are  given  for  the  first  time  in  print. 
Before  the  appearance  of  this  edition,  that  of  Dr.  Wilkins 
was  the  most  complete,  though  abounding  in  errors  of  no 
trivial  character.  An  edition  of  much  merit,  and  highly  useful 
to  the  German  scholar,  was  begun  by  Dr.  Reinhold  Schmid, 
of  which  the  first  volume  only  has  hitherto  appeared^.     The 

1  London,  1817-1830.  8  voll.  folio. 

"  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  England  ;  comprising  Laws  enacted 
under  the  Anglo-Saxon  Kings  from  vEthelbirht  to  Cnut,  with  an  English 
translation  of  the  Saxon  ;  the  Laws  called  Edward  the  Confessor's ;  the 
Laws  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  those  ascribed  to  Henry  the  First : 
also  Monumenta  Ecclesiastica  Anglicana,  from  the  seventh  to  the  tenth 
century ;  and  the  Ancient  Latin  Version  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Laws.  With 
a  compendious  Glossary,  &c.  Printed  by  command  of  His  late  Majesty 
King  William  IV.,  under  the  direction  of  the  Commissioners  on  the  Public 
Records  of  the  Kingdom.    MDCCCXL,   1  vol.  fol.,  or  2  voll.  royal  8vo. 

^  Die  Gesetze  der  Angelsachsen.  In  der  Urspi-ache  mit  Uebersetzung 
und  Erlauterungen  herausgegeben  von  Dr.  Reinhold  Schmid,  Professor  der 
Rechte  zu  Jena.  Leipzig,  1832.  Bvo. 


Ixiv  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

at  the  time  for  the  history  of  kings  and  wars  to  the  reign  of 
Alfred.  The  Life  also  of  that  king  by  Spelman  forms  an 
epoch  in  the  historic  Kterature  of  England.  In  1724  the 
work  of  Rapin  de  Thoyras  appeared,  Avho,  however,  did  very 
little  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  and  even  seems  to  have 
been  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  many  sources  then  already 
in  print.  In  the  notes  of  his  translator,  Tindal,  many  rectifi- 
cations and  additions  are  to  be  found.  A  considerable  ad- 
vance is  manifest  in  the  portion  dedicated  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period  of  Carte's  History  of  England^,  the  earlier  part  of 
which  has  served  as  a  storehouse  to  David  Hume,  who  was 
lamentably  deficient  in  fundamental  knowledge  of  the  early 
middle  age.  In  praising  Hume  for  his  lively  picture  of  the 
history  of  the  Stuarts,  and  for  some  portions  of  that  of  the 
Tudors,  as  the  most  acute  of  modern  investigators,  as  an  un- 
rivalled perfect  model  for  historic  composition,  in  whom  was 
united  with  English  strength  and  Scottish  perspicuity,  the 
grace  of  the  land  of  his  mental  cultivation,  his  much-loved 
France, — in  this  very  praise  is  implied  the  cause  why  Hume, 
who  at  first  had  occupied  himself  only  on  the  history  of  the 
Revolution  (from  which,  not  till  a  later  period,  he  carried  back 
his  work  to  the  beginning  of  the  history^),  could  not  evince 
in  his  account  of  the  middle  age  either  the  enthusiasm  or 
even  the  industry  of  Milton.  It  is  not,  therefore,  surprising 
that  Gibbon,  with  his  widely  comprehensive  studies,  and  who 
in  acuteness  and  powers  of  combination  was  the  equal  of  his 
great  contemporary,  is,  in  his  notices  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
contained  in  his  immortal  work,  more  instructive  than  Hume. 
After  these  another  star  of  the  first  magnitude  in  the  Bri- 
tish horizon  remains  to  be  named, — though,  as  in  the  case  of 
Milton,  as  the  author  of  a  work  of  no  great  estimation, — 
Edmund  Burke,  who  wrote  an  Abridgment  of  Enghsh  Hi- 

1  London,  1747-1755,  4  voll.  folio. 

^  The  History  of  the  Stuarts  appeared  in  1755,  that  of  the  Tudors  in 
1759>  that  of  the  earlier  period  some  years  later. 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  Ixv 

story  to  the  year  1216,  in  which  the  part  relating  to  the 
jurisprudence  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  has  considerable  merit. 
From  this  specimen,  which,  though  not  printed  until  after  his 
death,  was  probably  the  labour  of  his  earlier  years',  we  may 
reasonably  suppose,  that  had  this  most  talented  of  British 
statesmen  more  seriously  devoted  himself  to  the  subject,  the 
story  of  England  would  have  been  told  in  a  work  not  inferior 
to  those  through  which  the  enviable  states  of  antiquity,  as  well 
as  that  revival  of  the  Periclean  Athens,  the  Tuscan  city,  stand 
in  never-fading  colours  before  the  wondering  eyes  of  after- 
ages. 

It  might  almost  appear  as  though  it  Avere  intended  to  be 
shown  that  the  greatest  geniuses  among  a  people  devoted  to 
freedom  have  felt  themselves  irresistibly  drawn  to  the  study 
of  their  native  history,  when  we  yet  mention  the  Histoiy  of 
England  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  the  apparent  antagonist, 
though  in  fact  the  intellectual  son  of  Edmund  Burke.     The 
study  of  philosophy  and  of  the  laws  of  Europe  and  Asia,  a 
high  judicial  post  at  Calcutta,  a  truly  considerable  share  in 
European  politics,  through  the  engendering  and  spread  of 
creative,  promoting,  wide-forming  ideas  in  internal  national 
life,  as  well  as  of  retrospective,  preserving  views,  well  founded 
in  the  policy  and  public  law  of  both  hemispheres  ;  the  favour 
of  the  sportive  muse,  the  acknowledged  possession  of  a  noble, 
graceful,  courtly  demeanour,  an  intercourse, — which  while  it 
much  received  no  less  distributed, — with  the  ablest  of  his 
contemporaries ;  all  this,  more  than  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and 
the  illustrious  Bacon  ever  compassed,  satisfied  not  the  son  of 
needy  Scottish  parents :  even  the  aversion  so  hard  to  over- 
come, by  a  genius  ever  glowing  with  its  own  fires,  for  the  toil- 
some working  up  of  a  given  raw  material,  did  not  withhold 
this  extraordinary  man  from  labouring  during  several  years 

^  It  was  written  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  and  appears  in  the  collec- 
tion of  his  works.  Eight  sheets  of  it  were  printed  by  Dodsley  in  4to,  in 
1757,  which  with  the  author's  corrections  are  now  in  the  British  Museum, 


Ixvi  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION, 

on  a  history  of  England,  to  which  his  contemporaries  had 
already  beforehand  willingly  awarded  the  palm.  Indisposition 
and  the  pressure  of  unwelcome  age  induced  Mackintosh  to 
contract  the  plan  of  his  undertaking,  and  death  interrupted 
that  which  he  had  still  hoped  to  pubHsh.  Of  what  he  has  ac- 
complished the  excellences  will  be  mentioned  hereafter ;  for 
the  short  section  on  Anglo-Saxon  history,  the  praise  of  spirited 
and  just  conception,  as  well  as  of  worthy  representation  may 
suffice. 

But  would  not  Mackintosh  with  more  vigorous  powers  have 
accomplished  more  ?  Let  us  freely  confess  that  neither  he 
nor  any  other  equally  gifted  man  can  in  our  days  satisfy  the 
requisites  of  a  history  of  any  country  in  the  middle  age, 
and  least  of  all  of  England,  where  new  sources  spring  forth 
daily,  where  the  divining  rod  inclines  over  many  a  deep-hidden 
treasure  without  yet  finding  it.  Generations  must  pass  away 
before  all  this  matter  will  be  found  arranged  and  divided,  in 
order  one  day  to  be  illustrated  by  the  master.  The  Germanic 
race  must  first  have  more  completely  investigated  its  old  tra- 
ditions, its  old  language,  its  old  laws,  through  the  labours  of 
antiquarians,  philologists  and  legal  historians,  before  an  in- 
controvertible answer  can  be  given  to  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant questions.  The  history  of  one  state  will  always  be 
defective  without  commensurate  advances  in  that  of  the  neigh- 
bour states.  The  difficult  duty  of  a  modern  investigator  of 
history,  which  requires  almost  endless  researches,  splitting 
themselves  in  all  directions  into  various  others,  and  often 
widely  remote  from  each  other,  is  little  compatible  with  that 
of  an  historian  in  the  highest  sense,  who  shall  also  have 
learned  from  life,  and  desires  to  understand  the  past  by  and 
for  the  sake  of  the  present.  History,  moreover,  often  requires 
a  renewed  form,  as  well  for  the  purpose  of  appropriating  to 
itself  the  fruits  of  investigation,  to  set  them  in  their  true  light, 
and  bestow  on  them  their  just  value,  as  also  on  account  of 
the  ever  variable  undeveloped  necessity  of  the  present.     The 


LITERARY  INTRODUCTION.  Ixvii 

representer  of  past  times,  mindful  of  this  duty,  will  not,  there- 
fore, be  always  anxious  only  to  give  demonstrable  certainty, 
but  will  rather  often  draw  attention  to  the  defects  of  our  hi- 
storic knowledge,  and  will  even  gain  much  by  a  clear  glance 
over  the  history  apparently  lost :  he  M'ill  not  lull  the  reader 
into  a  mere  sluggish  conception  of  what  is  recorded,  but  must 
frequently  draw  him  along  with  him  in  his  investigations  ;  he 
will  consider  himself  as  a  prophet  looking  backwards,  and 
often  leave  the  intei-pretation  of  his  well-weighed  judgements 
to  the  intelligent,  and  probably  to  the  more  gifted  or  more 
fortunate  inquirer. 

A  few  respected  investigators  of  old  English  histoiy  remain 
yet  to  be  noticed,  and  first  Whitaker,  who,  under  the  title  of 
a  History  of  the  Town  of  Manchester,  has  given  a  very  learned 
account  of  the  country  under  the  Romans  ^  A  similar  work 
is  his  Genuine  History  of  the  Britons  asserted  against  J. 
Macpherson^.  In  the  highly  esteemed  work  of  Dr.  Robert 
Henry^,  the  Roman  period  is  treated  with  predilection  and 
success ;  to  praise  the  Anglo-Saxon  portion,  it  must  be  on 
comparison  with  his  predecessors. 

To  Sharon  Turner,  for  his  labours  on  the  history  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons'*,  students  are  under  a  lasting  obligation,  parti- 
cularly for  his  profounder  investigation  of  their  state  of  cul- 
ture, his  unprejudiced  application  of  Welsh  literature,  and 
the  use  which  he  has  made  of  many  unprinted  sources.  At 
the  same  time  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  this  meritorious 
collection  of  materials  is  charged  with  many  unnecessary  di- 
gressions, and  that  the  author  has  often  preferred  giving  much 
to  a  critical  discrimination  in  his  narratives. 

Lingard's  representation  of  Anglo-Saxon  history^  is  di- 

^  Second  edition  corrected.  Loudon,  1773.  2  voll.  8vo. 

*  Second  edit.  Lond.  1773. 

^  History  of  Great  Britain.  6voll.  Edinb.  1771-1793.  4to,  often  reprinted. 

*  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  1799-1805.  2  voll.  4lo,  frequently  re- 
printed in  3  voll.  Svo.     The  6th  edit,  is  the  last  that  has  appeared. 

*  The  last  edit,  in  13  voll.  12rao  with  corrections. 


Ixviii  LITERARY  INTRODUCTION. 

stinguishecl  for  its  just  arrangementj  as  well  as  by  the  clear- 
ness and  solidity  of  its  expression ;  though  he  has  generally 
confined  himself  to  a  repetition  of  the  facts  related  by  his 
latest  predecessors ;  and  only  in  rare  cases,  where  Catholicism 
prompted  him  to  a  refutation  of  some  narrow  views  of  En- 
glish protestantism,  has  exhibited  independent  and  new  in- 
vestigations. 

Sir  Francis  Palgrave  has,  in  an  elaborate  work  ^,  endeavoured, 
and  not  unsuccessfully,  to  supply  the  existing  want.  The 
political  institutions  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  examined  by 
him  with  much  acuteness ;  he  has  also  given,  in  great  part 
from  sources  hitherto  but  little  used  for  the  purpose,  a  very 
valuable  chronological  view  of  the  larger  states,  as  well  as  of 
the  provinces  dependent  on  them ;  though  in  the  application 
of  some  modern  hypotheses,  chiefly  with  regard  to  the  deri- 
vation of  several  historical  phenomena  in  the  institutions  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons  from  Roman  elements,  he  probably  goes 
too  far.  While  the  present  work  bears  evident  proofs  for 
how  much  multifarious  information  its  author  is  indebted  to 
this  learned  inquirer,  yet  several  of  his  principal  notions  can- 
not be  acknowledged  by  us  as  new,  but  as  an  ancient  common 
property  of  the  continental  investigators  of  the  history  of 
nations  and  laws.  Palgrave  has  likewise  published,  in  a  small 
volume^,  principally  designed  for  youth,  and  embellished  with 
maps  and  other  engra^dngs,  a  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
containing  some  of  the  results  of  his  inquiries. 

1  The  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Commonwealth.  Anglo-Saxon 
Period.   II  Parts.  London,  1832.  4to, 

"  Historyof  England,  vol.  i.  Anglo-Saxon  Period.  London,  1831.  12rao. 
forming  volume  xxi.  of  the  '  Family  Library.' 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 

UNDER  THE 

ANGLO-SAXON    KINGS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

r  OR  the  earliest  notice  of  its  existence  among  nations,  Bri- 
tain is  indebted  to  that  spirit  of  commerce,  through  which  it 
was  itself  one  day  to  become  so  great.  More  than  a  thousand 
years  before  the  birth  of  our  Saviour,  Gades  and  Tartessus 
had  been  founded  by  the  Phoenicians,  whose  fearless  traders 
we  behold,  in  our  dim  vision  of  those  remote  times  when  tin 
was  brought  in  less  abundance  from  the  ports  of  Spain,  after 
a  tedious  coasting-voyage  of  four  months,  fetching  that  metal 
from  the  islands  which  Herodotus'  denominates  the  Cassi- 
terides,  or  islands  producing  tin  {icaaaLTepos;)-,  and  which  now 
bear  the  name  of  the  Scilly  islands-.  Herodotus  was  unable 
to  ascertain  the  position  of  these  islands,  nor  does  he  even 
mention  the  name  of  Britain.  It  is  probable  that  the  Phoe- 
nicians never  sailed  thither  direct  from  their  own  coast ^, 

1  Lib.  iii.  §  115. 

-  Camden's  Britannia.  Cf.  Heerens  Ideen,  ii.  191.  Beckmann's  Hist, 
of  Inventions,  vol.  iv. 

^  Strabo,  lib.  iii.,  relates,  that  a  Phoenician  shipmaster,  being  chased  by 
some  Roman  vessels,  ran  his  ship  upon  a  shoal,  leading  his  pursuers  into 
destruction,  while  he  escaped  on  a  fragment  of  the  wreck,  and  received 
from  the  state  the  value  of  the  cargo  he  had  sacrificed. — T. 

VOL.  I.  B 


2  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

though  Midacritus',  the  individual  who  is  recorded  as  having 
first  brought  tin  from  the  Cassiterides,  seems  by  his  name  to 
have  been  a  Phoenician.  The  earliest  mention  of  the  British 
islands  by  name  is  made  by  Aristotle^,  who  describes  them 
as  consisting  of  Albion  and  lerne.  The  Carthaginian  Hi- 
railco,  who,  between  the  years  362  and  350  a.c,  had  been 
sent  by  his  government  on  a  voyage  of  discovery,  also  found 
the  tin  islands,  which  he  calls  Oestrymnides,  near  Albion, 
and  two  days'  sail  from  lerne^,  in  Mount's  Bay'^.  His  ex- 
ample was  some  years  after  followed  by  a  citizen  of  the  cele- 
brated colony  of  the  Phocians,  the  Massihan  Pytheas,  to  the 
scanty  fragments  of  whose  journal,  preserved  by  Strabo  and 
other  ancient  authors,  we  are  indebted  for  the  oldest  accounts 
concerning  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands^.  The  Massihans 
and  Narbonnese  traded  at  an  early  period  (by  land-journeys 
to  the  northern  coast  of  Gaul^)  with  the  island  Ictis  (Wight, 
or  St.  Michael's  Mount')  and  with  the  coasts  of  Britain. 
This  early  commerce  was  carried  on  both  for  the  sake  of  the 
tin — an  article  of  great  importance  to  the  ancients — and  of 
lead;  though  these  navigators  extended  their  commerce  to 
other  productions  of  the  country,  such  as  slaves,  skins,  and  a 

1  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.,  lib.  vii.  c.  57. 

"  De  Mundo,  c.  iii.  Ireland,  under  the  name  of  lemis,  is  mentioned  by 
the  author  of  the  Argonautica,  v.  1179. 

^  On  this  geographic  conclusion  see  the  Metropolitan  for  January  1832. 

*  Of  his  diar)%  which  was  extant  in  the  fifth  century,  we  possess  frag- 
ments in  the  poem  of  Festus  Avienus,  '  Ora  JNIaritima.'  If,  with  Ukert  and 
Lelewel  (Entdeckungen  der  Carthager  und  Griechen  auf  dem  atlantischen 
Ocean),  we  place  Himilco  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  a.c,  the  honour 
of  having  discovered  Britain  must  be  denied  to  the  Phoenicians  and  given 
to  the  Carthaginians. 

»  Murray  de  Pythea  Massiliensi,  in  Nov.  Comment.  Gotting.  tom.  vi. 

6  Diod.  Sic.  lib.  v.  c.  38. 

7  The  near  resemblance  betw-een  the  names  is  in  favour  of  the  first  sup- 
position ;  while  to  the  second  the  account  of  Diodorus,  lib.  v.  c.  22,  is  alone 
applicable,  who,  describing  this  island,  says,  that  at  flood-tide  it  appears 
as  an  island,  and  at  ebb  as  a  peninsula.  The  proximity  to  Cornwall,  the 
British  tin  country,  likewise  favours  this  interpretation. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  3 

superior  breed  of  hunting-dogs,  Avhich  the  Celts  made  use  of 
in  war^  British  timber  was  employed  by  Archimedes  for 
the  mast  of  the  largest  ship  of  war  which  he  had  caused  to 
be  built  at  Syracuse  2.  Gold  and  silver  are  said  to  have  been 
found  there ;  also  an  inferior  sort  of  pearl,  which  is  still  to  be 
met  with^.  This  country  and  its  metals  soon  became  an  ob- 
ject of  scientific  inquiry  to  the  Greeks,  as  is  proved  by  a  work 
upon  the  subject  by  Polybius,  the  loss  of  which  must  be 
painfully  felt  by  every  one  acquainted  with  the  acuteness  and 
sound  judgement  of  that  historian'*. 

The  Romans  first  became  acquainted  with  Britain  through 
their  thirst  after  universal  dominion.  Scipio,  to  his  inquiries 
concerning  it  among  the  merchants  of  the  three  most  di- 
stinguished Celtic  cities,  Massiha,  Narbo,  and  Corbelo,  had 
received  no  satisfactory  answer-^;  and  Pubhus  Crassus  is 
named  as  the  first  Roman  who  visited  the  Cassiterides,  and 
who  observing  that  the  metals  were  dug  out  from  but  a  little 
depth,  and  that  his  men  at  peace  were  voluntarily  occupying 
themselves  on  the  sea,  pointed  out  this  course  to  such  as  were 
willing  to  take  it^'.  This  was  probably  the  officer  of  that  name 
who,  by  Ccesar's  command,  had  achieved  the  conquest  of  the 
Gauhsh  nations  inhabiting  along  the  shores  of  the  British 
Channel". 

Through  Cassar's  conquest  of  the  South  of  England,  and 
the  later  sway  held  over  it  by  the  Roman  emperors,  we  are 
first  enabled  to  form  an  idea  of  the  country.  Well  might  the 
goddess  of  science  and  of  war  appear  to  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans under  one  form  (for  it  was  the  Macedonian  and  Roman 

'  Strabo,  lib.  iii.  Oppiani  Cyneg.  lib.  i.  v.  468.  Neraesiani  Cyneg. 
V.  123  sq. 

-  Athen.  Deipn.  lib.  v.  c.  10. 

^  Cf.  Strabo,  lib.  iv.  Tac.  de  Vita  Agric.  c.  xii.  Pomp.  Mela,  lib.  iii. 
c.  6.  Sol.  Polyh.c.  liii.  Suet.  lib.  i.  c.  46.  Plin.  H.  N.  ix.  c.  5",  and  the 
contrary  testimony  of  Cicero,  ad  Fam.  vii.  7,  ad  Att.  iv.  16. 

•*  Polyb.  lib.  iii.  c.  37.  ^  Strabo,  lib.iv. 

^  Strabo,  lib.  iii.  7  Ctesar,  B.  G.  ii.  34. 

B  2 


4  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

swords  that  fixed  for  antiquity  the  limits  both  of  the  earth 
and  of  historic  knowledge),  though  their  idea  of  Britain  is,  it 
must  be  confessed,  a  very  obscure  one,  and  stands  much  in 
need  of  the  reflecting  light  of  modern  scientific  research.  To 
Strabo,  as  well  as  to  Caesar  and  Ptolemy,  even  the  figure  and 
relative  position  of  the  British  islands  were  uncertain.  Ac- 
cording to  Strabo,  Ireland  lies  to  the  north  of  Britain^ ;  while 
to  the  last,  the  northern  coasts  of  Ireland  and  Scotland 
appear  in  the  same  latitude^.  These  errors  must  necessarily 
occasion  numberless  mistakes  with  regard  to  the  positions  of 
tribes  and  territories,  when  given  according  to  the  degrees  of 
longitude  and  latitude.  Our  knowledge  too  with  regard  to 
the  inhabitants  is  rendered  extremely  unsatisfactory  by  the 
circumstance,  that  in  the  islands  and  their  several  districts 
very  different  degrees  of  civilization  were  met  with,  which 
have  by  authors  been  too  generally  applied,  and  in  the  most 
opposite  senses.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Cassiterides,  whose 
position  even  Strabo  seeks  off  Gallicia^,  are  described  by 
Pytheas  in  almost  the  same  words  as  the  Iberians  are  in  other 
passages.  Besides  mining  of  a  very  simple  description,  they 
applied  themselves  to  the  rearing  of  cattle,  and  exchanged 
tin,  lead,  and  hides  with  the  traders,  against  salt,  pottery,  and 
brass  M^ares.  They  appeared  rambling  about  their  ten  islands 
with  long  beards  like  goats,  clad  in  dark  garments  reaching 
to  their  heels,  and  leaning  upon  staves'^.    It  is  not  improbable 

^  Geogr.  lib.  ii. 

-  B.  G.  V.  13.  Geogr.  lib.  ii.  c.  2.  See  also  the  excellent  disquisitions  of 
Mannert  in  his  '  Geograpbie  der  Griechen  und  Romer/  Abth.  'Britannia.' 
The  Niiremberg  Globe  of  1520  has  still  the  map  of  Ptolemy.  In  Edit. 
Uberlin.  of  Ptolemy  Britain  first  appears  in  an  upright  position. 

^  Geogr.  lib.  ii.  If  the  existence  of  these  islands  were  not  a  fiction  in- 
vented by  the  traders  of  Gades  for  the  purpose  of  misleading  their  com- 
mercial rivals,  and  inducing  them  to  undertake  fruitless  expeditions,  they 
must  be  looked  for  only  on  the  coast  of  Cornwall.  The  ignorance  or 
t^ilence  of  later  writers  concerning  them  may  perhaps  be  explained  by  the 
supposition  that  the  hazardous  passage  by  sea  was  forgotten  after  the  way 
by  land  through  Gaul  became  the  usual  route. 

^  Strabo,  lib.  iii. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  5 

that  these  accounts  are  also  applicable  to  the  neighbouring 
coast  of  Cornwall,  perhaps  even  to  the  tribe  of  the  Silures  in 
South  Wales;  but  it  is  uncertain  whether  in  these  moun- 
taineers we  are  to  recognise  Iberian  settlers  ^,  or  an  original 
native  population  identical  with  that  of  the  rest  of  South 
Britain.  Navigation  along  the  coasts,  though  only  in  small 
boats  of  twisted  osier  covered  with  leather,  had,  for  a  length 
of  time,  been  very  lively^.  The  tin,  formed  into  square 
blocks,  was  brought  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where  it  was  pur- 
chased by  merchants  and  carried  over  to  Gaul,  and  then,  in 
a  journey  of  about  thirty  days,  conveyed  on  horses  to  Mar- 
seilles, Narbonne,  and  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone^.  A  com- 
merce of  this  kind,  by  exciting  individual  industry,  had  long 
rendered  the  inhabitants  of  the  southern  coast  of  Britain 
active,  docile,  and  friendly  to  strangers ;  yet  was  their  spirit 
sunk  in  a  slumber  which  held  them  to  their  native  soil,  until, 
through  the  calamity  of  a  most  unjust  hostile  invasion,  from 
being  a  country  not  reckoned  among  the  nations  of  Europe"^, 
the  land  of  British  barbarians,  knoM'n  only  to  a  few  daring- 
mariners,  became  a  province  closely  connected  with  imperial 
Rome,  and  at  length  that  state  which,  more  than  any  other 
of  the  European  nations,  has  impressed  the  stamp  of  its  cha- 
racter and  institutions  not  only  upon  this  portion  of  the  globe, 
but  also  upon  lands  and  regions  not  discovered  till  after  a 
long  course  of  ages. 

^  Tac.  Agric.  c.  xi.  The  opinion  of  Tacitus  is  much  contested  from 
having  been  made  to  apply  to  all  Britain.  Dionysius  Periegetes,  v.  563, 
also  declares  the  inhabitants  of  the  Cassiteridesj  descendants  of  the  Ibe- 
rians. On  the  difference  between  the  Iberian  and  the  old  British  lan- 
guages, see  W.  V.  Humboldt's  '  Priifung  der  Untersuchungen  iiber  die 
Urbewohner  Hispaniens  vermittelst  der  vaskischen  Sprache,'  p.  163. 

-  Lucani  Phar.  lib.  iv.u.l34.  Phn.  H.N.  lib.  iv.c.30,vii.  57.  Sol.  Polyh. 
c.  xxii.  F.  Avien.  v.  104  sq.  We  find  vessels  of  the  same  description  in 
use  at  a  later  period  among  the  Saxon  pirates.     Isid.  Orig.  lib.  xix.  c.  1. 

3  Diod.  lib.  V.  22.     Strabo,  lib.  iii. 

*  Even  Diodorus  speaks  of  the  neighbouring  islands  lying  between  Eu' 
rope  and  Britain. 


V 


6  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

The  inhabitants  of  Britain,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of 
those  above  mentioned  as  Iberian  colonists,  belonged  to  the 
same  great  national  family  which  we  find  in  Gaul  and  in 
Belgium,  and  which  commonly  bears  the  name  of  Celts.  The 
supposition  of  Tacitus^  of  a  difference  between  the  northern 
and  the  southern  race,  and  that  the  former,  from  its  strong 
bodily  structure  and  red  hair,  was  of  Germanic  origin,  is  by 
other  accounts  shown  to  be  groundless.  The  language  still 
living,  particularly  in  Wales  and  Brittany,  as  well  as  the 
druidic  worship,  which,  though  blended  with  Christianity, 
survived  to  a  late  period  in  the  former  country,  supplying  it, 
during  a  thousand  years,  with  energy  to  withstand  the  En- 
glish invaders,  form  the  leading  characteristics  of  this  once 
great  race,  and  which,  being  its  intellectual  portion,  have 
been  preserved  the  longest. 

In  treating  of  the  primitive  history  of  the  Britons,  a  writer 
must  use  their  native  traditions  with  great  caution.  Like 
those  of  the  other  European  nations,  they  appear  only  in  that 
Romanized  garb  which  was  fashioned  in  the  modern  world 
by  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  Roman  sun.  Though  at  every 
step  in  the  region  of  British  tradition  we  meet  with  traces  of 
an  eastern  origin,  yet  the  tales  of  the  destruction  of  Troy  and 
of  the  flight  of  Brutus,  a  great-grandson  of -^neas,  to  Britain^, 
are,  in  the  unnational  travestie  in  which  alone  they  have 
been  transmitted  to  us,  wholly  devoid  of  historic  value,  and 
the  simple  truth  seems  lost  to  us  beyond  recovery.  The 
vain  Britons  gratified  their  pride  in  adorning  themselves  with 
the  faded  tinsel,  and  appropinating  to  themselves  the  fabulous 
national  tradition  of  Rome. 

The  name  of  Kymry  or  Cumry,  by  which  the  Welsh  still 

^  Vita  Agric.  c.  xi. 

"  The  oldest  authoritj'  for  this  tradition  is  Nennius,  who  professes  to 
have  derived  his  information  "partim  majorum  traditionibus,partim  scriptis, 
partim  etiam  monumentis  veterum  Brittaniee  incolarum."  Jeffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth is  several  centuries  later,  as  is  also  the  poem  of  Robert  Wace,  '  Le 
Brut  d'Angleterre.' 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  7 

distinguish  themselves,  as  well  as  that  of  the  north-west 
county  of  England,  Cumberland ;  the  similarity  of  the  words 
that  have  been  preserved  of  the  language  of  the  old  Kim- 
merians  or  Cimbrians  to  the  Welsh;  the  traditions  of  the 
Welsh  Triads,  as  well  as  the  Roman  narratives, — all  justify 
the  assumption,  that  the  race  existing  in  Britain  in  the  time 
of  Ceesar  belonged  to  those  Kimmerians  who  had  gradually 
moved  forward  out  of  Western  Asia.  Though  the  obscurity 
attending  the  name  of  that  people  envelopes  also  the  epoch 
of  their  immigration,  yet  we  may  conclude,  from  Caesar's  own 
account,  that  it  took  place  long  before  the  time  of  that  con- 
queror. Hw  Cadarn,  or  Hu  the  Powerful,  as  the  Triads  relate, 
led  the  nation  of  the  Kymry  from  Deffrobany,  or  the  Land  of 
Summer,  where  Constantinople  now  is,  over  the  misty  ocean, 
to  the  uninhabited  island  Britain,  and  to  Llydaw  (Arraorica 
or  Brittany),  where  they  established  themselves.  They  deli- 
vered the  country,  which  had  previously  been  called  Clas 
Merddin  (the  land  of  sea-cliffs),  and  afterwards  Fel  Theis 
(the  island  of  honey),  from  the  possession  of  bears,  wolves, 
and  buffaloes.  Prydain,  son  of  -^dd  the  Great,  became  ruler 
of  the  land,  which,  through  the  wisdom  of  his  government, 
enjoyed  a  Saturnian  age,  and  retained  his  name ;  but  later 
expeditions  of  Lloegrwys  from  Gwasgwy  or  Gascony,  and  of 
Brythones  from  Llydaw,  are  said  to  have  joined  their  kindred 
on  the  island,  and  to  have  settled  in  the  south-east  parts  ^ 

A  language  resembling  that  of  the  Britons  was,  according 
to  Tacitus'^,  in  use  among  the  ^stii  on  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic,  the  inhabitants  on  the  Avestern  coast  of  which  long 
retained  the  name  of  Cimbri.  The  Britannic  Moorland  on  the 
Ems^  seems  to  owe  this  ancient  appellation  to  the  same  Cim- 
bric  race.  In  Belgic  Gaul,  between  Boulogne  and  Amiens, 
dwelt  a  people  bearing  the  name  of  Britanni'^ ;  an  early  ex- 
ample of  the  constant  intercourse  between  both  shores,  and 

^  Archaeology  of  Wales.  ^  Germania,  c.  xlv*.  . 

^  In  Groningen,  now  called  the  Bourtanger  Moor.     ■•  Plinii  H.  N.  iv.  17. 


8  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

a  striking  proof  how  little  even  the  greatest  separation  by- 
water,  however  convenient  a  boundary  for  objects  of  state, 
avails  in  dividing  nations.  That  the  Belgae  inhabiting  the 
British  coasts  came  hither  from  the  Belgium  of  the  continent 
we  know  from  Caesar  i,  who  speaks  of  the  aboriginal  inhabi- 
tants, that  is  the  Albiones,  (whose  name  we  recognise  in  the 
Scottish  Alpin,  Albany),  as  dwelling  in  the  interior  of  the 
country.  But,  besides  the  Belgee,  there  dwelt  also  in  the 
thickly  peopled  island  of  Britain,  the  Atrebates  on  the  Thames, 
the  Cenimagni  on  the  Stour,  and  the  Parisi  on  the  Humber, 
whose  relationship  to  the  Gaulish  tribes  of  the  same  name 
seems  unquestionable.  The  names  of  places  also,  particu- 
larly those  with  the  Celtic  termination  dunum,  equally  prove 
the  identity  of  these  peoples. 

This  state  of  the  population  plainly  shows  us  to  what  class 
of  nations  Britain  belonged  when  the  foot  of  Cassar  first  trod 
its  shores,  by  which  event  the  tales  of  mariners  about  the  tin 
islands  soon  fell  into  oblivion,  the  veil  was  withdrawn  from 
Britain,  and  the  land,  won  for  civilization  by  Roman  arms, 
had  the  rare  fortune  to  find  her  first  historian  in  one,  for 
whose  thirst  of  knowledge,  penetration,  and  ambition,  neither 
science  nor  the  world  were  too  extensive. 

The  continental  Gauls,  to  whom  the  Channel  formed  no 
intellectual  barrier,  were  yet  more  closely  united  with  the 
natives  of  Britain  by  the  common  religion  of  druidism.  The 
important  information  given  us  by  Caesar,  that  the  Gauls, 
though  in  general  possessing  a  higher  degree  of  culture  than 
the  Britons,  were,  nevertheless,  accustomed  to  seek  their  more 
profound  knowledge  among  the  druids  of  the  latter^,  together 
with  the  account  of  the  same  observer  respecting  the  density 
of  the  British  population,  leads  to  the  inference  that  migra- 

»  B.  G.  V.  12. 

2  B.  G.  vi.  13.  "  Disciplina  in  Britannia  reperta  atque  inde  in  Galliam 
translata  esse  existimatur  :  et  nunc,  qui  diligentius  earn  rem  cognoscere 
volunt,  plerumque  illo  discendi  caussa  proficiscuntur." — T. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  9 

tions  had  taken  place  from  the  North  to  the  southern  lands, 
which  had  slowly  and  by  piecemeal  been  conquered  by  their 
countrymen.     The  several  mysteries  of  the  druidic  doctrines 
are  the  more  obscure  to  us,  as  the  transmission  of  them  is  not 
from  the  most  ancient  sources,  but  from  times  in  which  the 
severe  rehgious  spirit  of  druidism  had  yielded  to  the  purer 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  and  the  desecrated,  secret  lore  of 
the  druids  been  made  subservient  to  scientific,  patriotic,  and 
often  impure  purposes.     The  accounts  of  the  bardic  oxstall, 
the  mystic  cauldron,  and  similar  traditions  of  the  Welsh,  are  to 
us  either  unintelligible,  or  void  of  historic  value.     The  simple 
old  monuments  of  British  faith, — the  cromlechs,  huge  stones 
set  perpendicularly  with  a  transverse ;   cairs,  or  concentric 
circles  of  stones  ;  rocking  stones ;  earns,  or  mounds  of  stone 
covered  with  earth,  &c. ;  numbers  of  which,  in  the  West  of 
England,  and  in  the  other  British  islands,  offer  themselves  at 
the  present  day  to  the  contemplation  of  the  antiquary, — while 
they  indicate  but  a  rude  state  of  external  worship,  yet  prove 
that  a  vast  exertion  of  physical  and  mechanical  power  was 
applied  to  the  purposes  of  religion  \     To  a  later  age  those 
places   of  old  religious  veneration  were  often   rendered  of 
importance  by  being  dedicated  to  Christian  worship-,  a  case 
which  in  Britain  may  have  happened  the  more  frequently, 
as  no  obstinate  resistance   appears   to  have  been  made  by 
druidism  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity.     The  oak  and 
mistletoe   were   objects  of  profound  veneration   among  the 
druids.     With  oak  leaves  they  adorned  their  sacrifices ;  and 
if  the  mistletoe  was  found  growing  on  a  tree,  a  priest,  ascend- 

^  An  appeal  to  Hecatseus  (Diod.  lib.  ii.)  cannot,  it  is  true,  prove  that 
Stonehenge  (Chorea  gigantum,  Brit.  Cor  Gawr)  is  there  alluded  to,  but 
Avhich  is,  however,  mentioned  by  the  bards  of  the  sixth  century,  and  may 
with  confidence  from  this  be  applied  to  older  heathen  monuments  and  cus- 
toms. Regarding  such  monuments,  see  Mone's  '  Geschichte  des  nord- 
ischen  Heidenthumes,'  Th.  ii.  p.  435-454,  where  also  the  religious  tenets 
of  the  Britons  are  treated  with  acuteness,  and  with  a  comprehensive  know-- 
ledge  of  the  heathenism  of  the  other  Celtic  nations. 

'  Mone,  Th.  ii.  p.  45/. 


10  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

ing  the  tree,  severed  the  sacred  plant  with  a  golden  knife.  A 
festival  on  the  happy  occasion  was  held  under  its  branches, 
attended  with  the  sacrifice  of  two  white  bulls  ^. 

With  respect  to  the  doctrines  and  learning  of  these  western 
Brahmins,  what  Caesar  ascertained  was  very  similar  to  that 
which  Alexander  had  formerly  found  among  those  on  the 
Ganges.  They  taught  the  immortahty  of  the  soul,  its  trans- 
migration from  one  body  to  another,  and — founded  on  this 
belief — inculcated  a  contempt  of  life^.  They  professed  a  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  their  motions ; 
discoursed  on  the  magnitude  of  the  world,  and  of  its  countries ; 
the  nature  of  things ;  the  virtues  and  power  of  the  immortal 
gods^ 

In  the  druidic  order,  and  in  that  of  the  knights  or  eques- 
trian order,  was  vested  the  chief  authority  of  the  country. 
The  druids  were  subordinate  to  a  high-priest  chosen  by  them- 
selves, though  arms  occasionally  decided  the  fate  of  the  Celtic 
pontificate.  Through  the  administration  of  the  judicial  func- 
tions they  became  accurately  versed  in  temporal  affairs,  and 
thus  secured  worldly  influence  to  themselves,  and  to  justice 
the  sanction  of  religious  awe.   Their  human  sacrifices'*,  which 

•  Plinii  H.  N.  xvi.  c.  95.     Max.  Tyr.  Dissert,  xxxviii. 

2  Lucan.  lib.  i.  v.  460.  A  Triad  of  the  druids — (Davies's  Celtic  Re- 
searches, p.  182)  "  The  three  first  principles  of  wisdom  are  obedience  to  the 
laws  of  God,  care  for  the  welfare  of  man,  and  fortitude  under  the  accidents 
of  life" — is  found  also  as  the  principle  of  the  gj-mnosophists,  in  Diogenes 
Laertius  (Prooem.  §  5),  ^i^nu  Sioiig,  kxI  y,n6iu  xotKov  "h^civ,  Kctl  duZosiuv  ugkuv. 

^  Caesar,  B.  G.  vi.  14.  [Of  their  gods,  the  chief  was  one  to  whom  Caesar 
(vi.  17.)  gives  the  name  of  Mercurius  :  "  Deum  maxime  Mercurium  colunt : 
hujus  sunt  plurima  simulacra."  Tacitus  (Germ,  ix.)  says  in  the  same 
words  of  the  Germans:  "Deorum  maxime  Mercurium  colunt;"  thereby 
meaning  Wodan,  the  chief  god  of  the  Germanic  nations.  Hence  Wodens- 
daeg  (Wednesday)  =  dies  Mercurii.  See  Grimm's  'Deutsche  Mythologie,' 
p.  76  sq.  On  other  deities  of  the  Britons  Caesar  bestows  the  names  of 
Apollo,  Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Miners'a. — T.] 

*  From  Caesar,  vi.  16,  it  appears  that  the  human  sacrifices  of  the  Britons 
were  not  limited  to  public  occasions.  "  Qui  sunt  adfecti  gravioribus  mor- 
bis,  quique  in  prosliis  periculisque  versantur,  aut  pro  victimis  homines 
immolant,  aut  se  immolaturos  vovent,  administrisque  adea  sacrificia  drui- 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  11 

were  usually  limited  to  criminals  and  captured  foes,  we  look 
on  with  horror;  yet  should  posterity  not  too  severely  judge 
them,  which,  without  the  plea  of  religious  infatuation,  had  for 
two  thousand  years  deliberately  persisted  in  similar  sacrifices,  V 
before  doubts  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  capital  punishments 
became  a  subject  of  national  consideration.  As  the  knight  by 
mihtary  followers,  so  was  the  druid  surrounded  by  studious 
disciples,  to  whom  twenty  years  seemed  not  too  long  a  period 
for  the  acquisition  of  the  required  knowledge, — astrology  and 
magic,  as  well  as  acuteness  in  judicial  decisions, — together  with 
the  privilege  of  directing  the  sacrifices,  and  of  proclaiming  the 
dreaded  excommunication,  and  the  temporal  advantage  of 
exemption  from  taxes  and  military  service  ^.  Their  precepts, 
which  were  in  verse,  were  delivered  orally,  it  being  forbidden 
to  commit  them  to  writing ;  though  in  recording  the  common 
concerns  of  life  they  are  said  to  have  used  the  Greek  letters^. 
"With  the  druids  the  bards  (beirdd)  were  closely  connected^. 
They  wrote  in  verse  on  the  descent  of  their  princes,  and, 
together  with  didactic  and  epic,  had  also  lyric  poetry,  which 
was  sung  to  the  sound  of  the  chrotta^.  Though  none  of  the 
productions,  nor  even  the  names  of  the  more  ancient  bards 
have  been  transmitted  to  us,  yet  all  that  is  related  of  them 
allows  us  to  suppose  that  their  works  resembled  those  still 
extant  of  the  bards  of  the  sixth  and  following  centuries,  from 


dibus  utuntur."  For  the  larger  sacrifices  he  informs  us  that  they  framed 
immense  images  of  twisted  osier,  the  members  of  which  they  filled  with 
living  beings,  and  then  set  the  mass  on  fire.  The  victims  were  generally 
criminals,  but  when  these  could  not  be  supplied,  innocent  persons  were 
taken  :   "  etiam  ad  innocentium  supplicia  descendunt." — T. 

'  Csesar,  B,  G.  vi.  13-16.    Plinii  H.  N.  xxx.  cc.  3,  4.   Tac.  Ann.  xiv,  30. 

-  A  hieroglyphic  bardic  writing  is  also  said  to  have  been  in  use,  consist- 
ing of  sixteen  characters,  and  formed  from  the  figures  of  plants.  See  Davies, 
p.  245  sq. 

2  Diod.  V.  31.  Strabo,  iv.  Lucani  Phars.  i.  v.  447  sq.  Athenseus,  vi. 
Ammian.  Mar.  lib.  xv.  24. 

^  "  Crotta  Britanna."  Venant.  Fortun.  lib.  vii.  c.  8.  [The  crowd  (rote)  of 
later  minstrelsy.  See  Graff,  AlthochdeutscherSprachschatz,ii. col.  487. — T.] 


12  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

which,  when  treating  of  later  times,  we  must  not  withhold 
our  attention.  That  bards  were  known  to  Posidonius  and 
Lucan  ^,  is  a  convincing  proof  of  the  antiquity  of  the  Celtic 
settlement  in  Britain,  for  wandering  people  carry  no  poems 
about  with  them,  scarcely  even  the  most  meagre  traditions. 
The  Anglo-Saxons  and  Northmen  brought  no  poetic  store 
from  their  ancient  home  to  their  new  country.  The  peace, 
leisure,  and  prosperity  of  a  nation,  seated  in  its  old  native 
abode,  are  indispensable  to  the  cultivation  of  national  song^. 

Together  with  the  druids,  the  ruling  order  was,  as  before 
said,  that  of  the  chieftains  or  knights.  In  Caesar's  time,  both 
these  noble  orders  had  reduced  to  a  state  of  dependence  the 
greater  part  of  the  rest  of  the  people  of  Gaul,  who  were  op- 
pressed by  debts,  taxes,  and  the  tyranny  of  the  powerful,  ex- 
ercising towards  them  all  the  rights  of  masters  over  slaves^. 
The  Roman  conquest  itself  might  also  have  contributed  to  the 
completion  of  an  already  existing  state  of  clientship  of  the 
indigent  class  to  the  opulent,  such  as  is  still  to  be  found  in 
the  very  pure  patriarchal  customs  of  the  clans  in  the  Scottish 
highlands  and  isles. 

The  land  was  divided  among  many  tribes  and  their  kings'^, 
who,  slightly  connected  through  the  priesthood,  lived  inde- 
pendently near  each  other,  cherishing  their  love  of  strife,  and 
training  up  their  youth  in  civil  quarrels,  without  manifesting 
at  a  later  period,  in  the  days  of  the  destruction  of  the  common 
liberty,  the  judgement  and  energy  necessary  for  a  general  re- 
sistance^. The  power  of  these  princes  was  much  limited  by 
the  before-mentioned  castes,  and  consisted  chiefly  in  military 
command. 

In  the  southern  parts  of  England,  which  had  become  more 

1  Athen.  lib.  iv.  c.  37.     Pharsal.  lib.  i.  v.  44/  sq. 

2  May  not  an  instance  to  the  contrary  possibly  exist  in  the  original  saga 
of  Beowulf?— T.  ^  Csesar,  B.  G.  vi.  13. 

*  The  royal  authority  and  even  military  command  could  also  be  exer- 
cised by  a  female,  as  in  the  instances  of  Cartismandua  and  Boudicea. 
"  Diod.  lib.  V.  21.     Tac.  Agric.  c.  xii. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  13 

civilized  through  commerce,  the  cultivation  of  grain,  to  which 
the  mildness  of  the  climate  was  favourable,  had  been  greatly- 
improved  by  the  art  of  marling  \  The  daily  consumption  was 
taken  from  the  unthrashed  corn,  preserved  in  caves,  which  they 
prepared  for  food,  but  did  not  bake  as  bread^.  Horticulture 
was  not  in  use  among  them,  nor  the  art  of  making  cheese^ ; 
yet  the  great  number  of  buildings,  of  people,  and  of  cattle  ^ 
appeared  striking  to  the  Romans,  Copper  and  bits  of  iron, 
according  to  weight,  served  as  money'*.  Their  custom  of 
painting  themselves  with  blue  and  green,  for  the  purpose  of 
terrifying  their  enemies,  as  well  as  that  of  tattooing^,  was  re- 
tained till  a  later  period  by  the  Picts  of  the  North.  At  certain 
sacrifices,  even  th.e  women,  painted  in  a  similar  manner,  re- 
sembling Ethiopians,  went  about  without  clothing'^.  Long 
locks  and  mustachios  were  general.  Like  the  Gauls,  they 
decorated  the  middle  finger  with  a  ring^.  Their  round  simple 
huts  of  reeds  or  wood  resembled  those  of  that  people^,  and 
the  Gaulish  checquered,  coloured  mantles  are  still  in  common 
use  in  the  Scottish  Highlands.  Their  clothing,  more  especially 
that  of  the  Belgic  tribes  of  the  South,  enveloped  the  whole 
body ;  a  girdle  encircled  the  waist,  and  chains  of  metal  hung 
about  the  breast^.  The  hilts  of  their  huge  pointless  swords 
were  adorned  with  the  teeth  of  marine  animals  ^" ;  their  shields 
W'ere  small '^  The  custom  of  fighting  in  chariots  (called  by  ^ 
them  esseda,  covini'^),  on  the  axles  of  which  scythes  were 
fastened,  and  in  the  management  of  w  hich  they  showed  great 
skill,  was  peculiar  to  this  and  some  other  of  the  Celtic  nations, 
in  a  generally  level  country,  and  where  the  horses  were  not 

^  Plin.  H.  N.  xvii.  4.     Tac.  Agric.  xii.     Diod.  v.  21. 

-  Diod.  V,  21.  3  strabo,  lib.  iv.  •»  Cssar,  B.  G.  v.l2. 

*  Caesar,  B.G.v.  14.  "Virides  Britanni."  Ov.Amor.  lib.  ii.  16.  "Cserulei 
Britanni."  Mart.  Epig.  liv.  Plin.  H.  N.  lib.  xxii.  2.  Claud.  Prim.  Cons. 
Stil.  lib.  ii.  r.  24/.     Pomp.  Mela,  iii.  6.     Sol.  Polyh.  c.  xxii. 

6  Plin.  H.  N.  xxii.  2.  7  Plin.  H.  N.  xxxiii.  6. 

8  Strabo,  iv,     Diod.  v.  21.  »  Die  ap.  Xiph.  Ixii. 

"  This  was  rather  the  custom  of  tlie  inhabitants  of  Ireland.     Sol.  Polyh. 
c.  xxii.— T.  11  Tac.  Agric.  xxxvi.  i-  Pomp.  Mela,  iii.  6. 


14  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

sufficiently  powerful  to  be  used  for  cavalry.  The  charioteer 
was  the  superior  person,  the  servant  bore  the  weapons.  They 
begun  their  attacks  with  taunting  songs  and  deafening  howls  ^ 
Their  fortresses  or  towns  consisted  in  the  natural  defence  of 
impenetrable  forests^.  In  the  interior  of  the  country  were 
found  only  the  more  rugged  characteristics  of  a  people  engaged 
in  the  rearing  of  cattle,  which,  together  with  the  chase,  sup- 
plied skins  for  clothing,  and  milk  and  flesh  for  food^.  The 
northern  part  of  the  country  seems  in  great  measure  to  have 
been  abandoned  to  the  shaft  and  javelin  of  the  roving  hunter, 
as  skilful  as  he  was  bold'*.  That  every  ten  or  twelve  men  of 
near  relationship  possessed  their  wives  in  common,  but  that 
the  one  earliest  married  was  regarded  as  the  father  of  all  the 
children,  is  probably  a  mere  Roman  fable  ^.  Simplicity,  in- 
tegrity, temperance,  with  a  proneness  to  dissension,  are  men- 
tioned as  the  leading  characteristics  of  the  nation^.  The 
reputation  of  bravery  was  more  especially  ascribed  to  the 
northern  races ^. 

A  much  more  favourable  picture  of  the  social  condition  of 
the  ancient  Britons  may  be  drawn  from  the  Triads  of  Dyvnwal 
Moelraud,  who  is  said  to  have  lived  several  centuries  before 
the  Christian  era^,  if  those  Triads  have  even  the  slightest  claim 

1  Csesar,  B.  G.  iv.  33,  v.  16.  Strabo,  iv.  Tac.  Agric.  xii.  Diod.  v.  21. 
Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixii.     Pomp.  Mela,  iii.  6. 

2  Caesar,  B.  G.  v.  21.     Strabo,  iv. 

3  Caesar,  B.  G.  v.  14.  The  abundance  of  milk  and  skins  is  mentioned 
in  Eumenii  Panegyr.  ad  Constan.  Aug.  c.  ix.  Cf.  eund.  ad  Constan. 
Caes.  c.  xi. 

•*  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixxvi.  12. 

*  Caesar,  B.  G.  v.  14.     Diodorus  does  not  mention  this  custom. 

6  Diod.  V.  21,  22.     Pomp.  Mela,  iii.  6.     Tac.  Agric.  xii. 

'  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixxvi. 

^  ["Before  the  crown  of  London  and  the  supremacy  of  this  island  were 
seized  by  the  Saxons,  Dyvnwal  Moelmud,  son  of  Clydno,  was  king  over 
this  island,  who  was  son  to  the  earl  of  Cernyw,  by  a  daughter  of  the  king 
jf  Lloegyr.  And  his  laws  continued  in  force  until  the  time  of  Howel  the 
Good,  son  of  Cadell."  '  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales,'  pp.  89 
and  630.  In  a  note  the  learned  editor,  Mr.  A.  Owen,  adds,  "Dyvnwal, 
according  to  the  Chronicle  of  the  Kings,  in  the  book  of  Basingwerke  (a 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  15 

to  be  considered  genuine  which  have  reached  us  only  in  a  very 
modern  manuscript,  and  exhibit  not  only  traces  of  Roman  and 
Saxon  influence,  but  also  of  numerous  interpolations  subse- 
quent to  the  introduction  of  Christianity. 

Of  the  British  tribes,  the  first  to  be  mentioned  are  the 
Cantii,  or  men  of  Kent.  They  were  governed  by  four 
princes'.  Northward  of  the  Thames,  as  far  as  the  river  Stour, 
in  the  present  counties  of  Middlesex  and  Essex,  dwelt  the 
Trinobantes,  whose  capital,  London,  was  already  a  consider- 
able emporium.  To  the  north  of  the  Stour,  in  Suffolk,  dwelt 
the  Cenimagni,  a  tribe  of  the  Iceni ;  in  Norfolk,  Cambridge- 
shire and  Huntingdonshire,  the  rest  of  the  Iceni,  whose  chief 
town  bore  the  common  Celtic  appellation  of  Venta.  The 
Catuvellani,  or  Katyeuchlani  of  Ptolemy,  inhabited  the  present 
counties  of  Hertford,  Bedford  and  Buckingham. 

The  Coritavi  (Coriniaidd),  who,  as  the  Triads  relate,  had 
migrated  from  a  Teutonic  marshland,  possessed  the  present 
counties  of  Northampton,  Leicester,  Rutland,  Lincoln,  Not- 
tingham and  Derby.  Beyond  them,  in  the  eastern  part  of 
Yorkshire,  dwelt  the  Parisi. 

The  most  powerful  people  were  the  Brigantes,  who  held 
the  country  to  the  north  of  the  Humber  and  the  Mersey, 
comprising  the  counties  of  York,  Durham,  Lancaster  and 
Westmoreland.  The  Caer,  or  city  Luel  (Luguvallum,  Lugu- 
balia,  or  Carlisle),  in  the  country  of  the  Cumbri,  on  this  side 
of  the  Picts^  wall,  remained  long  the  seat  of  its  original  in- 
habitants.    Cataractonium  and  Vinnovium  may  here  also  be 

Welsh  version  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  compilation),  flourished  from 
anno  b.c.  694  to  667."  Of  these  triads  Mr.  Owen  says  (Pref.  p.  vii), 
"  Their  antiquity  is  very  dubious,  but  in  their  present  form  and  phraseology 
they  may  be  attributed  to  the  sixteenth  century." — T.]  See  also  '  The 
Ancient  Laws  of  Cambria  '  translated  by  W.  Probert,  1823.  Cf.  Gervinus 
in  den  Heidelberg.  Jahrbiichern  1831,  Ss.  46-49,  and  Palgrave's  '  Rise  and 
Progress  of  the  Enghsh  Commonwealth,'  vol.  i.  c.  ii. 

•  Ctesar,  E.  G.  v.  22.  Ptolemy  places  London  in  the  territory  of  the 
Cantii.     [See  also  Anc.  Laws  and  Instt.  of  Engl.,  p.  14,  fol.  ed. — T.j 


16  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

distinguished  as  having  evidently  preserved  themselves  under 
the  names  of  Catterick  and  Binchester.  To  this  people  be- 
longed also  the  Jugantes  and  the  Cangi. 

The  ancestors  of  the  Welsh  were  the  Ordovices,  whose  ter- 
ritory comprised  the  counties  of  Montgomery,  Merioneth, 
Caernarvon,  Anglesea,  Denbigh  and  Flint;  the  Dimetae  in 
Caermarthen,  Pembroke  and  Cardiganshire,  and  the  most 
powerful  tribe  of  those  parts,  the  Silures,  inhabiting  the 
present  shires  of  Hereford,  Radnor,  Brecknock,  Monmouth 
and  Glamorgan. 

Hampshire,  Somersetshire  and  Wiltshire,  from  the  English 
to  the  Bristol  channel,  were  occupied  by  the  Belgae,  where  a 
city,  Venta,  is  still  to  be  recognised  in  the  modern  AVin- 
chester. 

The  ancient  tin  country,  the  Bretland  of  the  Northmen, 
now  Cornwall  and  Devonshire,  was  inhabited  by  the  Dum- 
nonii  or  Damnonii.  The  Roman  incursions  not  having  reached 
this  south-west  corner  of  the  province,  we  consequently  pos- 
sess the  fewest  accounts  of  the  period  relative  to  that  part  of 
the  country  which  was  first  known  to  the  three  ancient  di- 
visions of  the  globe. 

Between  the  Duranonii  and  the  Bclgae,  in  the  present  Dor- 
setshire, dwelt  the  Durotriges  :  in  the  counties  of  Gloucester 
and  Oxford,  the  Dobuni.  The  Atrebates,  whose  chief  city 
was  Calleva^,  were  settled  in  Berkshire.  In  the  vicinity  of 
these  we  are  to  look  for  the  small  tribes  mentioned  by  Caesar, 
of  the  Segontiaci,  Ancalites,  Bibroci  (Bibracte  in  Bray  Hun- 
dred, on  the  Thames,  below  Windsor),  and  the  Cassi'^. 

1  Anton.  Itin.,  Ric.  Corin.  p.  148,  edit.  1809. 

^  For  the  geography  of  Britain  under  the  Romans,  Camden's  '  Bri- 
tannia '  is  especially  to  be  consulted.  See  also  the  works  of  Horsley  and 
Stukeley.  The  appendix  to  the  first  book  of  Henry's  History  of  Great  Britain 
contains  a  very  useful  illustration  and  comparison  of  the  texts  of  Ptolemy 
and  Antoninus,  and  of  the  extracts  relative  to  Britain  in  the  'Notitia  Imperii 
Occidentalis.*  The  itineraries  of  Antoninus  and  of  Richard  of  Cirencester, 
with  the  illustrations  by  Gale,  Horsley,  and  Stukeley,  are  given  by  Whitaker 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  17 

The  Cornabiij  or  Carnabii,  inhabited  the  present  counties 
of  Warwick,  AVorcester,  StafFord,  Salop  and  Chester,  and 
probably  a  part  of  Flint.  In  the  last-mentioned  county,  or 
in  that  of  Chester,  the  monastery  of  Bangor  (Banchor  Iscoed) 
was  seated,  the  most  celebrated  religious  foundation  in  the 
island,  till  its  destruction  and  the  slaughter  of  its  inmates  b^'- 
^thelfrith  of  Northumbrian 

The  Scottish  and  Irish  races  (for  a  knowledge  of  whose 
names  we  are  chiefly  indebted  to  Ptolemy)  form  matter  ex- 
clusively for  the  separate  history  of  those  nations.  Here  it  is 
only  necessary  to  observe,  that  to  the  north  of  the  Brigantes 
dwelt  the  Micatse,  consisting  of  five  tribes,  and  beyond  them 
the  Caledonians^. 

The  Britons  had  lived  hitherto  without  intercourse  with 
the  south  of  Europe,  except,  as  before  mentioned,  through 
the  medium  of  a  few  travellers,  and  an  inconsiderable  com- 
merce, carried  on  for  the  most  part  by  intermediate  agents, 
when  they  learned  that  the  mighty  Roman  people  from  the 
South  had  already  advanced  upon,  and  subdued  many  of  their 
Gaulish  brethren.  Valiant,  and  mindful  of  their  own  danger, 
the  Britons  endeavoured,  though  vainly,  by  sending  succours 
to  the  Veneti,  to  support  the  Gauls  against  their  victorious 
foe^;  but  this  inefficient  help  served  only  as  a  ground  for 
Roman  policy,  or  a  pretext  to  the  Roman  general  for  risking 
an  attack  on  the  unsubdued  island.  Its  inhabitants  soon  re- 
ceived intelligence  from  foreign  traders,  that  the  Roman  com- 
mander was  making  preparations  for  an  invasion,  and  they 
beheld  a  Roman  captain,  C.  Volusenus,  in  a  ship  of  war  re- 

at  the  end  of  his  '  History  of  Manchester.'  The  notions  of  the  ancients  re- 
garding the  form  of  Britain,  and  its  coasts  as  given  by  Ptolemy,  are  most 
ably  illustrated  by  Mannert.  [The  localities  of  the  several  tribes  given  in 
this  translation  are  from  Petrie's  '  Corpus  Historicum.' — T.] 

1  Beda,  ii.  2.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  607.  Ric.  Corin.  lib.  i.  c.  6.  §  27.  "Ban- 
chorium  monasterium  totius  insuliE  celeberrimura,  quod  in  contentione 
Augustini  eversum,  non  postea  resurrexit." — T. 

2  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  lib.  Ixxvi.  10.  ^  Ceesar,  B.  G.  iii.  9- 

VOL.  I.  C 


18  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

connoitring  their  coasts  Some  of  the  British  tribes,  either 
terrified  by  the  fame  of  the  conquerors  of  more  regions  than 
they  had  ever  heard  of,  or  with  the  view  of  amusing  the  enemy 
by  negotiations,  sent  ambassadors  across  the  sea  to  the  Roman 
camp,  promising  hostages  and  submission. 

They  were  received  in  the  kindest  manner  by  their  ambi- 
tious enemy,  whom  they  assured  of  the  early  fulfilment  of 
those  promises,  and  were  accompanied  on  their  return  by  a 
chieftain  named  Commius,  whom  the  Romans  favoured,  on 
account  of  his  valour,  his  judgement,  and  his  reputation,  and 
had  placed  as  king  over  the  Gaulish  Atrebates,  and  who  now 
undertook  the  commission  of  persuading  the  Britons  into  a 
reliance  on  the  Roman  people,  and  of  announcing  the  early 
arrival  of  their  general.  Scarcely,  however,  had  Commius 
made  known  his  commission  in  the  public  assembly,  when — 
although  it  was  the  duty  of  their  pi'inces  to  protect  the  sacred 
character  of  an  ambassador — the  enraged  people,  divining  the 
drift  of  the  deceitful  words,  seized  on  the  speaker,  and  loaded 
him  with  chains.  The  Britons  collected  their  hordes,  which 
they  skilfully  posted  on  the  eminences  along  the  shore^.  The 
Romans,  of  whom  the  infantry  of  two  legions  had  crossed  over 
from  the  country  of  the  Morini^,  did  not  at  first  venture  upon 
landing,  but  observing  the  moment  of  the  ebb,  they  attempted 
it  upon  a  level  tract  of  shore  about  seven  miles  distant'. 
Here  were  British  cavalry  and  war-chariots  arrayed  before  the 
foot,  who  for  some  time  skilfully  and  boldly  held  the  invaders 
in  check :  but  the  eagle-bearer  of  the  tenth  legion,  after  ex- 
horting his  comrades,  leaped  into  the  sea,  and  rushed  to  the 
onset,  when  the  missiles  of  the  enemy,  Roman  valour,  enthu- 
siasm for  their  leader,  the  great  Caius  Julius  Cffisar — under 
whom  it  was  regarded  a  greater  disgrace  to  see  the  glory  of 
victory  even  slightly  tarnished,  than  to  be  beaten  under  any 

'  A.c.  55.  ^  Where  Dover  now  is. — T. 

3  Orosius,  vi.  9.  ^  Near  the  present  Deal. — T. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  19 

other  general — but  above  all,  superior  discipline,  effected  the 
hostile  landing  \ 

In  these  encounters,  the  war-chariots  of  the  Britons  called 
forth  the  admiration  of  their  invaders.  Their  manner  of  fight- 
ing from  chariots  was  this : — At  first  they  rode  in  all  direc- 
tions, casting  their  darts,  and  with  the  dread  of  their  horses 
and  noise  of  their  wheels  generally  succeeded  in  disturbing 
the  ranks  of  the  enemy.  Having  made  an  opening  in  the 
bodies  of  cavalry,  they  would  leap  from  the  chariots  and  fight 
on  foot :  meanwhile  the  charioteers  gradually  withdz'awing 
from  the  battle,  would  post  the  chariots  so  that,  if  pressed  on 
by  numbers,  their  comrades  might  find  a  certain  retreat ;  thus 
evincing  both  the  rapidity  of  cavalry  and  the  firmness  of  in- 
fantry. From  constant  exercise  they  could  drive  their  horses 
at  full  speed  down  a  declivity,  or  along  a  precipice,  checking 
and  turning  them  instantaneously ;  and  would  run  along  the 
pole,  sit  on  the  yoke,  and  thence  in  an  instant  reseat  them- 
selves in  their  chariots. 

The  Britons,  in  their  first  consternation,  imagining  the 
danger  greater  than  it  really  was,  sent  ambassadors  to  Caesar, 
accompanied  by  the  prince  of  the  Atrebates,  Commius,  offer- 
ing to  give  hostages,  to  place  themselves  under  the  protection 
of  the  Romans,  and  entreating  forgiveness  for  the  outrage 
committed  on  his  ambassador. 

In  his  glad  surprise  Ctesar  could  not  do  otherwise  than 
lend  a  willing  ear  to  these  proposals ;  the  British  warriors 
were  therefore  sent  back  to  their  fields,  and  their  princes 
came  to  Caesar,  for  the  purpose  of  commending  themselves 
to  his  protection.  They  soon,  however,  remarked  that  the 
valour  of  their  enemy  had  deceived  them  w  ith  regard  to  his 
numbers,  and  moreover  learned  that  the  ships,  which  had 
been  expected  with  the  cavalry  and  grain,  were  dispersed 
in  a  storm.  Hereupon  the  resolution  soon  ripened  among 
them  of  freeing  for  ever  their  native  land  from  this  daring 

*  Aug.  26.  Anno  u.c.  699.  a.c.  53.     Caesar,  B.  G.  iv.  21-23. 

C  2 


x/ 


20  BRITAIN  UxNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

foe.  They  withdrew  from  the  Roman  camp,  gathered  their 
warriors,  and  attacked  the  seventh  legion  that  had  gone 
out  to  forage,  but  to  which  Caesar  sent  timely  help.  Some 
days  afterwards,  in  an  attempt  upon  the  Roman  camp,  they 
w^ere  repulsed  with  loss,  though,  for  want  of  cavalry,  not 
pursued.  On  the  same  day  they  sent  messengers  to  sue  for 
peace,  from  whom  Caesar  demanded  a  number  of  hostages, 
the  double  of  that  which  he  had  previously  required,  and  the 
equinox  being  at  hand,  hastened  to  avoid  a  dangerous  contest 
with  the  elements  by  a  speedy  return  to  Gaul.  The  Romans 
at  home  were,  however,  elated  at  his  account  of  their  new  ac- 
quisition, and  in  celebration  of  it  decreed  a  festival  of  twenty 
days'  continuance  ^  Thus  terminating  Avhat-^save  for  the 
gratification  of  his  own  vanity — may  be  considered  a  bootless 
adventure. 

But  this  light  prelude  was  soon  to  be  followed  by  a  sterner 
contest.  The  following  summer  Caesar  again  trod  the  British 
shores  with  a  greater  power ^ — five  legions,  two  thousand 
cavalry,  and  all  their  military  engines,  to  which  -was  attached 
an  elephant  armed  with  scales  of  iron,  and  bearing  a  tower  con- 
taining archers  and  slingers^, — and  met  with  no  resistance,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  coast,  who  had  at  first  appeared  in  arms  on 
the  level  shore,  terrified  at  the  magnitude  of  the  approaching 
<^"  fleet,  having  retired  to  the  higher  points  of  land.  An  internal 
dissension,  fostered  by  Mandubratius'*,  the  son  of  Imanuentius, 
the  powerful  prince  of  the  Trinobantes,  who  had  been  slain 
by  Cassivellaunus  (Caswallon),  devastated  the  country.  Small 
was  the  benefit  which  the  barricades,  erected  in  the  forests 
against  domestic  foes,  affbrded  against  the  Romans,  in  com- 
parison with  the  detriment  they  sufiFered,  through  their  want 
of  union,  in  allowing  a  foreign  enemy  to  land  unassailed,  to 
repair  his  fleet,  and,  after  victories  easily  achieved,  to  march 

'  Caesar,  B.  G.  iv,  20-38.     Dio  Cass,  xxxix.  51-53.     Luc.  ii.  v.  572. 
2  ^  f,^  54_  3  Polyasn.  Strat.  viii.  23. 

^  Ccssar,  B.  G.  v,  20.     Oiosius  (vi,  9-)  calls  him  Andiogorius. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  21 

forward  to  the  heart  of  the  country.  The  Britons  at  length 
sacrificing  their  petty  quarrels  to  the  pressing  necessity  of 
struggling  for  independence,  intrusted  the  chief  military  com- 
mand to  the  brave  prince  of  the  Cassi^,  Caswallon,  who  had 
hitherto  been  engaged  in  constant  warfare  with  the  neigh- 
bouring states.  In  their  incursions  and  attacks  great  valour 
was  displayed  by  the  Britons,  yet  was  lack  of  discipline  the 
cause  of  much  disorder  after  a  mischance,  and  a  preventive 
to  their  engaging  in  a  general  battle.  The  enemy  had  ad- 
vanced as  far  as  the  Thames,  which  at  a  shallow  ford  they 
passed,  unhindered  by  the  strong  piles  that  had  been  driven 
into  the  bed  of  the  river  by  order  of  Caswallon,  remains  of 
which  existed  in  the  time  of  Beda ',  after  an  interval  of  seven 
hundred  years.  The  treachery  of  the  Trinobantes  and  other 
tribes,  who  had  submitted  to  the  invaders,  disheartened  the 
British  leader,  Avhose  fame  has  been  preserved  to  us  only  in 
the  honourable  testimony  of  Cresar.  His  well-planned  forest- 
fastness  was,  with  great  difficulty,  at  length  taken,  and  even 
then  he  attempted  an  attack  upon  the  Roman  camp  on  the 
coast  of  Kent,  with  the  design,  by  destroying  their  fleet,  of 
turning  the  land  they  had  conquered  into  a  prison.  No 
other  resource  being  left  him,  Commius  negotiated  for  his 
submission,  by  which  the  Romans  obtained  what  alone  they 
could  seek  in  this  to  them  inhospitable  land — the  glory  of 
victory ;  while  Caswallon  gained  that  which,  even  with  the 
disgrace  of  apparent  humiliation,  M-as  not  too  dearly  bought 
— the  evacuation  of  his  native  country  by  hostile  armies. 
This  time  hostages  were  actually  led  home  by  the  Romans, 
grain  was   delivered  to  them,   and   Rome  was  dazzled'^  by 

^  "Quarum  vestigia  sudiuni  ibidem  usque  hodie  visuntur,  et  videtur  in- 
spectantibus  quod  singula  earum  ad  modum  humani  femoris  grossrc,  et 
ciicumfusse  plumbo  iramobiliter  eiant  in  profundum  fluminis  infixse."  H.  E. 
i.  2,  The  exact  point  at  which  Cassar  crossed  is  not  known  with  certaintj' : 
Camden  supposes  it  to  have  been  at  Coway  Stakes,  near  Lalehara.  See 
Archaeo!.  vol.  i.  p.  184  ;  ii.  134,  1G8.— T. 

'  Not  so  the  better  informed.     Cicero,  in  a  letter  to  Atticus  (iv.  16.), 


22  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

Caesar's  account  of  the  riches  of  this  new  portion  of  the 
world,  and  by  a  corselet  adorned  with  British  pearls  which  he 
dedicated  to  Venus':  yet  the  promised  yearly  contributions 
were  not  paid,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  hostages,  the 
Britons  were  as  free  as  they  had  been  the  year  before,  ere  a 
passing  cloud  had  for  a  moment  darkened  the  sunshine  of 
their  independence,  though  to  the  steady  yet  powerful  in- 
fluence of  the  plastic  rays  of  the  Roman  star  the  Britons 
could  not  continue  insensible,  and  the  coins  of  their  prince 
Cynobellin,  the  Cymbeline  ennobled  in  tradition  and  by 
Shakspere's  muse,  prove  that  the  Roman  alphabet  was  in- 
telligible to  the  natives,  that  Roman  art  was  cultivated  in 
Britain^. 

A  century  had  nearly  elapsed,  and  the  Britons  had  seen  on 
their  soil  no  other  Romans  than  peaceful  merchants.  The 
duties  levied  in  Gaul  on  their  trifling  exports  and  imports 
were  moderate^.  On  the  rumour  of  an  intended  invasion, 
envoys  were  sent  by  them  to  the  emperor  Augustus'*;  yet 
Rome  heard  of  no  homage  from  Britain,  except  the  oflerings 
said  to  have  been  made  by  some  petty  princes  to  the  Capitol ^, 
and  in  the  empty  compositions  of  poets  and  panegyrists ;  and 
it  is  probable  that  the  Britons  would  never  have  yielded  to 
Roman  sway — for  the  strength  of  the  latter  was  already  in 
its  wane,  their  power  near  to  the  summit  from  which  it  must 
soon  descend — had  not  pernicious  discord  prevailed  among 
the  British  princely  races,  and  reduced  their  country  under  a 
subjection  of  four  hundred  years'  duration. 

writes,  "  Britannic!  belli  exitus  exspectatur.  Constat  enim  aditus  insulse 
esse  munitos  mirificis  molibus.  Etiam  illud  jam  cognitum  est,  neque  ar- 
genti  scripulum  esse  ullum  in  ilia  insula,  neque  ullam  spem  prsedse,  nisi  ex 
mancipiis."  Caesar,  v.  S-'JS. 

1  Plin.  H.  N.  ix.  57.     Sol.  Polyh.  c.  liii. 

^  See  Pegge's  Essay  on  the  Coins  of  Cunobeline  :  London,  1766.  In 
Whitaker's  History  of  Manchester  representations  of  these  coins  are  given. 
See  also  Henry's  History  of  Great  Britain,  vol.  ii. 

^  Strabo,  iv.  ^  Dio  Cass.  liii.  22. 

^  Strabo,  iv. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  23 

Adminius^,  the  son  of  Cynobellin,  a  successor  of  Cas- 
wallon^  having  been  banished  by  his  father,  had,  with  a  few 
followers,  placed  himself  under  the  power  of  Caligula,  who,  as 
if  the  whole  island  had  been  surrendered  to  him,  immediately 
sent  despatches  to  Rome  announcing  the  glorious  intelligence. 
The  forces  raised  for  the  German  war  were  hereupon  ordered 
to  the  coast,  where  being  arrayed,  with  their  military  engines 
in  readiness,  and  while  in  suspense  as  to  what  was  to  follow, 
the  emperor  went  on  board  a  trireme,  in  which  having  pro- 
ceeded a  short  distance  from  the  shore,  he  placed  himself  at 
his  return  on  a  lofty  throne,  from  whence  he  gave  a  signal  as 
if  for  battle,  and  to  the  sound  of  trumpets  ordered  the  sol- 
diers to  gather,  and  fill  their  helmets  and  bosoms  with,  shells, 
calling  them  'the  spoils  of  the  ocean';  and,  as  a  monument 
of  victory,  caused  a  lofty  tower  to  be  built,  which  at  the  same 
time  should  serve  as  a  beacon.  Considerable  rewards  were 
then  given  to  the  soldiers,  and  the  shells  borne  in  triumph  to 
Rome^. 

This  treachery,  however,  proved  hurtful  only  through  the 
example  which  it  soon  after  afforded  to  an  exile  named  Beric, 
at  whose  instigation  the  emperor  Claudius  resolved  on  sending 
an  army  to  Britain^.  The  warlike  reputation  of  the  natives 
was  so  universally  acknowledged,  that  the  four  legions  destined 
to  contend  with  them,  under  the  command  of  Aulus  Plautius, 
could  scarcely  be  induced  to  break  up  their  quarters.  Sur- 
prised, however,  by  the  landing  of  the  enemy,  the  Britons 
were  not  in  a  condition  to  oppose  it,  and  proved  their  valour 
only  in  a  warfare  of  skirmishes.     The  Gaulish  allies  of  the 

*  Orosius  (vii.  5.)  calls  him  Minocynobellinus. — T. 

2  Suet,  de  Calig.  c.  xlvi.     Dio  Cass.  lix.  21.     a.d.  40. 

3  A.D,  43.  Dio  Cass.  Ix.  19.  Suet,  de  Claud,  c.  xvii.  Orosius  says  (vii.  6.), 
"  Expeditionem  in  Britanniam  movit,  qua2  excitata  in  tumultum  propter 
non  redhibitos  transfugas  videbatur."  The  fugitives  were  probably  Beric 
and  his  associates,  and  the  disturbance,  caused  by  the  emperor's  refusal  to 
deliver  them  up,  seems  to  have  served  him  as  a  pretext  for  invading  the 
island. — T. 


24  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

imperial  forces,  even  if  at  the  outset  they  spared  the  lives  of 
their  kindred,  and  only  slew  their  chariot-horses,  must  in  the 
end  cause  great  injury  to  them.     The  glory  of  the  first  im- 
portant victory  in  Britain,  and  the  honour  of  a  triumph  at 
home,  belong  to  Cn.  Osidius  Geta^     This  country  was  the 
palaestra  of  the  Roman  emperors.     Vespasian,  at  the  head  of 
the  second  legion,  accompanied  by  Titus,  fought  here  thirty 
battles,  subdued  the  Isle  of  Wight,  overcame  two  nations, 
and  took  twenty  places^.  The  war  now  assuming  a  more  serious 
character,  Plautius,  as  he  had  been  previously  instructed,  re- 
solved on  sending  for  the  emperor.     Claudius  was  accompa- 
nied by  Galba,  the  administration  of  the  state  being  conducted 
by  VitelUus  during  the  absence  of  the  emperor.     Cynobellin 
was  now  dead ;  of  his  sons,  Togodumnus  and  Caractacus,  or 
Caradoc,  the  former  had  fallen  in  battle,  the  latter  was  driven 
across  the  Thames,  and  Claudius,  honoured  with  the  surname 
of  the  Britannic,  entered  their  chief  city,  Camulodunum^. 
From  this  place,   by  means  of  negotiations  and  arms,  he 
began  to  mould  the   south-eastern  parts  of  Britain  into  a 
Roman  province,  the  administration  of  which  was  committed 
to  Plautius,  and    afterwards    to    P.  Ostorius  Scapula"*.     A 
prince    named  Cogidubnus  obtained  some  territories  in  or 
about  Sussex,  which  he  was  proud  to  govern  under  the  title 
of  an  imperial  legate,  and  devoted  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the 
establishment  of  the  Roman  power  in  his  native  country^. 

1  Dio  Cass.  Ix.  20. 

"  Dio  Cass.  Ix.  20.  Eutrop.  lib.  vii.  c.  19.  Suet,  de  Vespas.  c.  iv. ;  de 
Tito,  c.  iv  ;  de  Galba,  c.  vii.     Tac.  Agric.  c.  xiv. 

3  Dio  Cass.  Ix.  21.  Suet,  de  Claud,  xvii.  Camulodunum  is  usually 
supposed  to  be  the  town  of  Maldon,  but  the  cogent  reasons  assigned  bv 
Mannert  and  others  induce  us  rather  to  identify  it  with  Colchester.  See 
'  Gcogr.  der  Gricchen  und  Romer,'  p.  157.  [Roy,  Milit.  Antiq.  p.  187. 
Archaeol.  iii.  p.  165. — T.] 

■*  A.D.  50.  Tac.  Agric.  c.  xiv.  Camden  (edit.  Gibson,  p.  300)  supposes 
the  Oyster  hills  near  Hei'eford  to  have  been  one  of  his  camps.  Ostorius 
came  in  the  year  47. 

5  Tac.  Agric.  c.  xiv.  ,  The  hypothesis  of  several  commentators  on  this 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  25 

The  majority  of  the  inhabitants  who  had  attached  themselves 
to  the  conqueror  had,  however,  soon  cause  to  repent  that  step, 
on  perceiving  that  while  tlie  duty  of  subjects  was  exacted  from 
them,  they  were  at  the  same  time  deprived  of  the  right  of 
bearing  arms.  While  the  west  was  submitting  to  the  Roman 
camps  on  the  Avon  and  the  Severn,  the  Iceni  in  the  east 
were  the  first  to  declare  themselves  against  the  new  tyranny ; 
and  history,  when  relating  their  defeat,  celebrates  at  the  same 
time  their  many  and  brilliant  achievements.  Their  misfor- 
tune disheartened  the  similarly  disposed  neighbouring  states ; 
but  the  Cangi  and  the  Silures,  under  the  national  hero, 
Caradoc,  continued  a  war  of  annihilation  and  despair.  The 
Brigantes  also,  in  the  yet  unconquered  northern  parts,  now 
rose  for  the  protection  of  the  common  liberty ;  but  before  the 
league  among  them  had  become  general,  and  they  could  ap- 
pear prepared  for  the  contest,  they  were,  for  the  time,  reduced 
by  Ostorius,  who  with  his  army  marching  rapidly  against 
them,  caused  the  few  who  had  taken  up  arms  to  be  slain ;  the 
others  were  pardoned  ^ 

With  the  design  of  securing  the  subjection  of  the  vanquished, 
and  of  those  who  were  honoured  with  the  name  of  allies,  as 
well  as  of  establishing  a  stronghold  in  the  country  for  Roman 
interests  and  civilization,  a  colony  of  hardy  veterans  was  jjlaced 
at  Camulodunum^.  The  Roman  eagles  were  already  displayed 
over  the  plains  of  Britain,  when  the  Silures,  Ordovices,  and 

passage  of  Tacitus,  which  Lingard  also  adopts,  that  Togodumnus  and 
Cogidubnus  were  the  same  person,  appears,  on  comparison  with  Dio,  un- 
tenable. The  writers  of  the  '  Universal  History '  (vol.  xlvii.  p.  32)  make  him 
the  son  of  Cartismandua,  and  to  fall,  instead  of  Togodumnus,  in  battle 
against  the  Romans.  At  Chichester,  in  1723,  an  inscription  was  dug  up 
with  the  words,  "  Ex  auctoritate  Tiberii  Claudii  Cogidubni  regis  legati 
Augusti  in  Britannia."  See  Gale  in  Philos.  Trans.  1723,  Oct.  31.  Hors- 
ley,  Brit.  Rom.  No.  76-  pp.  192,  333;  also  Henry,  History  of  Great 
Britain,  i.  p.  336.  The  fac-simile,  with  a  somewhat  different  explanation, 
is  given  in  Hearne's  Preface  to  Adam  de  Domerham. 
1  Tac.  Ann.  xii,  32.  2  jbid. 


26  ^  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

other  mountaineers,  who  had  flocked  around  Caradoc,  begun 
a  new  struggle,  which  for  some  time  seemed  ruinous  to  the 
enemy;  yet  were  their  love  of  freedom,  their  reverence  for  the 
gods  of  their  country,  their  craft  and  valour  forced  to  give  way 
before  regular  warfare.  Caradoc's  town  (Caer  Caradoc^)  was 
taken  ;  his  wife,  daughter,  and  brother  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  conqueror.  Himself  sought  shelter  and  help  among  the 
Brigantes,  whom  he  had  formerly  befriended ;  but  their  queen, 
Cartismandua,  expecting  to  obtain  less  by  a  noble  struggle  for 
the  independence  of  her  people  than  through  the  favour  of  the 
Romans,  sought  to  purchase  the  latter  by  the  treacherous  sur- 
render of  her  guest  to  his  enemies,  whom  he  had  stoutly  re- 
sisted during  a  space  of  nine  years^.  But  though  with  his 
family  compelled  to  appear  as  a  glorious  spectacle  to  proud 
triumphant  Rome,  who  looked  on  this  fruit  of  treachery  as 
equal  to  the  most  brilliant  victories  of  Publius  Scipio  and 
Lucius  PauUus,  yet  were  the  brave  mountaineers  whom 
Caradoc  had  led  still  unsubdued.  The  Silures  attacked  the 
Roman  legions  appointed  to  erect  fortresses  among  them,  and 
although  they  often  gave  ground,  the  enemy  could  boast  of 
no  victory :  his  forces — which  could  hope  only  with  the  last 
of  the  Silures  to  quell  the  spirit  of  British  independence — 
were  daily  diminishing,  Avhile  the  allies  of  the  Britons  daily 
increased.  Ostorius  died  of  griefs.  His  death  was  celebrated 
as  a  victory  by  the  Britons,  for  his  successor  Aulus  Didius 
Gallus  was,  by  reason  of  his  advanced  age,  far  from  formi- 
dable. Some  years  had  passed  when  Venusius,  the  husband 
of  Cartismandua,  from  whom  he  had  parted,  and  who  had 
married  Vellocatus,  one  of  his  shield -bearers,  placed  himself 
at  the  head  of  his  people,  in  opposition  to  the  Romans,  whose 

^  A  lofty  hill  on  the  river  Ony,  near  the  junction  of  the  Clun  and  the 
Teme,  in  the  south-eastern  part  of  Shropshire,  still  bears  the  name  of  Caer 
Caradoc,  and  exhibits  traces  of  ancient  fortifications. 

^   A.D.  51.  ^   A.D.  55. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  27 

arms,  however,  under  the  skilful  guidance  of  Caisius  Nasica, 
succeeded  in  producing  a  momentary  tranquillity.  Didius 
was  succeeded  by  Veranius^ 

The  Britons  of  the  present  England  wxre  now,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, nearly  subjected  to  the  Romans ;  and  the  prefect 
or  legate,  Suetonius  Paullinus,  the  successor  of  Veranius, 
after  two  years  of  tranquil  administration,  resolved  on  the 
reduction  of  the  Isle  of  Mona  (Anglesey)^,  the  chief  seat  of 
druidism,  and  a  receptacle  for  fugitives.  To  this  end  he 
ordered  the  constrviction  of  shallow  vessels  for  the  transport 
of  the  foot-soldiers,  while  the  cavalry  should  either  swam  or 
wade  across  the  strait.  On  arriving  at  the  opposite  shore 
they  found  a  dense  band  of  armed  men,  between  whose  ranks 
women  like  furies  were  seen  passing,  clad  in  mourning,  with 
disheveled  locks,  and  bearing  torches;  while  the  female  druids 
with  upraised  hands  poured  forth  maledictions  on  the  invaders. 
Appalled  and,  as  it  were,  petrified  at  this  spectacle,  the  soldiers 
stood  aghast  and  exposed  to  the  missiles  of  the  enemy,  till, 
on  the  exhortation  of  their  general,  not  to  fear  a  band  of 
fanatics  and  women,  they  rushed  to  the  onset,  overthrowing 
and  destroying  in  their  ow'n  fire  all  who  had  courage  to  resist. 
A  garrison  was  then  left  on  the  isle,  and  the  groves,  stained 
with  the  blood  of  human  victims,  fell  under  the  axe  of 
the  legionaries.  But  while  the  general  was  thus  engaged^, 
the  Britons  were  near  proving  successful  in  extirpating  the 
Romans  from  the  country.  These,  as  well  as  the  other 
provincials,  were  bitterly  exasperated  by  the  heavy  taxes,  in 
the  levying  of  which  they  were  exposed  not  only  to  the  rapa- 
city of  Roman  usurers — among  whom  was  Lucius  Anneeus 
Seneca'*,  in  whom  the  love  of  wisdom  and  of  base  lucre  existed 
in  a  rare,  though  not  unexampled  combination — but  also  by 
the  most  intolerable  oppression  of  the  procurator  Catus,  and 
of  other  Roman  officials. 

< 

'  1  Tac.  Ann.  xii.  40,  xiv.  29.     Hist.  iii.  45.         ^  ^  jj_  gj^ 
3  Tac.  Ann.  xiv.  29.  *  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixii.  2. 


28  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS, 

No  tribe  endured  the  incorporation  of  their  country  as  a 
province  more  impatiently  than  the  Iceni.  Their  king,  the 
M'ealthy  Prasutagus,  in  the  view  of  securing  both  his  king- 
dom and  family  from  the  officers  and  farmers  of  the  revenue, 
and,  according  to  a  practice  then  prevalent,  seeking  in  de- 
gradation a  safeguard  against  insult,  had  made  the  emperor 
his  joint  heir  with  his  two  daughters.  The  atrocities  perpe- 
trated by  the  insolent  and  profligate  officials  of  the  provinces 
(whom  vice  instigated  more  than  the  desire  of  possession,  and 
whose  inordinate  lusts  had  been  excited  by  wantonness  to  a 
recklessness  of  all  the  rights  of  humanity,  as  well  as  of  their 
own  well-understood  intei'est,)  were  at  length  the  cause  that, 
under  the  conduct  of  Boudicea,  the  magnanimous  widow  of 
Prasutagus,  who  had  been  scourged  as  a  slave,  and  the  chastity 
of  whose  daughters  had  been  violated,  a  multitude  of  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  Britons^  surprised  the  Romans,  de- 
stroyed Camulodunum,the  important  emporium  London^,  and 
Verulam,  and  slaughtered  seventy  thousand  Romans  (including 
the  ninth  legion  under  the  legate  Petilius  Cerealis),  and  their 
traitorous  British  allies,  with  all  the  fury  of  vengeance  to 
which  the  violation  of  their  temples,  their  honour,  and  their 
domestic  hearths  could  impel  them'^.  Suetonius  PauUinus, 
in  a  contest  of  despair,  gained,  through  his  wedge-shaped 
array,  a  bloody  victory,  which,  after  the  fall  of  eighty  thou- 
sand Britons,  Boudicea  would  not  survive^ :  she  ended  her 
days  by  poison'^.     Yet  neither  the  want  of  regular  discipline, 

^  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixii.  1  sq. 

^  "  Londinium,  cognomento  quidern  colonic  non  insigne,  sed  copia  nego- 
tiatorum  et  commeatuum  maximc  celebre."  Tac.  Ann.  xiv.  33. 

^  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixii.  The  grove  of  Andraste  or  Andate,  the  British  god- 
dess of  victory,  is  mentioned  as  the  chief  place  where  these  atrocities  were 
perpetrated. — T.  ■•  a.d.  62. 

^  Tac.Ann.  xiv.  31-37.  Boudicea  is  described  by  Dio  (ap.  Xiph.)  as  of  the 
largest  size,  most  terrible  of  aspect,  most  savage  of  countenance,  and  harsh 
of  voice  ;  having  a  profusion  of  yellow  hair  which  fell  down  to  her  hips, 
and  wearing  a  large  golden  collar  ;  she  had  on  a  party-coloured  flowing 
vest  drawn  close  about  her  bosom,  and  over  this  she  wore  a  thick  mantle 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  29 

nor  the  reinforcements  of  the  Romans,  but  only  a  scarcity  of 
corn  in  the  following  winter  compelled  the  Britons  again  to 
submit  to  the  dominion  of  the  Caesars.  One  point,  however, 
was  gained  :  the  necessity  of  a  mild  administration  became 
understood  at  Rome.  The  procurator  Catus  was  succeeded 
by  Julius  Classicianus ;  the  general  by  Petronius  TurpiUanus ; 
his  followers  were  the  contemptible  Trebellius  Maximus,  and 
the  inactive  Vettius  Bolanus,  under  whose  inefficient  command 
the  Roman  soldiery  became  more  licentious,  the  Britons  more 
bold^  Among  the  Brigantes,  Venusius  had  fostered  enmity 
to  Rome  and  her  ally  Cartismandua ;  and  they  might  have 
hoped  to  overpower  the  Romans,  had  not  Vespasian,  at  that 
time  emperor,  appointed  Petilius  Cerealis  to  the  dignity  of 
consular  legate,  who,  after  an  entire  year  of  contest,  succeeded 
in  subduing  them:  yet  did  these  mountaineers  ever  rise  again 
with  renewed  strength^.  The  Silures  could  only  be  withheld 
from  further  strife  by  his  successor  Julius  Frontinus^,  who 
was  followed  in  the  administration  of  the  province  by  Cneius 
Juhus  Agricola'*,  a  leader  whose  glorious  memory  will  for  ever 
live  in  the  noble  monument  raised  to  his  father-in-law  by  the 
great  historian  of  the  empire. 

The  first  campaign  of  Agricola,  after  his  arrival,  was  against 
the  Ordovices,  who  had  attacked  and  nearly  annihilated  a 
body  of  Roman  cavalry  stationed  on  their  border.  Having 
destroyed  the  greater  part  of  this  people,  he  directed  his  at- 
tention to  the  reconquest  of  Mona,  which  had  recovered  its 
liberty  on  the  sudden  departure  of  PauUinus  to  quell  the  in- 
surrection under  Boudicea.  Though  without  vessels  for  the 
transport  of  his  soldiers,  the  energy  of  Agricola  was  not  to 
be  subdued.     He  caused  such  of  his  auxiliaries  as  were  most 


fastened  by  a  clasp.  Such  was  her  usual  dress,  but  at  this  time  she  also 
bore  a  spear.  By  the  same  authority  we  are  informed  that  she  died  of 
disease. — T. 

1  Tac.Ann.  xiv.  38.     Agric.  c.  xvi.  ;  Hist.  i.  60.  ^  ^^q,  70-75. 

^  A.D.  75-78.  ''  Josephus  de  Bell.  Jud.  vii.  4.     Tac.  Agric.  c.  vii. 


30  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

expert  in  swimming,  and  who  were  acquainted  with  the  loca- 
hty,  to  cross  the  strait,  on  whose  unlooked-for  approach  the 
surprised  inhabitants  sued  for  peace,  and  again  yielded  to  the 
Romans. 

But  Agricola  had  not  to  learn  that  tranquillity  could  be 
best  maintained  by  removing  the  causes  of  discontent,  and, 
acting  on  this  conviction,  he  undertook  the  work  of  reform, 
wisely  beginning  with  his  own  household.  He  checked  the 
abuses  connected  with  the  levying  of  the  taxes,  which  were 
even  more  intolerable  than  the  taxes  themselves.  The  summer 
immediately  following^  was  employed  in  improving  the  state 
of  the  army,  in  the  formation  of  camps,  and  other  measures 
for  the  security  of  the  province  ;  and  the  winter  was  passed 
in  introducing  among  the  rugged  natives  the  luxuries  and 
refinements  of  the  capital. 

To  this  end  neither  exhortations  nor  aid  were  wanting  on 
the  part  of  Agricola.  Temples,  baths  and  other  structures, 
both  public  and  private,  were  erected;  the  British  youth  M'cre 
instructed  in  the  language  and  learning  of  Rome ;  elegant  and 
costly  entertainments  became  fashionable,  and  w"ith  the  toga 
were  adopted  the  vices  of  the  imperial  city.  Among  the  in- 
experienced this  passed  under  the  name  of  politeness,  while 
it  was  a  part  of  their  servitude. 

In  the  third  year  of  his  government  Agricola  conducted  his 
forces  as  far  as  the  Tay,  where  he  established  strong  garrisons. 
In  his  fourth  year,  for  the  security  of  his  conquests,  he  caused 
a  line  of  forts  to  be  erected  between  the  Firths  of  Forth  and 
Clyde^.  With  a  view  to  the  future  subjugation  of  Ireland,  to 
which  he  had  been  excited  by  the  representations  of  an  exiled 
chief,  Agricola,  in  the  year  following,  extended  his  conquests 

1  A.D.  79. 

^  On  the  subject  of  the  Roman  walls  in  Britain,  the  reader  will  find  a 
very  able  digest  in  a  work  entitled  '  Eburacum,  or  York  under  the  Romans, 
by  C.  Wellbelovcd,'  8vo,  1842  :  which  contains  also  much  valuable  matter 
connected  with  the  latest  discoveries  in  Yorkshire  and  the  North,  as  well 
as  with  the  state  of  Roman  Britain  in  general.— T. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  31 

to  the  western  shores  of  Britain,  where  he  stationed  nume- 
rous forces,  to  be  in  readiness  for  ulterior  operations. 

In  the  summer  of  his  sixth  year  he  proceeded  with  an  army 
to  the  country  beyond  the  Forth,  while  a  fleet  coasting  along 
the  eastern  shore  seconded  his  designs.  At  the  sight  of  the 
ships  the  Britons  were  struck  with  amazement,  while  the 
Romans  were  equally  alarmed  by  accounts  of  the  valour  and 
activity  of  the  Caledonians.  These  in  the  night  attacked  the 
ninth  legion,  and,  having  slain  the  sentinels,  were  already  en- 
gaged in  a  sanguinary  contest  within  the  camp,  when  Agri- 
cola,  informed  of  their  movements  by  his  scouts,  commanded 
the  fleetest  of  his  horse  and  foot  to  follow  in  their  track.  The 
Caledonians  having  now  an  enemy  to  contend  against  in  front 
and  rear,  were  compelled  to  seek  for  safety  in  the  shelter  of 
their  marshes  and  forests. 

In  the  last  year  of  his  administration  Agricola  resolved  on 
another  expedition  into  Caledonia.     For  this  purpose  he  as- 
sembled his  sea  and  land  forces,  having  added  to  the  latter  a 
corps  of  tried  British  auxiliaries.     With  these  he  advanced 
to  the  Grampian  hills,  where  he  found  the  Britons,  under 
their  general  Calgacus,  to  the  number  of  thirty  thousand, 
drawn  up  in  battle  array,  their  foot  being  posted  in  lines  on 
the  declivity,  while  the  chariots  and  horse  occupied  the  level 
plain.     In  the  centre  of  his  battle  Agricola  placed  eight  thou- 
sand auxiliary  foot ;  his  legions  were  posted  in  front  of  the 
camp ;  three  thousand  horse  were  in  the  wings.     As  long  as 
they  fought  with  missiles,  the  advantage  appears  to  have  been 
on  the  side  of  the  natives ;  but  on  the  attack  of  three  Batavian 
and  two  Tungrian  cohorts  with  their  pointed  swords,  the 
Britons,  whose  long  ponderous  swords  without  points  and 
small  targets  were  but  ill  fitted  for  close  action,  were  com- 
pelled to  give  ground.      On  the  advance  of  other  cohorts 
their  horse  were  put  to  flight,  and  the  chariots  driven  in  dis- 
order among  the  infantry.     Those  of  the  Britons  who  had' 
occupied  the  summit  of  the  hills  now  descended,  with  the  de- 


32  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

sigrj  of  attacking  the  rear  of  the  Romans,  but  were  repulsed 
by  a  body  of  cavalry  which  had  been  held  in  reserve  by  the 
foresight  of  Agricola.  The  following  day  exhibited  to  the 
victors  the  spectacle  of  a  vast  solitude,  at  a  distance  the  smoke 
of  burning  dwellings,  but  not  a  vestige  of  a  living  being.  The 
loss  of  the  Britons  in  this  conflict  is  estimated  at  ten  thou- 
sand, that  of  the  Romans  at  three  hundred  and  sixty.  The 
army  then  retired  into  winter  quarters,  and  the  fleet,  having 
made  the  circuit  of  the  island,  returned  to  Sandwich  (Portus 
Trutulensis),  from  whence  it  had  sailed.  Triumphal  ornaments 
and  the  honour  of  a  statue  were  decreed  to  Agricola,  who 
shortly  after  delivered  up  his  province  to  a  successor,  returned 
to  Rome,  which,  according  to  order,  he  entered  by  night, 
and,  after  a  cold  reception  by  Domitian,  sank  into  obscurity 
amid  the  servile  crowds 

The  quiet  of  the  latter  years  in  the  greater  part  of  South 
Britain,  not  less  than  the  power  of  arms  in  other  districts  of 
the  country,  had  now  (when  the  Celtic  tribes  of  the  continent, 
notwithstanding  the  fruitless  endeavours  of  CI.  Civilis  in 
Belgic  GauP,  had  also  submitted  to  the  Romans)  greatly 
promoted  the  union  of  Britain  with  the  Roman  empire.  The 
politic  and  wise  administration  of  Agricola  completed  the 
Romanizing  of  the  British  Celts,  and  gave  to  the  larger  por- 
tion of  Britain  the  form  under  which  for  several  centuries  it 
was  governed,  and  at  the  same  time  caused  the  political  di- 
vision of  the  country  into  the  parts  which  from  later  settlers 
have  obtained  the  names  of  England  and  Scotland.  The 
form  of  government  under  which  the  country  was  acknow- 
ledged as  a  part  of  Europe,  while  it  destroyed  the  national 
unity  of  the  Britons,  must  in  its  connexion  with  the  whole 
administration  of  the  empire  be  here  briefly  delineated. 

The  division  into  Britannia  Inferior  and  Superior^  is  nearly 
identical  with  the  present  one  into  England  and  Scotland. 

'  Tac.  Agric.  c.  vii.— xl.        ^  Tac.  Hist.  iv.  15.        ^  Dio  Cass.  Iv.  23. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  33 

The  provinces  were :  Britannia  Prima,  or  the  district  to  the 
south  of  the  Thames  and  the  Bristol  Channel;  Britannia 
Secunda,  the  present  principality  of  Wales ;  Flavia  Cffisari- 
ensis,  so  called  from  the  master  of  Agricola,  which  extended 
from  the  Thames  to  the  Mersey  and  the  Humber.  Beyond 
the  Humber,  to  the  distance  of  twenty-five  miles  north  of  the 
Picts'  wall,  was  the  province  of  Maxima  Caesariensis,  bor- 
dering on  the  fifth  province  Valentia,  which  extended  to  the 
firths,  to  the  country  beyond  which  the  name  of  Vespasiana 
had,  it  is  said,  been  given ;  but  of  which,  as  the  memorial  of 
a  fruitless  occupation,  mention  is  made  only  in  the  work  of 
Richard  of  Cirencester,  discovered  (if  not  fabricated)  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century. 

The  supreme  civil  and  military  power  in  Britain  was  at 
first  vested  in  a  governor,  who  bore  the  high  title  of  Legatus, 
or  Consularis'.  The  Procurator  or  Quaestor  administered 
the  concerns  of  the  imperial  treasury,  levied  the  land-tax,  the 
poll-tax,  and  those  laid  on  certain  natural  productions.  Se- 
verus  divided  the  government  into  two  portions^.  When 
Constantine  parted  the  empire  into  four  governments,  Bri- 
tannia fell  to  that  which  was  placed  under  the  PrEcfectus 
Praetorio  Galliarum,  who  at  first  resided  at  Treves  and  sub- 
sequently at  Aries.  Under  a  vicar  of  the  prefect,  two  con- 
sulars  were  appointed  to  the  provinces  of  Maxima  Cassari- 
ensis  and  Valentia,  and  three  presidents  over  those  of  Bri- 
tannia Prima,  Britannia  Secunda,  and  Flavia  Caesariensis^. 
For  the  revenues  of  the  country,  a  Rationalis  Summarum 
Britanniarum,  a  Praepositus  Thesaurorum  Augustensium  in 
Britanniis,  and  a  Procurator  Cynegii  in  Britannia  Biennensis'* 
were  subordinate  to  the  Comes  I^argitionum  of  the  West. 

^  The  title  of  Prcefectus  or  Proprretor  oi'  Britain  occurs  only  in  later 
writers. 

-  Herodian.  iii.  24.  '■'   Zosim.  ii.  33.     Not.  Imp.  Occid.  c.  Ixviii. 

^  Not.  Imp.  c.  xxxiv.  For  Biennennis  Pancirol.  (p.  68)  reads  Dremtensis, 
but  without  adding  any  explanation.  Grsevius  (Thes.  torn,  vii.)  has  Ben- 
tensis,  and  cynegii  instead  of  the  gyuecii  of  the  earlier  editors. 

VOL.  I.  D 


34  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

Under  the  Comes  Largitionum  Privatarum  there  was  a  spe- 
cial Ration  ahs  Rei  Privatas  per  Britannias^.  We  can  here 
give  only  an  imperfect  outline  of  the  administration ;  the  de- 
tails, such  as  the  amount  of  revenue,  its  increase  or  diminu- 
tion, are  totally  unknown  to  us.  It  was  not,  however,  till 
after  the  time  of  Appian-  that  the  receipts  of  the  state  be- 
gun to  cover  the  expenses  of  the  government.  The  military 
force  in  Britain  under  the  Magister  Militum  Praesentalis, 
which  was  intrusted  to  the  Comes  Militum  Britanniarum, 
consisted  of  2200  infantry  and  200  cavalry ;  to  the  Comes 
Tractus  Maritimi  (at  a  later  period,  Litoris  Saxonici  per  Bri- 
tannias)  3000  infantry  and  600  horse ;  and  a  still  larger  force 
to  the  Dux  Limitum  Britanniarum,  of  14,000  infantry  and 
900  cavalry,  forming  together  an  army  of  19,200  infantry 
and  1700  cavalry.  The  British  Count  had  thirty-seven 
castella  to  defend ;  the  Count  of  the  Saxon  shore,  nine  for- 
tresses situated  on  the  coast  of  South  Britain,  from  the 
straits  of  Dover  to  Brancaster  in  Norfolk  and  Pevensey  in 
Sussex^.  The  frontier  fortresses  were  numerous  and  required 
strong  garrisons. 

The  number  of  these  officials  and — when  compared  with 
the  others  of  the  empire — the  narrow  limits  of  the  British 
province  lead  us  to  infer  the  existence  of  a  sufficient  object 
both  for  the  activity  and  cupidity  of  those  employed  in  the 
administration  and  their  subalterns;  an  inference,  indeed, 
which  seems  incompatible  with  the  current  opinion  of  the 
want  of  all  civilization  in  the  country.  More  important, 
however,  for  the  Britons  than  those  forms  in  which  the  am- 

'  Not,  Imp.  c.  xli.  -  See  his  preface. 

2  Not.  Imp.  cc.  xix.,  Ixxii.,  and  Pariciiol.  ibid.  p.  157.  Tlie  title  of  Comes 
Litoris  Saxonici  first  occurs  in  the  Notitia  Imperii  Occident,  composed  in 
the  time  of  Arcadius  and  Honorius.  The  conservation  of  peace  on  the  British 
coast  on  the  Atlantic  fell  much  more  naturally  to  the  Gaulish  coast  troops 
under  the  command  of  the  Dux  tractus  Armoricani  (Not.  Imp.  Occid.  i. 
86)  ;  though  the  chief  command  over  the  marine  in  those  parts  may,  as 
in  the  instance  of  Carausius,  have  sometimes  been  held  by  one  individual. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  35 

bition  of  a  few  Romans  found  a  step  to  higher  objects,  or  the 
rapacity  of  others  sought  the  means  of  gratification,  must 
have  been  the  economy  of  the  civic  constitution ;  and  here 
we  behold  those  advantages,  which  even  an  enemy  always 
brings  to  a  previously  isolated  country.  When  the  Romans 
abandoned  Britain  it  contained  twenty-eight  cities,  besides  a 
considerable  number  of  castelia,  ports,  and  small  communi- 
ties. Among  the  first,  we  know  of  two  municipia,  York  and 
Verulam ;  nine  colonies,  Camulodunum  (Maldon  or  Colches- 
ter), Rhutupiffi  (Richborough),  Londinium  Augusta  (London), 
Glevum  Claudia  (Gloucester),  Thermae  AqujE  Solis  (Bath), 
Isca  Silurum  (Carleon  in  Monmouthshire),  Camboricum 
(Chesterford  near  Cambridge),  Lindum  (Lincoln),  and  Deva 
Colonia  (Chester)  ;  also  ten  cities  which  had  obtained  the 
right  of  Latium :  Pterotone  (Inverness),  Victoria  (Perth), 
Durnomagus  (Caister  in  Lincolnshire),  Lugubalia  (Carlisle), 
Cattaractone  (Catterick),  Cambodunum  (Slack  in  Long- 
wood),  Coccium  (Blackrode  in  Lancashire?),  Theodosia  (Dun- 
barton),  Corinum  (Cirencester),  and  Sorbiodunum  (Old  Sa- 
rum),  the  last  colony  to  the  south-west  in  the  country  of  the 
free  Damnonii.  Volantium  (Ellenborough  in  Cumberland), 
so  rich  in  Roman  remains,  preserves  an  inscription,  from 
which  we  learn  that  it  had  Decurions  who  assembled  in  a 
public  building  destined  for  the  purposed  These  cities, 
therefore,  possessed  a  council  (Decuriones,  Curiales,  Muni- 
cipes),  with  magistrates  of  their  own  choosing  (Duumviri  and 
Principales),and  the  right  of  contentious  as  well  as  of  volun- 
tary jm-isdiction.  To  them  was ,  committed  the  levying  of 
taxes  in  their  districts,  and  it  is  known  how  the  joint  security 
of  the  civic  decurions  became  both  a  burthen  to  themselves 
and  brought  the  greatest  obloquy  on  their  order.  That  these 
abuses  had  also  found  their  way  into  Britain,  we  learn  from 

>  Petrie,  C.  H.  p.  cxiii.  No.  123.     Horsl.  B.  R.  68. 

D  2 


36  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

an  ordinance  of  Constantino  for  the  remedying  of  the  same 
in  this  country '.     Subsequently  to  the  time  of  that  emperor, 
the  Defensor   elected  by  the  whole    city,   more  especially 
against  the  oppi-essions  of  the  governor,  had  become  of  con- 
sideration.    The  establishment  of  corporations  at  Rome,  into 
which  certain  artizans  and  handicraftsmen  were  united,  was 
extremely  advantageous  to  them  when  they  were  removed 
into  foreign  provinces.     We  find  much  information  concern- 
ing these  colleges  in  ancient  inscriptions ;  and  it  is  very  pro- 
bable that,  together  with  the  trades  of  Rome,  this  form  of 
social   unions,   as  well  as  the  hereditary  obligation  under 
which  the  former  w^ere  conducted,  was  propagated  in  Britain, 
and  was  the  original  germ  of  those  guilds,  which  became  so 
influential  in  Europe  some  centuries  after  the  cessation  of 
the  Roman  dominion^. 

Great  caution  is  necessary  in  endeavouring  to  show  what 
ancient  British  elements  were  preserved  under  the  Romans. 
From  the  Latin  authors  we  can  extract  very  little  upon  the 
subject,  and  the  old  British  accounts  have  reached  us  in  a  form 
comparatively  modern  and  demonstrably  much  corrupted. 
In  the  larger  eastern  portion  of  the  country,  it  is  chiefly  in 
the  names  of  rivers  and  mountains  that  the  old  British  de- 
nominations have  been  preserved^;  those  of  tribes  and  of 
places  being  either  wholly  lost,  or  in  their  Roman  disguise 
scarcely  to  be  recognised ;  while  in  Gaul  the  old  names  may 
easily  be  traced.  As  rare  exceptions  may  be  mentioned  a 
few  places  known  through  commerce  prior  to  the  Roman 
conquests  in  the  north  of  Europe,  viz.  Vecta  (the  Isle  of 
Wight),  Dubris  (Dover),  the  county  of  Kent,  and  that  uni- 
versal mart  on  the  Thames,  which,  though  dignified  by  the 

'  Cod.  Theod.  xi.  tit.  7,  2. 

2  '  Collegium  lignatorum,'  inscrip.  at  Middleby  in  Scotland  :  '  fabrorura/ 
inscrip.  at  Chichester.  Horsley,  B.  R.  pp.  337,  342.  Petrie,  C.  H.  pp. 
cxii,  cxiii.     Cf.  also  Wilda,  '  Das  Gildenwesen  im  Mittelalter.' 

^  For  a  copious  enumeration  of  these  with  illustrations,  see  Chalmers's 
Caledonia,  vol.  i.  p.  33-36. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  37 

Romans  with  the  name  of  Augusta^  has  still  preserved  its 
ancient  appellation  of  London'. 

It  was  otherwise  beyond  the  mountains,  the  British  Apen- 
nines, which  separate  the  country  into  two  portions,  where, 
in  the  later  territory  of  the  Cymry,  comprising  Cumberland, 
the  south-east  of  Scotland,  Westmoreland  and  Lancashire ; 
in  Wales,  Cornwall,  Devonshire,  Man  and  Anglesey,  every 
philological  deduction  justifies  the  inference  of  a  purer  pre- 
servation of  the  British  stock.     Of  the  dialects  and  literature 
of  Wales  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  hereafter ;  it  may, 
however,  be  here  observed,  that  Cornwall,  so  late  as  the 
twelfth  century,  Avas  by  the  Norwegians  called  Bretland^, 
and  until  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  only  the  primi- 
tive British  or  Lloegrian   tongue  was  there   spoken ;    since 
which  time,  through  the  reformation  of  the  church  and  the 
spread  of  English   printed  books,  it  rapidly  declined,  till, 
about  half  a  century  ago,  on  the  death  of  its  last  preserver, 
a  very  aged  woman,  it  was  entirely  blotted  from  the  list  of 
living  dialects^.     Still  longer  has  the  old  Celtic  tongue  been 
preserved  in  the  Isle  of  Man''.     With  the  old  British  terri- 

'  "  Lundinium  vetus  oppidum,  quod  Augustam  posteritas  adpellavit." 
Amm.  Marcell,  xxvii.  8. 

2  See  Theodoric  the  monk  of  Trondhjem,  in  Hist,  et  Antiq.   Regum 
Norwegise,  apud  Langebek,  Scriptores  Rerum  Danicarum,  t.  v.  p.  315. 

^  From  1560  to  1602  the  Cornish  dialect  greatly  declined,  and  became 
limited  to  the  western  part  of  the  county,  where  it  was  preserved  till  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century.  Lhuyd  (Archseologia  Britannica,  p.  225- 
253)  gives  a  grammar  of  the  Cornish.  The  printed  books  in  this  dialect 
are  few,  and  only  three  or  four  in  manuscript.  Latterly,  however,  we  are 
indebted  to  the  late  Davies  Gilbert,  Esq.,  for  'Mount  Calvary,'  and  'The 
Creation  of  the  World,'  8vo.  The  first  is  in  old  Cornish  with  a  slight 
mixture  of  Saxon  or  Norse.  The  other  is  in  more  modern  Cornish,  written 
in  1611.  To  both  are  added  translations  made  by  J.  Knigwin  in  1682, 
together  with  several  small  Cornish  pieces.  Cf.  Borlase's  'Antiquities  of 
Cornwall.'  Oxf.  1758,  folio.  W.  Price,  '  Archseologia  Cornu-Britannica, 
containing  a  Cornish  Grammar  and  Vocabulary.'  Sherborne,  1790,  4to. 
Daines  Barrington  on  the  expiration  of  the  Cornish  language,  in  Archipol. 
vol.  iii.  p.  279,  vol.  v.  p.  81;  also  the  treatises  in  Grose's  '  Antiquaiian  ' 
Repertory','  vol.  ii. 

^  See  Henry  Rowland's  '  Mona  Antiqua  restaurata,  with  an  Appendix 


38  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

tories  may  perhaps  be  reckoned  the  tract  of  country  extend- 
ing from  the  Humber  to  the  Firth  of  Forth,  Avhich  after  the 
departure  of  the  Romans  was  formed  into  two  states,  the 
names  of  which,  Deifyr  and  Bryneich,  are  undoubtedly  Bri- 
tish. Here  are  also  several  British  names  of  places  that  have 
undergone  but  little  corruption. 

That  British  princes  of  the  old  reigning  native  families 
were  acknowledged  by  the  Romans  after  the  death  of  Cogi- 
dubnus,  is  by  no  means  improbable,  as,  according  to  their 
wise  policy,  it  was  thought  useful,  in  the  other  provinces,  of 
the  empire,  to  preserve  such  mediators,  as  it  were,  between 
themselves  and  nations  wholly  differing  from  them  in  speech, 
habits,  and  notions  of  right ;  yet  as  no  mention  of  their  names 
is  to  be  found  even  in  the  accounts  of  the  several  insurrec- 
tions in  Britain,  nor  on  coins  or  other  monuments,  they  must 
have  acted  a  part  Httle  beyond  that  of  rich  private  individuals, 
who  were  regarded  by  their  oppressed  countrymen  with  the 
respect  due  to  their  lineage,  as  well  as  with  lively  sympathy, 
and,  sometimes,  with  secret  hope.  British  tradition  speaks  of 
princes  of  Colchester,  of  Cornwall,  and  among  the  ^  Gewissi ' 
in  Warwickshire  and  Worcestershire,  during  the  sway  of  the 
Romans,  on  which,  however,  a  probable  hypothesis  may  rest 
in  favour  of  the  existence  of  certain  princely  famiHes,  from 
whom  many  of  the  ancient,  noble  and  wealthy  races  derived 
their  origin'. 

In  no  part  of  England  are  there  fewer  Roman  remains  than 
among  the  Damnonii  and  in  Wales.  To  explain  this  slight 
influence  of  the  Romans  by  the  supposition  of  greater  pliancy 

containing  a  comparative  table  of  primitive  and  derivative  words.'  Lond. 
1722  and  1766,  4to.  Also  'A  Practical  Grammar  of  the  Ancient  Gaelic, 
or  Language  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  usually  called  Manks,'  by  John  Kelly, 
Lond.  1808.     Some  translations  of  the  Scriptures  exist  in  this  dialect. 

'  The  continuation  of  such  princes  in  }3ritain  with  a  subordinate  autho- 
lity  is  adopted  by  Whitaker  (History  of  Manchester,  i.  p.  247).  By  Gib- 
bon (c.  xxxi.  note  184)  the  hypothesis  is  rejected,  while  Palgrave  (Rise  and 
Progress,  i.  p.  324)  favours  it.  What  is  here  stated  may  perhaps  suggest 
new  grounds  for  the  supposition. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  39 

and  weakness  in  the  natives  of  those  parts  is  not  justifiable, 
when  we  call  to  remembrance  the  noble  struggles  of  the 
Silures :  on  the  contrary^  we  may,  both  from  the  above  cir- 
CTimstance  and  from  the  fact  that  the  western  coasts  of  En- 
gland continued  free  from  attacks  from  the  opposite  shore  of 
Ireland,  conclude  that  those  people  who  were  able  to  preserve 
the  most  striking  sign  of  distinct  nationality  in  their  native 
tongue,  continued  in  reality  as  respected  allies  of  the  Romans ; 
the  Roman  chancery  too  might,  in  such  a  case,  find  it  easy 
to  forget,  that  to  the  unity  of  their  power  in  Britannia  Prima 
and  Secunda  some  districts  were  wanting,  and  the  treasury 
not  unwillingly  forgo  the  contributions  and  taxes  of  the  coasts 
on  the  Atlantic. 

This  view  of  the  limits  of  the  real  dominion  of  Rome,  and 
of  the  condition  of  the  western  tribes,  is  in  many  respects  im- 
portant for  later  history  :  it  explains  and  supports  the  British 
traditions,  the  accounts  of  the  first  introduction  of  Christi- 
anity, the  state  of  the  country  after  the  departure  of  the  Ro- 
mans, and,  in  a  degree,  marks  out  the  limits  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  conquests,  which  may  frequently  be  traced  by  those 
of  Roman  Britain. 

A  fact  worthy  of  notice  in  this  place,  is  the  existence  down 
to  recent  times  of  the  old  British  law  of  succession  in  Wales, 
Kent,  and  some  parts  of  Northumberland,  called  Gavelkind. 
As  far  as  we  are  enabled  to  understand  it  in  its  mixture  with 
Anglo-Saxon  law,  all  the  sons  of  the  same  father  inherited, 
but  the  youngest  possessed  the  homestead ;  the  eldest,  or  the 
next  following  capable  of  bearing  arms,  had  the  heriot,  that 
is,  the  arms  offensive  and  defensive  of  his  father,  and  his 
horse.  Even  the  son  of  an  outlaw  could  not  be  deprived  of 
the  entire  succession,  but  of  the  half  only'. 

Of  events  in  Britain  under  the  Romans  there  is  but  little 

^  '  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales,'  p.  266,  and  on  the  subject  of 
Gavelkind  in  Kent  see  '  Statutes  of  the  Realm,'  vol.  i.  The  greater  part  of 
the  usages  there  recorded  are  pure  Germanic. 


40  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

to  relate.  A  province  has  no  individual  existence ;  its  vege- 
tative dreamlike  being  no  history.  Most  of  the  occurrences 
of  whicli  it  may  have  been  the  theatre,  even  the  changes  and 
modifications  in  the  machine  of  its  government,  belong  to  the 
history  of  the  empire  or  of  its  metropolis.  The  laurels  won 
by  British  legions  in  distant  lands  seldom  came  to  the  know- 
ledge, and  still  more  seldom  touched  the  hearts  of  their  coun- 
trymen. This  last  acquisition  of  a  fragile  state  colossus  was 
particularly  unfortunate  :  the  culture  of  the  Romans,  grafted 
with  violence  on  the  wild  stock,  not  being  that  of  the  higher 
intellectual  life  and  exalted  moral  feeling,  but  of  an  age  in 
which  talent  and  mental  powers,  deaf  to  the  inward  voice, 
under,  and  in  harmony  with  which  they  ought  to  be  culti- 
vated, were  subservient  only  to  sensuality,  to  all  the  failings 
of  humanity,  and  to  the  then  prevailing  disregard  of  the  social 
union.  Roman  customs,  Roman  garb,  and  Roman  extrava- 
gance found  entrance  among  the  barbarians,  with  the  temples, 
language,  and  law  of  the  metropolis  of  the  world ;  and  every 
benign  as  well  as  every  hurtful  influence  of  victory  combined 
to  destroy  the  nationality  of  a  conquered  people  amalgamated 
with  its  conquerors. 

From  Scotland  came  the  movement  which,  in  the  time  of 
the  emperor  Hadrian,  awakened  the  spirit  of  British  freedom 
to  new  life,  and  to  an  apparently  well-founded  hope  of  totally 
casting  off  the  imperial  yoke^  Though  the  Roman  armies 
maintained  themselves  in  the  elder  province,  the  emperor, 
nevertheless,  deeined  it  advisable  to  retire  from  the  boundary 
line  drawn  and  fortified  by  Agricola  in  Scotland'-^,  and,  between 
the  Tyne  and  Solway  Firth,  to  cast  up  a  ramjaart  with  a  ditch 
— the  Picts'  wall  still  existing  to  the  height  of  six  feet — which 

^  ^1.  Spart.  Had.  c.  v.  Britanni  tencri  sub  Roniana  ditione  non  po- 
terant.  Fionto  de  Bello  Partliico,  §  4.  Hadriano  imperium  obtinente, 
quantum  militum  a  Britannis  csesum  !  Orosius,  vii.  17.  Severus  victor  in 
Lrilannias  defectu  pene  omnium  sociorura  trahitur.  Ubi  magnis  gravibus- 
que  piffiliis  sape  gestis,  etc.    Cf.  also  Cassiodorus. 

-  Tac.  Agric.  c.  xxiii. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  41 

should  defend  what  was  more  strictly  the  Roman  province  ^ 
An  irruption  of  the  MaeataS;,  dwelling  in  the  south  of  Scotland, 
was  attended  with  the  support  and  junction  of  many  of  the 
Brigantes,  and  probably  of  other  Britons,  seeing  that  they 
were  able  to  penetrate  to  the  Ordovices.  They  were,  however, 
driven  back  by  the  propreetor  Lollius  Urbicus,  who  erected 
the  rampart  of  earth  bearing  the  name  of  his  master,  the 
emperor  Antoninus  Pius,  between  Caerriden  on  the  Forth  and 
Alcluid  (Whiterne)  on  the  Clyde  ^.  Of  a  war  in  Britain  during 
the  reign  of  Marcus  Antoninus^,  we  know  little  more  than 
the  name  of  the  Roman  general,  Calpurnius  Agricola'*.  The 
emperor  who,  in  the  tranquillity  of  his  palace,  meditated  on 
lessons  of  recondite  wisdom,  was  satisfied  if  his  name  was 
bestowed  on  the  northernmost  monument  of  Roman  sway; 
and  the  orator  flattered  both  him  and  his  people  with  the 
conceit  that,  in  the  delightful  enjoyment  of  science  and  learn- 
ing, he  directed  the  helm  of  the  mighty  vessel  of  the  state,  as 
well  as  this  remote  warfare^  Under  Commodus^  the  boundary 
wall  was  broken  through  by  the  Britons,  to  repel  whom  proved 
an  arduous  undertaking  to  the  Roman  general,  Ulpius  Mar- 
cellus".  He  was  succeeded  by  Clodius  Albinus,  who  accepted 
the  title  of  Caesai*,  which  had  been  offered  to  him  by  Com- 
modus,  from  Severus^,  whose  sole  motive  in  conferring  that 
honour  seems  to  have  been  to  lull  suspicion  in  the  mind  of  a 

'  A.D.  120.     yEl.  Spart.  Had.  c.  xi, 

2  Jul.  Capitol,  de  M.  Anton,  c.  v.  Horsley,  B.  R.  p.  160.  Petrie, 
C.  H.  p.  cvii  sqq.  The  account  given  in  the  text  is  the  one  generally  fol- 
lowed, and  in  Graham's  dyke  traces  of  the  rampart  seem  to  be  preserved  : 
the  inscriptions  there  found  also  refer  to  Antoninus  ;  still  Pausanias  (viii. 
43.  §  3.),  under  this  supposition,  remains  to  be  explained,  but  whose  ac- 
count, nevertheless,  agrees  with  the  passage  cited  of  Capitolinus,  and  is 
compatible  with  the  hypothesis,  that  the  vallum  of  Antoninus  may  have 
been  raised  near  that  of  Hadrian,  which  had  been  destroyed  by  the  Britons. 

^  A.D.  161-180.  ^  J.  Capit.  de  M.  Anton,  c.  viii. 

*  Fronto,  cited  by  Eumenius  (Panegj-r.  Const.  Cses.  c.  xiv.). 

«  A.D.  190-197.  ^  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixxii.  s.  8. 

8  Herod,  ii.  48,  iii.  16-23.  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixxiii.  14.  J.  Capit.  cc.  xiii., 
xiv.     Aur.  Vict.  c.  xx.     Oros.  vii.  1/. 


42  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

vain  but  potent  officer^  of  whom  he  was  jealous,  and  whose 
destruction  he  had  resolved.  On  the  intelligence  that  Severus 
was  advancing  with  a  hostile  army,  Alblnus  crossed  with  his 
forces  over  to  Gaul :  the  armies  met  on  the  plain  of  Trevoux, 
near  Lyons.  For  some  time  victory  seemed  to  incline  to  the 
side  of  Alblnus,  Severus  being  unhorsed  and  disappearing 
from  the  field ;  but  the  arrival  of  fresh  troops  to  his  aid 
changed  the  face  of  things  ;  the  army  of  Alblnus  was  routed, 
himself  seized  and  beheaded  in  Lyons,  where  he  had  shut 
himself  up  from  the  commencement  of  the  conflict.  Having 
settled  the  affairs  of  Britain,  Severus,  as  has  already  been 
observed,  divided  the  government  into  two  provinces  ^ 

At  this  time  the  power  of  the  northern  tribes  had  become 
so  formidable,  that  the  propraetor,  Virlus  Lupus,  was  com- 
pelled not  only  to  purchase  with  a  considerable  sum  a  short 
respite  from  the  inroads  of  the   Mreatae,  but  to  solicit  either 
an  additional  force  or  the  presence  of  the  emperor  himself. 
Though  advanced  in  years  and  afflicted  with  gout,  Severus 
obeyed  the  summons  with  alacrity.     Attended  by  his  sons, 
Antoninus  Caracalla  and  Septimius  Geta,  he  soon  arrived  in 
Britain,  where  he  lost  no  time  in  making  the  most  efficient 
preparations  for  the  subjugation  of  the  barbarians.     To  his 
younger  son,  Geta,  he  committed  the  civil  administration  of 
the  province  :    Caracalla  accompanied  his    father.     On  the 
arrival  of  the  Romans  beyond  the  limits  of  the  province,  the 
natives,  though  unfitted  for  regular  warfare  through  the  want 
of  discipline  and  of  defensive  armour,  harassed  the  Romans 
on  their  march,  who,  nevertheless,  continued  to  advance,  fell- 
ing woods,  levelling  hills,  rendering  marshes  passable,  and 
constructing  bridges.    At  length,  after  a  loss  of  fifty  thousand 
men,  they  reached  nearly  to  the  extremity  of  the  Island,  where, 
having  entered  Into  a  treaty  with  the  natives,  according  to 
which  a  considerable  portion  of  territory  was  to  be  yielded  to 
the  Romans,  the  emperor,  who  during  the  whole  expedition 

'  Herodian.  iii.  24. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  43 

had  been  borne  in  a  covered  litter,  returned  to  York.  On 
the  intelligence  of  a  fresh  insurrection,  Severus,  whom  age 
and  sickness  compelled  to  remain  inactive,  resolved  on  send- 
ing an  army  under  Caracalla  to  extirpate  the  barbarians.  That 
prince,  however,  who  was  far  less  intent  on  prosecuting  the 
war  than  on  corrupting  the  soldiery,  in  the  view  of  excluding 
his  brother  from  all  share  in  the  empire,  on  the  death  of  his 
father,  which  shortly  after  took  place  at  York^,  entered  into 
a  truce  with  the  natives  and  returned  to  Rome^. 

Whether,  after  his  expedition  against  the  northern  tribes, 
Severus  enlarged  and  strengthened  by  a  wall  the  rampart  of 
Hadi'ian  or  that  of  Antoninus^,  is  to  the  antiquary  a  question 
not  devoid  of  interest ;  but  in  either  case  it  is  manifest  that 
the  south  of  the  present  Scotland  was  always  a  very  insecure 
possession  to  the  Romans,  and  in  the  hands  of  extremely 
doubtful  allies,  and  that  it  was  only  in  the  modern  England 
that  Rome  held  any  considerable  influence. 

The  tranquillity  which  Britain  enjoyed,  with  the  exception 
of  the  northern  border  districts,  began  in  this  century  to  be 
disturbed  by  an  event  which,  new  in  its  kind  and  conse- 
quences in  the  history  of  the  world,  had  on  this  country  an  in- 
calculable influence.  That  element  which  had  set  a  salutary 
limit  to  the  hostile  desolating  wanderings  of  the  savage,  which 
is,  as  it  were,  appointed  to  be  the  securest  medium  and  freest 
path  for  civilization  and  varied  intercourse,  was,  in  the  north 
of  Europe,  in  a  state  ill  adapted  to  the  purpose  either  of  sepa- 
ration or  communication.  It  was  at  that  time  infested  with 
swarms  of  those  daring  pirates,  to  whom  for  many  ages  after 

1    A.D.   211. 

■"  Dio  ap.  Xiph.  Ixxv.  5,  Ixxvi.  11-16,  Ixxvii.  1.     Heiodian.  iii.  46-51. 

^  The  latter  opinion  has  been  started  by  Mannert ;  but  would  Dio  (ap. 
Xiph.  Ixxvi.  12.)  have  said  of  the  wall  of  Severus,  if  it  were  in  Scotland, 
without  thinking  of  that  of  Hadrian,  that  it  divides  the  island  into  two  parts  ? 
He  must  also  (1.  15.)  have  spoken  in  other  terms  of  the  new  hostilities  of 
the  Mceatee  and  Caledonians,  if  both  people  had,  by  the  wall,  been  placed 
in  a  totally  different  position  with  regard  to  the  Romans.  Cf.  also  Smith's 
Beda,  App.  No.  V. 


44  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

it  served  as  a  home,  and  who,  in  their  frail  barks,  exposing 
themselves  to  all  the  perils  of  the  stormy  ocean,  evinced  in 
every  conflict  the  most  desperate  valour,  with  an  endurance 
and  skill  in  warfare,  which,  if  applied  to  higher  purposes, 
would  have  renewed  in  history  the  dazzling  glory  of  Sparta 
and  of  ancient  Rome. 

In  the  historical  records  that  have  been  handed  down  to 
us,  the  name  of  the  Saxons  does  not  occur  before  the  end  of 
the  second  century,  when  they  are  noticed  as  the  possessors 
of  the  islands  at  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe,  and  probably  also  of 
the  opposite  districts  of  Holstein  and  Hadeln^ .  In  the  fol- 
lowing century  they  became  so  troublesome  to  the  Roman 
empire,  through  their  piracies,  that,  for  the  purpose  of  warring 
against  them  and  for  the  protection  of  the  northern  coasts,  a 
commander  was  appointed  by  the  emperors  Diocletian  and 
Maximian,  in  the  person  of  Carausius,  a  Menapian^,  whose 
successor  bore  the  title  of  Count  of  the  Saxon  shore^.  But 
of  such  importance  was  this  appointment,  in  consequence  of 
the  formidable  power  of  the  adversaiy,  that  Carausius,  pro- 
bably availing  himself  of  the  distraction  caused  by  the  Gaulish 
Bagaudae,  ventiu'ed,  after  entering  into  a  compact  and  alliance 
with  the  Saxon  pirates,  to  withdraw  himself  from  subjection 

1  Ptol.  Geogr.  ii.  2. 

2  A.D.  287-296.  '  Pirata.'  Claud.  Mam.  '  Menapise  civis.'  Aur.  Vict, 
de  Viris  Illust.  c.  xxxix.  '  Batavise  alumnus.'  Eumen.  '  Genere  infimus.' 
Oros.  vii.  25.  'Vilissime  natus.'  Eubrop.  ix.  21.  'Juvenis  in  Britannia 
ex  infima  gente  creatus.'  Galf.  Monum.  v.  3.  Richard  of  Cirencester,  i. 
viii.  14,  in  speaking  of  the  two  Menapias  (the  Irish,  and  the  present 
St.  David's),  says,  "  Harum  unam,  quam  nam  vero  incertum,  patriam 
habebat  Carausius." 

^  This  title  first  occurs  in  the  '  Notitia  Dignitatum  Imperii,'  compiled 
under  Arcadius  and  Honorius.  Earlier  writers  name  him  '  comes  maritimi 
tractus ; '  a  circumstance  not  to  be  overlooked,  on  account  of  the  impor- 
tance of  the  '  litus  Saxonicum  '  for  the  histoiy  of  the  Saxons.  Of  Carausius, 
Eutropius,  (ix.  21)  says,  "  Cum  apud  Bononiam,  per  tractum  Belgicse  et 
Armoricse,  pacandum  mare  accepisset,  quod  Franci  et  Saxones  infestabant, 
etc."  Eumenius  also  in  Constantio  (c.  xii.)  says  of  the  fleet  of  Carausius, 
"  Quae  olim  Gallias  tuebatur." 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  45 

to  the  Roman  sceptre,  to  fortify  Boulogne,  and  to  assume  the 
imperial  title  in  Britain.  The  emperor  Maximian  found  him- 
self compelled  to  acknowledge  him  as  a  joint  ruler,  but  without 
seeing  an  end  put  to  the  piracies,  by  which  the  coasts  of  the 
German  ocean,  of  the  Atlantic,  and  even  of  the  Mediterranean 
were  held  in  constant  dread.  Carausius  had  governed  in  this 
country  for  seven  years,  even  after  the  loss  of  Boulogne,  vic- 
torious against  the  Caledonians,  and  powerful  in  his  internal 
administration,  when  he  fell  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  his 
companion  AUectus  ^,  who  occupied  his  place  for  three  years, 
w  hen  Asclepiodotus,  the  prefect  of  the  emperor  Constantius, 
having  destroyed  him  and  his  forces,  stormed  London,  and 
soon  restored  their  most  northern  province  to  the  dominion 
of  the  Caesars  ^. 

The  deeds  of  Augustus  Carausius  are  of  great  moment  for 
the  later  history  of  the  country.  Through  him  Britain  first 
learned  that  it  could  maintain  itself  independent  of  Roman 
supremacy,  and  in  security  against  its  northern  enemies ;  and 
the  slumbering  national  spirit  became,  through  this  conscious- 
ness of  self-dependence,  powerfully  excited^.  He  reigned 
chiefly  by  the  help  of  Frankish  warriors,  under  Roman  forms 

^  Orosius,  vii.  25.  Aur.  Vict.  c.  xxxix.  Eutrop.  ix.  22.  Cf.  Genebrier, 
Geschichte  des  Carausius  aus  JVIiinzen  (from  the  French,  in  the  appendices 
to  the  'Allegemeine  Welthistorie/  Th.  vi.).  Stukeley's  '  Medallic  History 
of  Carausius.'  Some  coins  of  Carausius  and  AUectus  are  given  in  Haver- 
camp's  'Orosius/  p.  527.  See  also  'Eumenii  Oratio  pro  restaurandis 
Scholis/  cc.  xviii.,  xxi. 

-  Eumenius  (Paneg.  Const,  cc.  xv.-xvii.)  is  the  only  one  of  the  ancients 
extant  who  gives  the  circumstances  of  the  destruction  of  AUectus,  with 
whose  account  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth  agrees  so  closely,  that  we  must  sup- 
pose this  extraordinary  writer  to  have  used  ancient  works  no  longer  in  ex- 
istence. Even  the  name  given  by  him  of  the  defender  of  London,  '  Livius 
Callus,'  is  probably,  like  his  other  Roman  names,  genuine. 

^  A  few  years  earlier  a  prefect  of  Britain,  under  the  emperor  Probus, 
having  raised  a  rebellion,  had  by  some  artifice  {Tri^tvoicc  ovx.  ciji^ovi)  been 
circumvented  and  put  to  death  by  a  minister  of  the  emperor  sent  over  for 
the  purpose.  Zosimus,  i.  QQ. 


46  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

of  government,  which,  from  their  connexion  with  his  memory, 
may  have  been  held  in  a  higher  degree  of  veneration  in  the 
minds  of  later  races  ^ 

But  not  less  has  Carausius  influenced  the  later  Germanizing 
of  Britain  by  the  Saxons.  Himself  a  German  by  extraction, 
a  Menapian  by  birth,  if  he  did  not  cause  the  settling  of  the 
Saxons  along  the  Saxon  shore,  in  Gaul  as  Avell  as  in  Britain, 
he  at  least  promoted  it  by  his  alliance  with  them-.  The  pre- 
vailing opinion,  that  the  '  Litus  Saxonicum '  borrowed  its 
name  from  the  enemy  to  whose  attacks  it  was  exposed,  ap- 
pears as  contrary  to  the  principles  of  sound  philology  as  it  is 
unhistoricaP.  By  the  probably  contemporaneous  settlements 
of  the  Saxons  on  the  Litus  Saxonicum  near  Bayeux  (to  which, 
perhaps,  the  circumstance  may  partly  be  ascribed,  that  the 
manners  and  language  of  the  French  found  slower  admission 
into  that  place  than  into  the  other  parts  of  Normandy'^),  the 
weakness  of  the  Romans,  even  on  the  coasts  of  Gaul  and 
elsewhere  across  the  channel,  is  authentically  shown,  as  well 

*  That  the  coins  of  Carausius,  bearing  the  impress  of  the  wolf  and  twins, 
were  copied  by  the  Bretwaida  yEthelberht  of  Kent,  can  hardly  be  placed  to 
the  account  of  mere  caprice.  The  circular  temple,  that  remarkable  and 
venerable  relic  which,  till  destroyed  by  the  hand  of  modern  barbarism,  stood 
on  the  banks  of  the  Carron,  though  in  later  times  attributed  to  Julius 
Caesar  and  to  Arthur,  was  at  a  remoter  period  considered  to  be  the  work  of 
Carausius.  See  Stukeley  ;  also  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  pp.  3/6,  377-  Nennius, 
c.  xix.  Camden,  and  '  De  Mirabilibus  Britannise  '  at  the  end  of  Hearne's 
Robert  of  Gloucester,  p.  576. 

-  Eutropius,  ix.  21,  speaks  only  of  the  Belgian  and  Armorican  coasts. 
Beda  (H.  E.  i.  6.)  here  copies  Orosius,  who  takes  his  account  from  Eutro- 
pius. 

^  See  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  384,  who  takes  the  same  view. — T. 

*  Grannona  in  litore  Saxonico.  Not.  Imp.  Occid.  c.  Ixxxvi.  Du  Chesne, 
Hist.  tom.  i.  p.  3.  In  the  capitularies  of  Charles  the  Bald  this  district  is 
called  '  Otlingua  Saxonica.'  Bouquet,  vii.  p.  616.  '  Saxones  Bajocassini.' 
Greg.  Turon.  v.  c.  27.  a.  578.  x.  c.  9.  Fortunati  Carm.  iii.  8,  says,  at 
the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  speaking  of  Felix,  bishop  of  Nantes, 

"  Aspera  gens  Saxo,  vivens  quasi  more  ferine, 
Te  mediante,  sacer,  bellua  reddit  overa." 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  4/ 

as  the  proneness  of  the  Saxons  to  similar  settlements,  of 
which  also  the  ^  Litus  Saxonicum  in  Belgica  Secunda'  (Flan- 
ders) i,  not  less  than  the  just  application  of  language,  affords 
a  further  proof. 

During  the  reign  of  Constantius  Chlorus,  the  position  of 
Britain  in  the  Roman  state  must  have  been  very  prominent. 
Swayed  both  by  inclination  and  probably  by  matrimonial 
connexions — his  wife  Helena  being,  it  is  said,  the  daughter, 
or  at  least  the  relative  of  a  British  prince'^ — and  perhaps  by 
the  wish  also  to  preserve  this  country  to  Rome,  Constantius 
passed  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  Britain.  He  died  at 
York,  where  his  son  Constantine  was  proclaimed  emperor. 
A  German  prince  supported  his  nomination,  a  circumstance 
from  which  we  may  infer  the  presence  of  German  warriors^. 
The  name  of  Constantine  the  Great  immediately  reminds 
us  of  the  rapid  diffusion  of  Christianity  during  his  time,  and 
through  him. 
r  The  Christian  faith  found  at  an  early  period,  among  both 
the  Celtic  and  the  German  races,  ready  admission  into 
Britain,  and,  even  when  persecuted,  had,  in  solitary  retire- 
ment, borne  promising  fruits  for  the  future.  It  is,  down  to 
the  latest  times,  so  closely  interwoven  with  the  social  consti- 
tution and,  consequently,  with  the  leading  events  of  this 
country,  that  a  glance  at  the  history  of  religion  is  often  in- 
dispensable for  the  illustration  of  political  events.     The  ac- 

'  See  Warnkbnig,  Flandrische  Staats-und  Rechtsgeschichtc,  vol.  i.  p.  95. 

"  Panegyr.  Vet.  pp.  192,  20/.  Henry  of  Huntingdon  (lib.  i.,  we  know 
not  on  what  authority)  and  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth  (v.  6,  11.)  give  to  this 
prince  the  name  of  Coel  (of  Colchester).  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  '  Gesta 
Treberorum,'  c.  xxix.,  it  is  said,  "Helena  Treberorura  nobilissima." 
Huntingdon  relates,  that  the  walls  of  London,  existing  in  his  time,  were 
built  by  Helena.  [It  seems  almost  superfluous  to  remark,  that  Colchester 
derives  its  name,  not  from  Coel,  but  rather  from  its  ancient  appellation, 
Colonia  (Camulodunum). — T.] 

^  "  Praicipue  Eroco,  Alamannorum  rege,  auxilii  gratia  Constantium 
comitato,  imperium  capit."  Aur.  Vict.  Epit.  c.  xli.  May  not  the  name. 
Erocus  be  a  corruption  of  Ertocus,  a  Latinization  of  the  Old-Saxon 
Heritogo  (A.-S.  Heretoga,  Ger.  Herzog),  dux  ? 


48  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

count  that,  less  than  thirty  years  after  the  death  of  the 
Redeemer,  a  lady  of  distinction — Pomponia  Grascina,  the  wife 
of  that  Plautius  whose  victories  in  Bi'itain  had  gained  him  the 
honour  of  an  ovation — adopted  Christianity,  stands  probably 
on  no  better  foundation  than  other  tales  of  a  similar  nature, 
it  being  improbable  that  this  lady  ever  set  foot  in  Britain  ; 
yet  as  early  as  the  close  of  the  following  century,  Christianity 
had  advanced  even  into  parts  of  Britain  not  subject  to  the 
Romans,  by  which  Cornwall  and  Wales  are  particularly  to  be 
understood.  The  agreement  of  the  British  with  the  Eastern 
churches  respecting  the  celebration  of  Easter^,  shows  a  con- 
formity most  satisfactorily,  perhaps,  to  be  accounted  for  by 
the  supposition  of  an  historic  basis  for  the  several  legends  re- 
specting the  preaching  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ  by  oriental 
apostles.  It  is  even  probable  that  the  first  tidings  of  the  new 
faith  did  not  come  from  Rome,  where  it  was  still  vmder  op- 
pression, but  rather  from  one  of  those  congregations  of  Asia 
Minor,  which  the  Mediterranean  had  long  held  in  connexion 
with  Gaul,  and  from  whence,  by  the  great  public  roads,  the 
spirit  of  conversion  easily  found  its  way  to  Britain^. 

Less  objectionable  seems  the  tradition  of  the  adoption  of 
Christianity  by  the  British  prince  Lever  Maur  (the  Great 
Light),  or  Lucius,  on  comparing  it  with  the  testimony  of 
Tertullian^.      Lucius  is   reported  to   have   sent  Fagan   and 

Dervan  to  Rome,  for  the  sake  of  receiving  from  the  bishop 

\  ... 

Eleutherius   more  accurate   instruction  m  the   doctrines  of 

Christianity;  whereupon  Roman  missions  passed  over  to  Bri- 

'  It  appears  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  centu:y  the  Britons  and 
Romans  kept  Easter  on  the  same  day.    Euseb.  Pamph.  de  Vita  Constant 
iii.  19.  'iOivfi  "TTciviuu  Vj^iai  kqic/H,  T'/ji/  UyiCiireiri^u  Tis  Il«(r;^«  so(^r'^v  /atcc  kccI 
TV)  eivTYi  '^|«<eg«  avun'hua^a.i.     Cf.  also  Socrat.  Hist.  v.  22.     Cone.  Arelat. 
(Spelman,  pp.  40,  42)  and  Lingard,  H.  E.  vol.  i.  p.  45  note,  edit. 183/. — T. 

-  For  the  traditions  respecting  Glastonbury,  see  Will.  Malmesb.  *De 
Antiquitatibus  Glastoniensis  Ecclesise,  apud  Gale,'  t.  i.  Also  Warner's 
'  History  of  the  Abbey  of  Glastonbuiy,'  1826,  4to,  who,  by  the  way,  gives 
credit  to  the  tradition  of  St.  Paul's  preaching  in  Britain. 

^  Adv.  Jud.  c.  vii. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  49 

tain,  and  there  founded  three  archbishoprics  and  twenty- 
eight  bishoprics' — denominations  which  are  of  course  to  be 
understood  in  the  sense  of  the  time.  The  supposition  seems 
by  no  means  unreasonable,  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  Romanists, 
in  their  disputes  with  the  British  followers  of  the  eastern 
church,  would,  in  such  tales,  provide  themselves  with  a 
weapon  of  controversy ;  yet  how  is  it  that  we  find  them  in  a 
complete  form  precisely  in  those  authors  who  have  translated 
the  old  British  authorities^? 

Gaul,  in  the  time  of  the  predecessors  of  Eleutherius,  had 
very  numerous  Christian  congregations,  which  have  been 
ennobled  by  the  persecutions  they  underwent  at  Lyons  and 
Vienne,  in  the  year  177;  fleeing  from  which,  many  of  their 
members  may  have  increased  the  number  of  believers  among 
the  kindred  Britons.  The  controversy  between  the  Jewish 
and  the  heathen  Christians  upon  several  external  matters,  and 
especially  the  celebration  of  Easter,  had  already  at  that  time 

^  This  number  is,  no  doubt,  connected  with  the  catalogue  of  the  twenty- 
eight  cities  of  Britain  mentioned  in  Nennius,  c.  ii. 

-  Beda  (H.  E.  i.  4.)  places  Lucius  (who,  according  to  Jeffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth, died  in  156)  in  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  the  beginning  of 
whose  reign  he  assigns  the  date  156,  instead  of  161.  In  lib.  v.  c.  24,  he 
places  Eleutherius  in  the  years  167-182.  Nennius  gives  167  as  the  year 
of  the  conversion  of  Lucius.  In  his  '  Chronicon  '  Beda  places  this  event 
in  180,  which  agrees  better  with  the  regnal  years  of  pope  Eleutherius,  167- 
182,  or,  according  to  '  Anastasii  Vitse  Pontificum,'  179-194,  where  mention 
is  made  of  Lucius  in  the  words  used  by  Beda  in  his  history,  "  Hie  accepit 
epistolam  a  Lucio,  Britannise  rege,  ut  Christianus  efficeretur  per  ejus  raan- 
datum,"  of  which  passage  the  last  three  words  are  wanting  in  Beda's 
'  Chronicon.'  On  the  other  hand,  Anastasius  agrees  with  the  '  Chronicon  ' 
in  mentioning,  under  Victor,  the  successor  of  Eleutherius,  the  document 
(libelli)  of  the  latter  relative  to  the  celebrating  of  Easter,  If  Beda  had  had 
the  *  Vitse  Pontificum '  before  him,  the  account  of  Lucius  must  gain  con- 
siderably in  point  of  historic  credibility ;  at  the  same  time  the  confusion 
in  the  chronology  is  quite  inexplicable.  Not  less  hazardous  does  it  appear 
to  assume  that  the  author  of  the  '  Vitre  Pontificum  '  had  both  of  Beda's 
works  at  hand.  A  thorough  examination  of  the  '  Gesta '  or  '  Vitffi  Ponti- 
ficum '  would  probably  lead  to  the  discovery  of  a  common  source  to  both 
authors.  With  regard  to  the  accounts  of  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  it  may 
not  be  amiss  to  notice  that  he  appeals  (iv.  20.)  to  a  work  of  Gildas,  '  De 
Victoria  Aurelii  Ambrosii.'    See  Pref.to  Stevenson's  edit,  of  Gildas,'  p.  xi. 

VOL.  I.  E 


50  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

engaged  the  minds  of  men,  and,  among  the  new  converts,  who 
belonged  to  neither  party,  but  had  at  once  sprung  from  druid- 
ism,  occasioned  new  scruples.  Without,  therefore,  attaching 
much  importance  to  later  embellishments  of  the  account  of  a 
mission  from  a  distinguished  British  chieftain  to  Eleutherius, 
we  may,  perhaps,  assume,  that  the  former  might  have  applied 
to  the  head  of  the  Western  church,  with  the  view  of  effecting 
an  arrangement  of  the  contradictory  opinions  prevailing  among 
the  Christians  under  his  dominion. 

The  gradual  spread  of  Christianity  in  Britain  drew  upon  it 
the  unpropitious  eye  of  the  pagan  emperors,  and  the  perse- 
cution of  the  Christians  under  Diocletian  has  left  behind  it 
a  terrific  remembrance  also  in  this  country.  The  martyrdom 
of  St.  Alban  at  Verulam,  and  of  the  two  citizens  of  Caerleon 
upon  Usk,  Aaron  and  Julius,  could  not  be  obscured,  even  in 
the  following  times  of  relapse  into  paganism'.  The  Christian 
faith  and  the  measures  adopted  for  its  preservation  were, 
however,  not  yet  entirely  suppressed.  Under  Constantius, 
the  mild  successor  of  Diocletian,  Christianity  again  ventured 
to  show  itself,  and  under  Constantine  we  meet  with  the 
names  and  dioceses  of  three  British  bishops,  mIio  were  present 
at  the  first  Council  of  Aries :  Eborius  of  York,  Restitutus  of 
London,  and  Adelfius  of  Lincoln^,  and  at  the  same  time  learn 
the  dissidence  of  their  tenets  from  those  of  the  Romish 
church.  This  account  supports  a  tradition,  which  has  been 
too  much  called  in  doubt,  that,  besides  the  above-mentioned, 
Wales  also  (Britannia  Secunda)  had  a  bishop  at  Caerleon,  and 
the  most  northern  province  one  at  St.  Andrews  (anciently 
Albin),  and  that  each  of  these  bishoprics  was  divided  into 
twelve  districts^.     However  erroneous  this  tradition  may  be 

*  Gildas,  c.  viii.     Beda,  i.  T . 

2  A.D.  314.  Spelraan,  Cone.  t.  i.  p.  42.  The  see  of  Adelfius  is  there 
called  "  Colonia  Londinensium,"  for  which,  with  Henry,  I  prefer  reading 
'  Col.  Lindum,'  than  to  render  it  by  '  Richborough.' 

^  Girald.  Cambr.  ('  De  Jure  et  Statu  Menev.  Eccl.,'  ap.  Wharton,  'Anglia 
Sacra,'  t.  i.  p.  542)  appeals  to  "tomum  Anacleti  papte,  sicut  in  pontifi- 
calibus  Romanorum  gestis  et  imperialibus,  directum  Galliarum  episcopis." 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  51 

in  naming  five  archbishoprics  and  sixty  bishoprics,  it  may, 
nevertheless,  essentially  not  be  void  of  foundation. 

The  first  half  of  the  fourth  century  is  chiefly  remarkable  as 
regards  Britain,  on  account  of  the  harmony  with  which  the 
natives  and  Romans,  as  well  as  other  settlers — brought 
together  in  no  small  number  by  their  common  faith — united 
in  the  arts  of  peace  ^  The  cultivation  of  grain  had  been 
carried  to  such  a  height,  that  Britain  became  the  granary  of  / 
the  northern  provinces  of  the  empire,  and  by  yearly  exports 
supplied  other  countries  with  food,  while  it  enriched  itself^. 
Civic  establishments  were  so  flourishing,  that  builders  and 
other  artificers  were  demanded  from  Britain  for  the  restoration 
of  the  desolated  provinces^. 

The  country  was  crossed  by  high-roads  in  various  direc- 
tions, many  of  which  have  served  the  later  settlers  in  their 
marches,  as  well  as  their  commercial  operations.  It  is  pro- 
bable that  the  Romans  themselves  found  some  of  these  great 
highways  already  in  existence,  which  were  afterwards  known 
by  the  names  of  Watling  Street,  leading  from  the  southern 
shore  of  Kent,  by  Rhutupioe  and  London,  through  St.  Alban's 
and  Stony  Stratford  to  Caernarvon'*  (Segontium).  Ikenild,  or 
Rikenild  Street,  from  Tynemouth,  through  York,  Derby,  and 
Birmingham  to  St.  David's.  The  Irmin  (Ermin)  Street  led 
from  the  latter  place  to  Southampton  ;  the  Foss  from  Cornwall 
to  Caithness,  or,  perhaps,  more  correctly,  only  to  Lincoln^. 

'  "Britannia terra  tanto  frugumubere,  tanto  Isetamunere  pastionum, 

tot  metallorum  fluens  rivis,  tot  vectigaiibus  quaestuosa,  tot  accincta  portu- 
bus."  Eumen.  Paneg.  Const.  Cses.  c.  xi.  Cf.  ejusdem  Paiieg.  Const. 
Aug.  c.  ix. 

-  Amm.  Marcell.  xviii.  2.  Libanii  Orat.  x.  t.  ii.  p.  281.  Zosimus,  iii.  5. 
Julian.  Imp.  ad  S.  P.  Q.  Athen.  Epist.  Eunapii  Legat. 

'•'  Eumen.  Paneg.  Const.  Cses.  c.  xxi. — T. 

"*  To  Cardigan.     Higd.  Polychron. 

^  H.  Hunt.  lib.  i.,  followed  by  Robert  of  Gloucester,  '  Ric.  Corinreus  de 
Situ  BritannijE,'  lib.  i.  c.  7,  and  '  Commentary  on  the  Itinerary,'  p.  110 
sq.  edit.  1809.  R.  Higden,  Polychron,  lib.  i.  cap.  '  De  Plateis  Regalibusl' 
Whitaker's  Hist,  of  Manchester,  vol.  i.  p.  102  sq. 

E  2 


52  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

These  roads,  which,  if  not  formed,  were  at  least  greatly  im- 
proved by  Roman  labour,  prove  by  their  direction  a  lively 
internal  traffic,  as  well  as  a  commercial  connexion  with  the 
countries  lying  east  and  west  of  Britain'. 

We  are  accustomed  to  regard  Roman  influence  and  Roman 
civilization  in  Britain  as  considerably  less  than  in  the  southern 
provinces  of  the  empire,  chiefly  because  the  language  of  mo- 
dern England  is  not  immediately  based  on  that  of  Rome,  and 
but  few  ancient  monuments  have  been  presei'ved  in  the  coun- 
try. Of  these  the  number  has  been  greatly  diminished  by 
frequent  and  early  devastations,  more  especially  in  the  richest 
provinces,  and  those  first  possessed  by  the  Romans  ;  yet, 
even  in  our  days,  many  have  been  discovered,  which  suffi- 
ciently prove  to  us  the  importance  of  Roman  Britain^.  Many 
remains  of  Roman  buildings,  on  sites  long  since  traversed  by 
the  ploughshare,  or  from  which,  as  from  seed,  modern  towns 
have  sprung  up,  w'ere  visible  as  late  as  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries^.  Besides  the  two  municipal  towns,  the  re- 
mote Caerleon  (the  City  of  the  Legion,  Isca  Silurum)  also 
had  its  theatres,  temples,  and  palaces,  of  which  Giraldus 
speaks  in  terms  of  high  admiration'*,  and  for  which  like  Bath 
(Aquae  Solis),  it  may  have  partly  been  indebted  to  its  hot 
springs.  At  a  later  period  we  have  an  account  of  various 
subterranean  antiquities  in  the  city  of  Chester  (Deva)  ^.  To 
the  excavated  remains  of  a  temple  of  Neptune  and  Minerva 
at  Chichester  we  are  indebted  for  some  highly  important  dis- 
closures relative  to  the  history  of  Britain  under  the  Romans ; 
but  the  most  complete  idea  of  Roman  building  is  presented 
to  us  in  a  villa  discovered  at  Bignor  in  Sussex  j  also  in  the 

^  The  course  of  these  roads  is  very  uncertain.  Compare  Ric.  Corin. 
with  Higden.— T. 

"  See  Horsley,  '  Britannia  Romana.' 

•■'  Will.  Malmesb.  de  Gestis  Regum,  lib.  i.  c.  1.  Id.  de  Gestis  Ponti- 
ficum,  lib.  iii.  Prooem. 

■•  Girald.  Cambren.  Itin.  Camb.  lib.  i.  c.  I.  ap.  Camden. 

*  R.  Higden,  Polychr.  ap.  Gale,  i.  200. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  53 

antiquities  at  Woodchester  in  Gloucestershire'.  Beda  like- 
wise mentions  the  Roman  towns,  lighthouses,  roads,  and 
bridges  existing  in  his  time^.  Many  a  sacred  spot  of  anti- 
quity offers  itself  to  our  knowledge  through  the  holier  con- 
secration it  has  received  from  Christianity,  always  ready  to 
apply  and  hallow  every  legacy  of  the  past.  St.  Peter's  church 
and  abbey  at  Westminster,  St.  Pavil's  cathedral  at  London, 
will  appear  to  us  only  the  more  venerable,  if  we  call  to  mind 
that  at  the  former,  in  times  remote,  the  worship  of  Apollo 
contributed  to  the  culture  of  a  rugged  race,  and  at  the  latter, 
that  a  temple  of  Diana  was  mediate  to  the  faith  of  so  many 
people.  Thus  the  Angles  and  the  Saxons,  when  they  had 
established  themselves  in  Britain,  dwelt  within  Roman  walls, 
and  walked  amid  spacious  structures  and  beautiful  works  of 
Roman  art.  Ought  it  then  to  surprise  us,  if,  when  first  made 
sensible,  on  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  of  the  necessity 
of  new  and  ample  edifices,  they  strove  to  restore  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  Romans  in  their  country,  and  that  structures 
in  imitation  of  the  same  were  afterwards  erected,  which  have 
erroneously  been  regarded  as  original  productions  of  Saxon 
art.  Of  Roman  vestiges,  those  of  ramparts  and  fortresses  are 
oftenest  to  be  met  with,  though  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
these,  through  their  equivocal  character,  have  but  too  often 
given  rise  to  misconceptions  and  inveterate  errors.  As  un- 
doubted Roman  remains  may  be  cited  those  at  Richborough 
(Rhutupiae),  Lincoln  (Lindum),  Burgh  Castle  in  Suffolk 
(Gariannonum),  Chester  (Deva).  At  Dorchester  vestiges  of 
an  amphitheatre  are  still  visible. 

From  the  great  number  of  Roman  towns  and  garrisons  in 
Britain,  it  may  be  inferred  that  an  intimate  connexion  sub- 

'  See  Sam.  Lysons's  splendid  work  on  this  subject,  London,  1797, 
1815  :  also  his  '  Reliquiae  Britannico-Romanse,'  3  vol.  fol.  Lond.  For  Ro- 
man temples  and  other  buildings  at  Bath,  see  Lysons,  also  Carter's 
'Ancient  Architecture  of  England.' 

2  H.  E.  i.  11.  Vita  S.Cuth.  xxvii.  Malmesb.  de  Gestis  Pontif.  ap.  Savile, 
p.  258, 


54  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

sisted  between  the  Romans  and  the  natives.  Hence  the  Ro- 
man language  also  had  found  general  admission  among  the 
provincials,  as  is  evident  from  the  number  of  Latin  words  oc- 
curring in  the  Welsh  tongue ;  and  in  the  British  historical 
traditions,  as  they  have  been  preserved  by  Nennius,  Jeffrey 
of  Monmouth,  and  others,  we  meet  with  too  many  points  of 
resemblance  with  Roman  historj^  and  tradition,  to  allow  the 
supposition  of  a  total  aboHtion  of  the  Roman  tongue,  with 
the  cessation  of  Roman  sway,  and  the  temporary  extinction 
of  Christianity. 

For  their  superiority  as  shipmen  it  has  been  thought  that 
the  Britons  were  indebted  to  the  Romans,  though  we  know  that 
the  Roman  troops  stationed  in  the  island  were  by  no  means 
a  match  by  sea  even  for  their  usual  enemy,  the  Saxons^,  and 
that  they  were  not  practised  in  sea-fights.  The  dwellers 
along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  may,  perhaps,  have 
taught  the  rovers  of  the  North  an  improved  style  of  ship- 
building, but  confidence  on  the  rocking  element,  the  direct 
dartlike  course  over  and  through  the  wild  towering  billows, 
the  placid  gaze  which  spies  the  wind,  ere  its  approach,  on  the 
far  distant  curling  surge,  the  unquenchable  delight  in  the 
amphibious  life  of  a  seaman — these  have  been  brought  to 
Britain  only  by  Saxons  and  Northmen ;  and  not  only  does 
the  English  language,  but  even  those  of  southern  Europe  de- 
clare, who  are  the  people  called  by  nature  to  be  master  of  the 
vessel  and  the  wave. 

We  must  now  turn  from  the  subject  of  Roman  civihzation 
in  Britain,  and  cast  a  glance  on  those  nations  which  chiefly 
contributed  to  its  extirpation^ — to  the  Picts  and  Scots,  who 
are  first  mentioned  as  making  their  appearance  in  the  present 
Scotland  in  the  fourth  century.      Both  these  tribes  were 

1  The  passage  of  Eumenius  (Paneg.  Const,  c.  xii.)  which  has  been  cited 
in  proof  of  the  maritime  proficiency  of  the  Romans,  rather  says  that  Ca- 
rausius  employed  many  foreigners — "  exercitibus  nostris  in  re  maritima 
novis."  ^  A.D.  364. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


OD 


nearly  related  to  the  Caledonians  and  Mjeatae,  though  they 
appear  to  have  been  more  barbarous.     It  is  certain  that  the 
Scots,  and  probably  the  Picts  likewise,  passed  over  from  Ire- 
land and  reduced  the  earher  inhabitants  to  subjection.   Their 
name,  Picti,  is  by  no  means  an  appellation  bestowed  on  ene- 
mies with  painted  bodies,  but  is   a   Roman  corruption  of 
Peght^.     They  dwelt  in  the  eastern  part  of  Scotland,  on  both 
sides  of  the  Grampian  hills,  from  Inverness  and  Elgin  to 
Dunbarton,  or  from  the  Firth  of  Murray  to  those  of  Forth 
and  Clyde,  but,  at  a  later  period,  in  the  south-west  of  Scot- 
land, as  far  as  the  Picts'  wall,  where,  on  the  river  Nith  in 
Dumfi'iesshire,  we  meet  with  a  particular  tribe  of  them,  the 
Nithwaras'-^.     In  the  south  of  Scotland  the  rustic  still  points 
to  many  a  memorial  of  the  Picts,  consisting  of  old  walls  and  y 
excavations.     The  Scottish  kings  in  the  ninth  century  in- 
cluded their  name  among  their  titles.     Pictland  was  attacked 
by  the  Norwegians,  and  in  the  famous  battle  of  the  Standard, 
in  the  year  1138,  also  in  that  of  Clithero,  the  Peghts  of  Gal- 
loway^ fought  with  their  native  savage  valour.     As  no  re- 
mains exist  of  a  particular  tongue  spoken  by  this  people,  nor 
even  any  accounts  of  its  existence  or  decay,  British  antiqua- 
ries have  indefatigably  contended,  some  for  a  Gothic,  and 
others  for  a  Celtic  origin  of  the  Pictish  language — a  dispute 
certainly  about  less  than  words,  for  one  or  two  very  ancient 
names  of  mountains,  which  at  the  present  day  we  are  unable 
to  explain  by  our  insufficient  knowledge  of  the  old  Gaelic, 
can  afford  no  proof  of  a  distinct  Pictish  tongue,  which  pro- 
bably differed  from  that  of  other  British  and  Irish  tnbes  only 
in  being  a  more  barbarous  dialect. 

^  Even  Wittekind  gives  them  their  right  name.  Eumenius  (Paneg. 
Const,  c.  vii.)  is  the  first  who  mentions  them,  "  Caledonum  aUorumque 
Pictorum  silvas  et  paludes."  Amm.  Mar.  xxvii.  11.  "  Britanni  Pictis  mo- 
do  et  Hibernis  assueti  hostibus." 

-  Bedffi  Vitee  S.  Cuthb.  c.  xi.  Cf.  ejd.  H.  E.  i.  1;  iii.  4;  v.  21.  and 
Chron.  a.  452. 

3  See  the  Rev.  R.  Garnett's  communication  to  the  Philological  Society, 
June  9,  1843,  p.  123.— T. 


36  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

Together  with  the  Scots,  mention  is  also  made  of  the  At- 
tacotti'.  A  tribe  of  these,  the  Dalreudini,  in  the  southern 
part  of  Argyleshire  and  the  neighbouring  isles  preserved  the 
name  of  their  original  home  in  Ulster.  Historeth,  son  of 
Istorin,  was  the  name  of  their  leader,  a  name  which  has  pro- 
bably no  more  historic  truth  in  it,  than  that  of  Reuda  as- 
signed to  him  by  other  traditions^.  These  were  followed  by 
their  countrymen  from  Irin  (lerne,  Hibernia)  in  multitudes, 
and  it  is  probable,  that  under  the  name  of  Scots,  against 
whom  the  Romans  fought,  we  must  frequently  understand 
their  kinsmen  also,  who  left  Ireland  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
joining  them.  From  West  Wales,  or  the  territoiy  of  the 
Dimetce,  as  far  as  which  they  had  endeavoured  to  extend  their 
conquests,  it  is  related  that  they  were  for  ever  driven  by 
Cunedda  Wledig,  afterwards  Prince  of  Gwynedd,  who  with 
his  sons  came  from  Manau  Guotodin,  before  the  Romans  had 
yet  left  the  other  parts  of  the  island^. 

The  consideration  of  the  old  British  princely  families  be- 
gan to  revive  when  the  pressure  of  the  Roman  government 
was  lightened.  The  princes  of  Strathclyde  and  North  Wales 
traced  their  descent  from  Cunedda  Wledig,  or  the  Glorious  (a 
title  answering  to  that  of  Caesar  Augustus),  and  to  his  an- 
cestor Coel,  as  did  the  Cornish  dynasty  to  Bran  ap  Llyr'*, 
the  ancestor  of  Arthur,  and  of  those  other  heroes  whose 
valour  enabled  them  to  avert  the  total  subjection  of  their 
mountain  followers  by  the  Romans,  and  afterwards  by  the 
Saxons  and  the  Danes  ^. 

Under  Constantius,  the  son  of  Constantine,  the  condition 

^  Ainm.  Mar.  xxvi.  4  ;  xxvii.  8.  Hieron.  Epist.  Ixxxii.  ad  Oceanum. 
Nennius,  c.  viii. 

-  Nennius,  c.  viii.     Bedie  H.  E.  i.  1. 

^  Nennius,  c.  viii.  Ixvi.  Appen.  As  Cunedda  is  said  to  have  come  to 
Gwynedd  146  years  before  the  reign  of  Mailcun,  who  died  a.d.  547,  the 
date  370-380  is  here  given.  Guotodin  is  supposed  to  have  been  on  the 
eastern  coast  of  the  south  of  Scotland. 

*  So  called  in  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth. 

^  See  Gunn  in  '  Historia  Brittonum/  p.  119. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  57 

of  Britain  was  rendered  particularly  deplorable  by  the  tyranny 
of  the  notary  Paulus,  a  Spaniard  by  birth,  who  had  been  sent 
by  the  emperor  for  the  purpose  of  prosecuting  certain  indi- 
viduals of  the  array  accused  of  participation  in  the  conspiracy 
of  Magnentius.  This  man,  availing  himself  of  the  opportuni- 
ties afforded  him  by  his  station,  hesitated  not,  by  means  of 
false  accusations,  to  sacrifice  the  liberty  and  life  of  those  in- 
dividuals whose  fortunes  offered  a  temptation  to  his  rapacity. 
Martinus  the  pro-prefect,  who  had  long  lamented  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  innocent,  finding  his  intercession  vain,  threatened 
to  resign  his  charge.  Alarmed  hereupon  for  the  permanency 
of  his  own  power,  Paulus  took  measures  to  involve  him  in  the 
common  ruin,  when,  urged  by  the  feelings  of  the  moment, 
Martinus  attacked  the  notary  with  his  sword,  but  failing  to 
strike  a  mortal  blow,  he  plunged  the  blade  into  his  own  side, 
a  victim  to  his  hatred  of  oppression  and  cruelty.  Paulus 
now  freed  from  restraint  set  no  bounds  to  his  barbarity ; 
many,  loaded  with  chains,  were  led  to  torture,  while  many 
were  proscribed  and  driven  into  exile,  or  perished  by  the 
sword  of  the  executioner.  Though  applauded  for  his  ser- 
vices by  Constantius,  by  Julian,  the  succeeding  emperor, 
Paulus  was  condemned  to  be  burnt  alive  ^ 

In  the  century  after  the  death  of  Constantine  the  Great, 
during  which  Britain  still  continued  a  part  of  the  Roman 
empire,  we  know  little  more  of  the  country  than  that  it  was 
the  theatre  of  devastation,  caused  by  the  Celtic  and  Germanic 
tribes.  It  had  indeed  long  been  a  school  of  war  by  land  and 
sea  for  the  Romans,  out  of  which  many  a  conspicuous  cha- 
racter arose,  as  well  as  the  germ  of  new  rebellions.  The 
anti-emperor  Bonosus,  who  vainly  strove  to  wrest  from  the 
emperor  Probus  the  island  of  Britain — which  usually  fell  to 
those  tyrants  who  had  made  themselves  masters  of  Gaul — 
was  the  son  of  a  rhetorician  or  psedagogue  of  British  origin  ^. 

^  Amm.  Mar.  xiv.  5,  xx.  2. 

^  A.D.  280.  Vopiscusde  Probo,  c.xviii.    [Domo  Hispaniensis  fuit,  origine 


58  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

The  Pannonian  Valentinus,  when  banished  to  Britain,  found 
there  both  friends  and  aid  in  his  rebellion  against  the  em- 
peror Valentinian,  the  suppression  of  which,  even  after  the 
capture  and  death  of  the  chiefs,  required  all  the  prudence  of 
the  general  Theodosius^  This  success,  but  yet  more  his 
glorious  triumph  over  the  Picts  and  Scots  2,  who  had  advanced 
as  far  as  London  and  slain  the  general,  Fullofaudes,  and  the 
count  of  the  marine  district,  Nectaridus,  the  re-establishment 
of  the  province  of  Valentia,  the  restoration  of  the  towns 
and  garrisons,  the  security  of  the  camps  and  frontiers,  and 
the  amelioration  of  the  civil  government,  obtained  for  the 
British  leader  that  renown  and  influence  which  raised  him- 
self to  the  rank  of  magister  equitum,  and  contributed  to  the 
elevation  of  his  yet  more  fortunate  son  to  the  imperial  purple, 
by  whom  that  dignity  was  once  more,  and  for  the  last  time, 
ennobled.  Britain  possessed  also  an  upright,  though  severe 
governor  in  Civihs,  and  in  Dulcitius,  a  general  distinguished 
for  his  knowledge  of  the  art  of  war^. 

But  the  spirit  of  independence  had  already  stricken  too 
deep  a  root  for  the  example  of  Carausius  ever  to  be  without 
imitators.  Maximus,  of  a  distinguished  British  family'*,  had 
gained  the  highest  reputation  in  the  wars  against  the  Picts 
and  Scots°.  He  was,  against  his  will,  proclaimed  emperor 
by  the  ai'my^;  and  in  the  treason  of  the  warrior  posterity 
would  have  seen  only  the  strong  national  feeling  of  the  noble 
Briton,  had  he  not  left  his  island  realm,  and,  seduced  by 
early  success,  been  desirous  of  founding  at  Treves  a  Western 
Roman  empire,  which  was  at  first  acknowledged  by  Theo- 

Britannus  :  Galla  tamen  matre  ;  ut  ipse  dicebat,  rhetoris  filius  ;  ut  ab  aliis 
comperi,  psedagogi  litterarii.     Id.  de  Bonoso,  c.  xiv. — T.] 

'  Amm.  Mar.  xxviii,  3.  -  a.d.  368. 

^  Amm.  Mar.  xxviii.  3;  xxvii.  8.     Claud,  de  Consul.  Honorii. 

■*  See  the  authorities  in  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  pp.  381,  383. 

*  Prosp.  Tyro,  a.  382. 

"  Prosp.  Tyro,  a.  381.  Prosp.  Aquitan.  a.  384.  Sulp.  Sev.  Vita  S. 
Martini,  c.  xx.  Orosius,  vii.  34.  and  from  him,  Bedse  H.  E.  i.  9.  Paulas 
Diac.  lib.  xi.     Greg.  Turon.  i.  38. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  59 

dosius.  He  was  taken  prisoner  at  Aquileia  and  put  to  death ' . 
His  young  son  Victor,  whom  he  had  declared  emperor  and 
left  behind  in  Gaul,  shared  the  same  fate^.  Hence,  though 
we  must  look  with  great  mistrust  on  the  Welsh  pedigrees  3, 
which  derive  the  independent  princes  of  Gwent  and  Powys, 
as  well  as  the  more  powerful  ones  of  Cumberland  and  Strath- 
clyde,  from  Constantine,  who  is  described  as  the  eldest  son 
of  this  emperor,  yet  the  impression  must  be  acknowledged 
to  have  been  extremely  deep  made  on  the  Britons  by  the 
deeds  of  Maximus. 

An  event  connected  with  the  history  of  this  prince  may 
not  be  passed  without  notice ;  namely,  the  settlement  of  a 
Roman  military  colony  (milites  limitanei,  laeti),  consisting  of 
British  warriors,  in  Ai'morica,  which  has  given  name,  as  well 
as  a  distinct  character  and  history  to  the  province  of  Bre- 
tagne"*.  Though  that  country  had  from  the  earliest  times, 
by  descent,  language,  and  druidism,  been  related  to  Britain, 
yet  the  new  colonists,  who  were  followed  by  many  others, 
both  male  and  female^,  served  unquestionably  to  bind  more 
closely  and  to  preserve  the  connexion  between  Bretagne  and 
the  Britons  of  Wales  and  Coi-nwall ;  and  but  for  this  event, 
the  heroic  poetry  of  France  and  Germany  had  probably  been 
without  the  charm  cast  over  it  by  the  traditions  of  the  San- 
graal,  of  Tristan  and  Isolde,  of  Arthur  and  of  Merlin.  But 
Britain  was  thereby  deprived  of  her  bravest  warriors,  and 

1  A.D.  388. 

2  Prosp.  Aquitan.  a.  388.  Orosius,  vii.  35.  Paul.  Diac.  lib.  xii.  Nen- 
nius,  c.  xxvi. 

3  See  Gunn  in  Hist.  Britt.  p.  141. 

■*  Gildas,  c.  x.  Nennius,  c.  xxiii.  Beda  (H.  E.  i.  12)  copies  the  words 
of  Gildas.  It  is  not  apparent  why  Gibbon  (c.  xxxviii.  note  136),  who  else 
frequently  follows  these  authors,  here  wholly  rejects  them.  See  also  Pal- 
grave,  vol.  i.  p.  382. 

'  The  tradition  of  St.  Ursula  and  the  eleven  thousand  virgins  who  fol- 
lowed the  colony  of  warriors,  is  recorded  by  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  lib.  v., 
according  to  whom  the  arrival  of  many  of  them  in  the  Rhenish  districts  is 
not  unfounded.     See  also  my  little  work  on  Helgoland,  note  IT. 


60  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

thence  the  more  easily  became  an  early  prey  to  foreign  in- 
vaders. 

Scots,  Picts,  and  Saxons  continued  to  trouble  Britain,  and 
even  the  excellent  administration  of  the  vicar  Chrysanthus  ^ 
came  too  late  to  restore  the  state  of  things.  Stilicho  indeed 
felt  himself  at  first  powerful  enough  to  send  a  body  of  Roman 
troops  to  the  aid  of  the  afflicted  province,  who  both  fulfilled 
the  object  of  their  mission,  and,  as  tradition  informs  us,  ex- 
horted the  natives  to  construct  a  wall  across  the  island  from 
sea  to  sea,  as  a  barrier  against  the  northern  barbarians^. 
But  the  Roman  general  himself  soon  stood  in  need  of  all  his 
united  forces  for  the  defence  of  Italy  against  the  hordes  of 
Alaric.  The  troops,  a  few  years  after,  returned  to  Britain, 
but  the  country  had  in  the  meanwhile  suflfered  new  devasta- 
tions from  the  Celtic  invaders. 

The  Roman  legions  were  soon  afterwards,  on  the  occupa- 
tion of  Gaul  by  the  Alani,  the  SuevI,  and  the  Vandals^,  with- 
drawn from  the  island  by  the  emperor  Honorius,  who  was 
compelled  to  leave  it  to  its  fate.  An  emperor  of  Britain  was 
elected  in  the  person  of  Marcus'*,  w-ho,  being  slain,  found 
a  successor  to  his  dignity  and  his  fate  in  Gratian,  a  burgher 
of  a  British  municipal  town^.     The  memory  of  Constantine 

^  Socratis  H,  E.  vii.  12. 

-  [Or  rather  to  restore  the  one  already  constructed. — T.]  See  Gildas, 
c.  xii.  This  tradition  is  remarkable  for  the  confusion  it  has  caused  :  ha- 
ving been  adopted  by  Beda  (H.  E.  i.  12.  and  Chron.  a.  426)  it  has  fre- 
quently been  copied.  Nennius  (Rubric  to  c.  xxiv.)  mixes  the  story  with 
the  older  accounts  of  the  wall  of  Severus,  by  the  interpolation  of  a  new 
emperor,  Severus  II.,  who  built  a  wall  from  Boggenes  (Bowness)  to  Tyne- 
mouth  ;  consequently,  where  Hadrian  had  caused  the  first  wall  of  earth  to 
be  raised.  Rich.  Corinseus  (De  Situ  Brit.  ii.  i.  37.)  also  considers  the  wall 
as  the  work  of  Stilicho,  and  appeals  to  the  passage  of  Claudian  (In  Prim. 
Cons.  Stilichonis,  ii.  247)  ; — 

"  Me  (Britanniam)  quoque  vicinis  pereuntem  gentibus,  inquit, 
Munivit  Stilichon,"  etc. 

^  Oros.  vii.  40,  and  from  him  Paul.  Diac.     Beda,  i.  11. 

•*  A.D,  406. 

^  Oros.  vii.  40,     Olyrap.  ap.  Photium.     Zosira.  vi.  2.     Sozom.  ix.  11. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  61 

the  Great  was,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century,  so  highly  revered 
in  his  real  or  adopted  country,  that  the  possession  of  that 
illustrious  name,  which  at  the  time  was  borne  by  a  humble 
soldier,  procured  for  him  the  vacant  British  throne ;  though 
the  vigour  which  also  gained  him  the  dominion  of  Gaul  and 
Spain ^,  might  well  justify  the  supposition,  that  a  descent 
from  the  emperor  Constantine  and  consanguinity  to  British 
princes  raised  him  to  that  eminence^.  He  probably  yielded 
to  the  hope  of  rendering  his  dignity  and  power  hereditary ; 
his  son  Constans  having,  it  is  said,  exchanged  the  cowl  for 
the  diadem^.  Honorius  saw  himself  compelled  to  acknow- 
ledge Constantine  as  emperor'* ;  but  the  count  Constantius 
having  proceeded  to  Gaul  with  an  army,  shut  him  up  in 
Aries,  took  him  prisoner  and  put  him  to  death ^.  Constans 
his  son  was  slain  at  Vienne  by  his  count  Gerontius*".  Bri- 
tain, however,  never  returned  to  Roman  subjection,  but  con- 
tinued under  rebellious  tyrants  or  pseudo-emperors'^. 

A  new  inroad  of  the  Picts  and  Scots  appears  to  have  occa- 
sioned a  mission  from  Britain  to  Rome,  which,  in  mourning 
weeds,  had  to  deprecate  the  murder  of  the  Roman  generals 
in  the  last  rebellion,  and  to  implore  forgiveness  and  protec- 
tion^. Roman  troops  came  over  once  more,  to  defend  a  pro- 
vince which  contained  not  a  little  Roman  property  and  in- 
terest ;  perhaps  also,  under  the  pretext  of  punishing  the  rebels, 
to  get  possession  of  the  remaining  treasures  of  the  inhabitants^: 
but  having  repelled  the  invaders,  the  Roman  cohorts  were 
obliged  to  hasten  away  to  warfare  in  distant  regions,  after 

'  A.D.  409.  Oros.  vii,  40,  who  adds,  "sine  meritovirtutis."  Olymp,  ap. 
Phot.  Zosira.vi.  3.     Sozom.  ix.  11.     Procop.  i.  2.     Prosp.  Aquit.  a.  407. 

-  Procop.  (i.  2)  calls  him  ovk  oKpxvij  divl^at. — T. 

^  Oros.  vii.  40.  Galf.  Mon.  vi.  5,  who  says  that  he  had  been  a  monk 
at  Winchester. 

■^  Olymp.  ap.  Phot.     Zosim.  v.  43.  ^  a.d.  412. 

^  Oros.  Mil.  42.     Procop.  i.  2.  ^  Procop.  i.  2. 

^  Gildas,  c.  xii.     Nennius,  c.  xxvii.  • 

^  "  Hac  tempestate  prse  valitudine  Romanorum  vires  funditus  attenuatae 
Britannise."  Prosp,  Tyro,  a.  409.  Cf.  also  Sax.  Chron.  a.  418.  Nen- 
nius, c.  xxvii. 


02  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

having  repaired  the  forts  along  the  v:a\\,  and  the  watch- 
towers  on  the  sea-coasts,  and  left  behind  them  arms  for 
models,  with  instructions  how  to  use  them^ 

This  gift  availed  but  little — the  Britons  being  not  only 
strangers  to  the  use  of  arms,  but,  in  a  still  greater  degree,  to 
concord — for  the  re-establishment  of  the  common  good  in  the 
forsaken  land,  in  which  every  town  and  every  petty  chieftain 
aspired  to  perfect  independence.  The  Roman  officials  Avho 
had  been  left  behind  were  driven  from  the  island,  and  the 
emperor  Honorius,  conscious  of  his  weakness,  renouncing 
for  the  present  all  hopes  of  replacing  them,  authorized  the 
British  states  to  undertake  their  own  defence :  but  liberty 
proved  as  useless  to  the  Britons  as  the  cunning  did  to  the 
court  of  Ravenna,  with  which  it  appeared  to  grant  what  it 
had  not  the  power  to  hinder^.  The  enemies  from  the  north 
of  the  island  soon  returned,  and  the  feeble  inhabitants  were 
unable  either  to  defend  their  towns,  or  to  escape  from  the 
murderous  weapons  of  their  foes.  To  this  state  of  helpless- 
ness were  added  famine,  and  the  pestilence  which  at  that 
time  raged  throughout  Europe"^. 

Of  one  victory  only,  which  for  a  short  time  checked  the 
progress  of  the  piratical  Saxons  and  the  Picts,  has  any  tra- 
dition been  preserved :  this,  from  the  cry  of  onset,  bears  the 
name  of  the  Hallelujah  victory*.  The  Gaulish  bishop,  St. 
Germain  of  Auxerre,  during  his  stay  in  the  island,  in  the  year 
429,  is  said  to  have  led  the  orthodox  Britons  on  this  occasion, 
strengthening  them  by  the  penetrating  virtue  of  his  ghostly 
promises^. 

'  Giidas,  c.  xiv.     Nennius,  c.  xxvii, 

"  Zos.  vi.  5,  10.  aa.  409  and  410.  The  Saxon  Chronicle  (which  places 
the  landing  of  Caesar  in  the  year  60  a.c.)  agrees  remarkably  herewith  :  it 
says  (a.  409)  that  "  they  (the  Romans)  altogether  ruled  in  Britain  470  years 
since  Caius  Julius  first  sought  the  land."  So  likewise  Beda,  H.  E.  i.  11, 
ar.d  V.  24.  a.  409,  "Roma  a  Gothis  fracta;  ex  quo  tempore  Romani  in 
Brittania  regnare  cessarunt." 

3  Giidas,  CO.  19,  22. 

*  "  Alleluiam  tertio  repetitam  sacerdotes  exclaraant."     Beda,  i.  20. — T. 

®  Giidas,  c.  xviii.,  seems  to  allude  to  this  victory.   Cf.  Beda,  i.  17  ;  Chron, 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  C3 

Yet  once  again  a  supplicating  embassy  was  sent  to  the 
Roman  general  .^Etius,  during  his  third  consulship,  in  the 
year  446.  " The  barbarians,"  said  the  ambassadors,  "drive 
us  to  the  sea,  the  sea  to  the  barbarians,  we  are  massacred  or 
must  be  drowned^"'     -^tius  was  unable  to  help  them.     The 

a.  459.  Nennius.  Prosp.  Aquit.  a.  429-  Constan.  Vita  S.  Ger.  c.  1.  28,  also 
Beda,  i.  20,  where  the  reading  '  Saxones,'  sanctioned  by  the  best  MSS.,  and 
by  the  life  of  Germanus  by  Constantius,  written  within  forty  years  of  his 
death,  ought  not  to  be  questioned.  To  this  expedition  of  the  Saxons  the 
accounts  refer  which  place  the  first  landing  of  the  Saxons  in  Britain  in  the 
year  428  or  429  ;  in  the  Appendix  too  of  Nennius  (Petrie,  C.  H.  p.  'J'J), 
where  "Felice  et  Tauro  consulibus"  indicates  the  year  428.  Nennius, 
c.  xi.,  reckons,  that  till  the  fourth  (twenty-fourth)  year  of  King  Mervin, 
in  which  he  wrote,  viz.  a.d.  858,  429  years  had  passed  since  the  Saxons 
first  landed  in  Britain  ;  for  which  event,  therefore,  the  half  of  858,  or  the 
year  429  is  to  be  assigned.  At  a  later  period  also  this  date  is  given. 
Osbern,  Precentor  of  Canterbury  in  the  eleventh  century,  in  his  '  Life  of 
Dunstan,'  speaking  (cap.  i.)  of  the  year  of  Dunstan's  birth,  says,  "  Re- 
gnante  Anglorum  rege  Ethelstano,  anno  quidem  imperii  ejus  primo,  adventus 
vero  Anglorum  in  Britanniam  quadringentesimo  nonagesimo  septimo."  The 
editors  ('Acta  Sanctorum'  ed.  Papebrock,  Mail  19,  t.  iv.  359.  WTiarton, 
'  Anglia  Sacra,'  ii.  90  and  94)  have  been  desirous  of  altering  this  number 
into  479,  and,  supposing  the  year  449  as  that  of  the  coming  of  the  Saxons, 
have  placed  the  birth  of  Dunstan  in  the  year  928,  which  is  the  fourth  of 
the  reign  of  ^Ethelstan,  thereby  making  Dunstan  so  young,  that  \Miarton 
(p.  94)  accuses  Osbern  of  falsehood.  But  Osbern  was  not  thinking  of  the 
year  449,  but  of  428,  according  to  which  Dunstan  would  be  born  in  925,  with 
which  the  Saxon  Chronicle  agrees,  which  j^ear  is  also  the  first  of  the  reign 
of  ^thelstan.  In  the  edition  also  of  Nennius  by  Mark  the  Hermit,  the 
landings  of  the  Saxons  are  confused  between  the  years  429  and  447.  In  the 
beginning  of  his  work  (p.  45)  Mark  gives  the  date  of  its  composition  very 
accurately,  viz.  "Quiutus  annus  Eadmundi,  regis  Anglorum,"  or  a.d.  946, 
according  to  our  reckoning,  or  976  according  to  the  reckoning  of  the  Welsh, 
if,  from  Mark,  c.  i.,  and  Nennius,  cc.  xi.  xxix.,  we  may  conclude  on  this 
point,  who  take  the  year  in  which  we  place  the  birth  of  Christ  for  that  of 
his  passion,  and  consequently  reckon  thirty  years  more  than  we  since  the 
birth  of  Christ.  Mark,  p.  62,  is  sufficiently  explicit,  "  Saxones  a  Guther- 
girno  suscepti  sunt  anno  447  post  passionem  Christi.  A  tempore  quo  ad- 
venerunt  primo  ad  Bryttanniam  Saxones  (viz.  429.)  usque  ad  primum  im- 
perii regis  Eadmundi  542,  ad  hunc  in  quo  nos  scribiraus  annos,  traditione 
senionam  547  didicimus."  A  chronology  dating  from  the  death  of  Christ 
rarely  occurs  (Cf.  Ideler,  '  Handbuch  der  Chronologic,'  ii.  p.  4 1 1),  and  never 
without  adding  the  usually  adopted  year  of  the  nativity. 

^  Gildas,  c.  xvii.  Nennius,  c.  xxvii.  Beda,  i.  13,  and  from  Beda's 
Chron.    Paulus,  Diac.  xiv.    Ric.  Corin.  lib.  ii.  i.  39-    Sax.  Chron.a.  443, 


64  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

clergy  entertained  a  better  hope,  and  showed  greater  courage. 
The  state  of  the  church  in  Britain  during  this  early  period,  is 
indeed  too  remarkable  not  to  claim  a  short  notice  in  this 

place. 

The  ordinances  of  the  Christian  communities  were  observed 
in  Britain,  though  many  districts  of  a  country  exposed  to  the 
rapacity  of  the  Roman  officials  were  unable  to  satisfy  the 
modest  claims  of  the  clergy.     Three  Britons,  therefore,  were 
the  only  bishops  at  the  Council  of  Ariminum,  in  the  year  359, 
who  accepted  the  offer  of  the  emperor  Constantius,  to  receive 
their  subsistence  at  the  expense  of  the  stated     That  not  only 
Romans  in  this  country,  but  others  also  of  British  race  were 
devoted  to  Christianity,  is  proved  by  the  existence  of  British 
versions  of  the  Bible^.    Of  the  state  of  Christianity  in  Britain 
some  idea  may  also  be  formed  from  the  early  opposition  there 
manifested  to  the  doctrines  of  Arius,  and  the  subsequent  strong 
tendency  to  that  heresy.     The  holy  places  of  Palestine,  which 
the  British  Helena  and  her  imperial  son  had  adorned,  were 
soon  visited  by  their  countrymen,  to  whom  even  to  pray  at 
the  pillar  of  Symeon  Stylites^  seemed  a  sufficient  motive  for  a 
perilous  journey  by  sea  and  land,  and  the  best  pretension  to 
the  reward  of  everlasting  life.     The  pilgrims  returned  with 
intelligence  of  the  cloisters  that  were  forming  in  the  East  j 
and  the  monastery  of  Bangor'*,  near  Chester,  was  a  founda- 
tion as  ancient  as  memorable  of  a  society  of  brethren  in  this 
country  (probably  grafted  on  druidism)  devoting  themselves 
to  pious  contemplation  and  traditional  wisdom,  but  who,  how- 
ever beneficial  to  individuals,  contributed  little  to  the  spread 
and  inculcation  of  Christianity,  and  were  even  unable  to 
hinder  its  extinction  and  oblivion. 

We  are  enabled  to  form  some  judgement  of  the  acuteness 

1  Sulp.  Sev.  lib.  ii.  c.  55.— T, 

2  Chrysost.  0pp.  P.  viii.  p.  111.  edit.  Savile. 

3  Theodoreti  Relig.  Hist.  c.  xxxvi.— T. 

"^  Ban  gor,  the  great  circle,  is  an  universal  denomination  for  a  congre- 
gation or  monastery.     See  Gunn  in  Hist,  Britt.  Pref.  p.  xxi. 


BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  C5 

and  capacity  of  the  British  ecclesiastics  by  the  celebrated 
heresy  of  the  Briton  Morgan,  better  known  under  his  Latin- 
ized name  of  Pelagius^,  as  also  of  the  Scot  Caelestius,  by  which 
Christendom  was  long  agitated,  and  which,  having  been 
propagated  in  their  native  country  by  the  Pelagian  Agricola, 
found  such  favour,  that  the  orthodox,  through  the  intervention 
of  Palladius,  w  ho  afterwards  became  the  first  Scottish  bishop, 
prevailed  on  the  pope  Caelestinus  to  send  hither  Germanus, 
bishop  of  Auxerre,  and  Lupus,  bishop  of  Troyes^,  to  confute 
their  opponents  in  a  pubHc  disputation.  Their  first  attempt 
proved  that  the  majority  were  not  incon-igibly  devoted  to  the 
new  doctrine.  Scriptural  passages,  relics,  together  with  the 
address  with  which  Germanus  came  to  the  assistance  of  the 
Britons,  in  the  conflict  before  mentioned  with  the  Picts  and 
Saxons,  fought  all  at  once  against  Pelagius^.  In  a  second 
journey,  in  the  year  446,  which  probably  preceded  the  above- 

*  Bishop  Stillingfleet  has  the  following  notices  of  Pelagius,  who  appears 
to  have  followed  the  doctrines  of  the  Greek  fathers  and  the  Eastern  churches, 
and  was  approved  by  the  council  of  Diospolis  ;  and,  as  the  bishop  observes, 
was  condemned  by  men  who  did  not  understand  his  meaning.  "  St.  Au- 
gustine," he  adds,  "  saith  of  Pelagius,  '  he  had  the  esteem  of  a  very  pious 
man,  and  of  being  a  Christian  of  no  mean  rank.'  And  of  his  learning  and 
eloquence  St.  Augustine  gives  sufficient  testimony  in  his  epistle  to  Juliana, 
to  whom  Pelagius  wrote  an  epistle  highly  magnified  for  the  wit  and  ele- 
gance of  it.  And  he  saith,  '  He  lived  very  long  in  Rome,  and  kept  the 
best  company  there.'  Pelagius  wrote  letters  to  clear  himself,  first  to  Pope 
Innocentius,  and  then  to  Zosimus,  who  was  so  well  satisfied,  that  he 
wrote  to  the  African  bishops  in  his  vindication,  although  he  afterwards 
complied  in  condemning  him  : " — "so  that  Pelagius  and  Coelestius,  by  their 
own  natural  wit,  had  in  all  probability  been  too  hard  for  a  whole  succes- 
sion of  popes,  Innocentius,  Zosimus,  and  Xystus,  had  not  the  African 
fathers  interposed,  and  told  them  what  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Church 
was."  Orig.  Brit.  p.  114,  where  also  honourable  mention  is  made  of  two 
British  bishops  charged  with  Pelagianism,  Fastidius  and  Faustus,  as  men 
of  piety,  learning  and  eloquence. — R.  T. 

"  Prosp.  Aquit.  aa.  429,  431.  Constant.  Vita  S.  Germani.  Vita  S.  Lupi. 

^  For  the  miracles  said  to  be  performed  by  Germanus,  see  Usher,  Annal. 
Hector  Boetius  relates  that  he  caused  the  Pelagians  to  be  burnt,  by  the 
care  and  order  of  the  magistrates.  See  Jortin,  Six  Dissertations  :  tire 
Second  contains  an  historical  account  of  this  controversy,  so  much  con- 
nected with  the  early  history  of  Britain,  abridged  from  Le  Clerc,  Bibl. 
Chois.  viii.  308.— R.  T. 

VOL.  I.  F 


66  BRITAIN  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

mentioned  mission  of  the  Britons,  but  certainly  stood  in  close 
connexion  with  it,  Severus,  bishop  of  Treves,  accompanied 
Germanus  to  Britain,  where,  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Pela- 
gians ^,  they  performed  one  of  the  last  acts  of  Roman  power 
in  this  country;  a  measure  indicating  the  weakness  of  that 
religious  conviction  which  was  so  soon  to  be  totally  annihi- 
lated, and  which  allows  us  to  attribvite  the  earliest  occupation 
of  a  Roman  province  by  the  pagans  to  the  same  contentious 
sectarian  spirit,  through  which,  a  thousand  years  after,  the 
last  fragment  of  the  unwieldy  political  conglomeration  fell,  in 
like  manner,  a  prey  to  infidels. 

The  spectacle  which  Britain  now  presented  is  one  of  the 
saddest,  but,  at  the  same  time,  most  memorable  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  It  was  relieved  from  the  rapacity  of  the  Roman 
procurator ;  it  was  freed  from  the  insolence  of  the  Caesarian 
cohorts ;  but  for  this  liberty  the  people  were  not  indebted  to 
their  courage  and  higher  impulses  :  for  them,  therefore,  liberty 
was  helplessness,  independence  anarchy :  and  however  the 
historian  may  strive  to  show  that  corruption  had  long  been 
gaining  ground  in  the  country,  that  the  government  had 
become  gradually  perverted,  and  that  of  the  events  and  views 
of  later  times  types  are  to  be  found  in  the  earlier ;  that  many 
fundamental  jarinciples  were  constantly  preserved,  while  the 
outer  shell  alone  was  changed  ;  yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  that 
no  country  ever  so  quickly  cast  aside  a  polished  language, 
which  had  for  many  generations  been  the  mother-tongue,  not 
/  only  of  the  settlers  but  of  the  natives ;  that  the  Chi-istian 
religion  had  never  so  rapidly  been  exchanged,  leaving  not  a 
trace  behind,  for  paganism  and  infidelity :  such  a  political 
and  moral  degradation  as  took  place  in  the  greater  part  of 
Roman  Britain,  after  so  many  a  mournful  lesson,  apjiears  in- 
deed an  inexplicable  enigma. 

This  W' as  the  deplorable  state  of  the  country  whose  natio- 
nality had  been  destroyed  by  Roman  lust  of  conquest,  after 
the  annihilation  of  which  it  possessed  not  powers  of  resistance 
against  its  most  barbarous  enemies. 

*  Beda,  i.  21.     Vita  S,  Germani. 


67 


PART  I. 

FROM  THE  LANDING  OF  HENGEST  AND  HORSA  TO  THE 
ACCESSION  OF  ECGBERHT. 

After  the  extinction  of  the  Roman  power  in  Britain,  the 
country  had  for  many  years  been  a  prey  to  internal  discord 
and  foreign  assailants,  \yhen,  to  subdue  his  northern  foes, 
Vortigern  \  a  powerful  prince  in  Kent  and  the  southern  parts 
of  Britain,  with  the  concurrence  of  his  counsellors  and  in  the 
true  spirit  of  Roman  policy,  formed  the  resolve  to  avail  him- 
self of  the  help  of  those  German  warriors  who  for  many  years 
had  been  known  to  the  country  only  as  formidable  enemies. 
This  resolve  was  executed ;  but  these  mercenaries  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  weakness  of  the  land  and,  with  the  aid  of  suc- 
ceeding cognate  tribes  and  kinsmen,  subjected  it  to  their 
dominion ;  a  drama  which,  in  the  following  century,  was  in 
a  similar  manner  enacted  in  the  north  of  Italy  by  the  Lom- 
bards, who  had  been  called  in  by  Narses. 

That  the  employment  of  the  Jutish  '  heretogas  '  or  leaders, 
Hengest  and  Horsa,  who,  banished"^  from  their  native  home, 
had  been  driven  to  gain  for  themselves  a  new  country,  was 
no  very  striking  event,  and  that  the  number  of  their  followers 

^  Vortigern  was  the  son  of  Guortheneu,  or  Guortheu,  the  great-grandson 
of  Gloui,  who,  according  to  the  British  tradition,  built  Cair-Gloui  (Glou- 
cester). Such  is  the  account  given  by  Nennius,  c.  liv.  A  later  tradition 
ascribes  the  building  of  that  city  to  the  emperor  Claudius,  whom  it  states 
to  have  been  the  father  of  Gloui  by  a  British  girl  named  Geuissa.  See 
Galfr.  Mon.  iv.  15.     Malraesb.  de  Gestis  Pontif.  iv.  p.  283. 

-  The  banishment  is  mentioned  not  only  by  Jefirey,  but  also  by  Nen- 
nius, c.  xxviii.  "  Interea  venerunt  tres  chiulse  a  Germania  in  exilio  pulsse, 
in  quibus  erant  Hors  et  Hengist,  qui  et  ipsi  fratres  erant."  Beda  (i.  15) 
speaks  only  of  the  invitation,  but  Wittekind  gives  a  circumstantial  account 
of  a  mission  of  the  Britons  to  the  Saxons,  and  recites  their  speech,  re- 
ferring, for  further  information,  to  an  '  Historia  Anglo-Saxonum.' 

F  2 


G8  BRITISH  TRADITIONS. 

■was  not  considerable,  is  evident  from  the  obscurity  which 
shrouds  the  history  of  England  during  the  years  immediately 
following  their  amval,  and  from  their  being  contained  in 
three  vessels  (ceolas^),  as  well  as  from  the  fabulous  traditions 
(though  unknown  to  Gildas  and  Beda)  with  which  these 
years  were  filled  up  by  the  later  Welsh  writers,  as  soon  as 
the  growing  preponderance  of  the  Saxons  in  the  British 
islands  had  contributed  rather  to  excite  the  imagination  than 
to  cherish  and  freshen  the  memory. 

Hengest,  when,  according  to  the  British  tradition,  his  band, 
after  Dido's  example,  had  measured  with  a  hide,  or,  with 
greater  probability,  had,  according  to  Roman  usage,  received 
as  a  reward,  the  fertile  and,  from  its  position  commanding 
the  Thames,  important  isle  Ruoihin,  by  the  Saxons  called 
Thanet%  sent  for  new  allies  from  his  native  country,  together 
with  his  son  Ochta,  Abisa^  the  son  of  Horsa,  and  for  her 
beauty  his  highly  prized  daughter  Rowena.  The  British  prince, 
Vortigern,  at  a  feast  given  by  the  Saxons, — who,  in  the  ac- 
counts of  the  time,  are  represented  as  addicted  to  gluttony 
and  drunkenness, — received  from  Rowena  a  full  golden  cup, 
with  the  old  German  salutation,  "  Wes  hal,"  and  learned  the 
answer,  "  Drinc  hal'*."  Vortigern  now  forgot  all  regai'd  for 
the  Christianity  which  he  outwardly  professed,  and,  excited 
by  love  and  wine,  declared  the  fair  Jute  his  consort,  whom 
her  father  granted  to  him  in  return  for  the  cession  of  Kent, 
at  that  time  suffering  under  the  mal-administration  of  a  cer- 

^  "Tribus  cyulis,  nostra  lingua,  '  longis  navibus.'  "  Gildae  Hist.  c.  x.xiii. 

"  "  Felix  Tlianet  sua  fecunditate — insula  arridens  bona  rerura  copia,  regni 
flos  et  thalamus,  amenitate,  gratia,  in  qua  tanquam  quodam  elysio,  etc." 
Cf.  Jocelinum  de  Vita  Milburgte.  eund.  de  Vita  S.  Augustini,  ap.  Leland 
Collect,  t.  iii.  p.  170,  t.  iv.  p.  8.  The  British  name  of  this  isle,  of  which 
we  have  documentary  evidence  as  late  as  the  year  692  (Thome,  p.  2234), 
shows,  together  with  other  proofs,  that  the  British  tongue  had  not  been 
driven  out  of  Kent  by  the  Latin. 

'•'  Later  traditions  relative  to  these  individuals  will  be  noticed,  when  we 
come  to  the  founding  of  the  kingdoms  of  Northumbria. 

*  See  von  Arx,  in  '  Monum.  Germ.  Hist.'  t.  ii. 


BRITISH  TRADITIONS.  69 

tain  Gnoirangon^  His  subjects  saw  -svith  indignation  the 
partiality  for  the  strangers  with  which  their  king  was  in- 
spired^ in  consequence  of  this  connexion,  and  placed  his  son 
Vortemir  on  the  throne.  Hengest,  who,  according  to  Jeffrey 
of  Monmouth,  had  called  over  three  hundred  thousand  of  his 
countrymen  to  Britain,  under  the  pretext  of  defending  the 
Picts'  Wall  against  the  Scots,  with  whom  he  afterwards  en- 
tered into  an  alliance,  had  by  the  victorious  arms  of  Vortemir 
been  beaten  in  three  battles,  on  the  Darent,  at  Episford-,  in 
which  Horsa  and  Categirn,  a  son  of  Vortigern,  were  slain,  and 
at  Folkestone^,  and  for  some  years  driven  out  of  the  country, 
but  had  been  recalled  by  his  son-in-law,  after  the  latter  (whose 
son  had  been  poisoned  by  Rowena)  had  re-ascended  the 
British  throne.  On  the  refusal  of  the  Britons  to  restore  to 
the  Saxons  their  previous  possessions,  a  conference  w^as  ap- 
pointed of  three  hundred  of  each  nation,  during  which,  on 
the  exclamation  of  Hengest  to  his  followers,  "  Nimath  eowere 
seaxas,"  they,  with  their  long  knives,  which  they  had  held 
concealed,  fell  on  and  murdered  their  opponents'^.  The  ran- 
som of  Vortigern  was  three  provinces,  distinguished  by  their 
later  denominations  of  Essex,  Sussex,  and  Middlesex,  over 
which  Hengest,  and  after  him  his  son  Ochta,  reigned^. 
In  the  perusal  of  this  narrative,  drawn  from  the  WTitings 

^  Nenn.  c,  xxxvii.  Gorongus.  Will.  Malmesb.  lib.  i.  c.  1.  [Some  sup- 
pose this  name  to  signify  a  title,  as  viceroy,  governor,  but  from  the  words 
of  Nennius  it  would  rather  seem  to  be  a  proper  name  :  "  Gnoirangono 
rege  regnante  in  Cantia,"  though  some  MSS.  omit  the  word  '  rege.' — T.] 

-  Nenn.  c.  xlvii.  Br.  Saissenaeg-haibail,  so  called,  says  Camden, 
because  the  Saxons  were  conquered  there.  The  Saxon  Chron.  a.  455. 
reads  ^glesthrep  and  Jiglesford. 

^  This  reading  is  founded  on  a  conjecture  of  Soraner  and  Stillingfleet, 
that  for  Lapis  Tituli  (Nenn.  c.  xlvii.)  we  should  read  Lapis  Populi ;  while 
others  suppose  that  Stonar,  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  is  the  place  intended. 

*  Davies  (in  his  '  Mythology  and  Rites  of  the  British  Druids ')  would 
perceive  in  the  'Gododin'  of  Aneurin,  a  bard  of  the  sixth  century,  an  allusion 
to  this  event.  Turner's  refutation  (b.  iii.  c.  4.)  is  very  satisfactory,  though 
his  own  interpretation  seems  no  less  arbitrary. 

•'  Nenn.  c.  xlix. 


70  ANGLO-SAXON  TRADITIONS. 

of  those  who  have  recorded  the  British  traditions,  we  feel  at 
no  loss  with  regard  to  the  several  elements  of  which  it  is 
composed.  The  Triad  of  the  druidic  religion  and  of  British 
fiction  furnishes  the  groundwork  and  the  standard,  according 
to  w^hich  all  events,  without  any  chronological  data,  are  shaped: 
British  and  Roman  traditions  are  mingled  and  embellished, 
and  the  Old-Saxon  saga  of  the  craft  and  valour  with  which 
the  Saxons  landed  in  Hadeln,  gained  possession  of  Thuringia, 
bought  land,  and  murdered  the  inhabitants  with  their  knives  ^, 
is  here  again  placed  in  account  against  them  by  the  Britons. 
The  principal  assertion  in  this  narrative  is,  moreover,  the 
least  true, — that  Hengest  received  the  above-mentioned  three 
provinces,  which  never  fell  to  his  share,  but  to  that  of  other 
German  chieftains,  and  a  part  of  them  in  much  later  years. 

The  evident  worthlessness  of  these  traditions  renders  the 
more  necessary  a  strict  examination  of  the  accounts  of  their 
conquests  in  Britain  given  by  the  immigrants  themselves. 
We  find  these  in  Beda, — who,  however,  records  but  very  few 
circumstances  relative  to  that  event  from  his  own  sources, 
but,  for  the  most  part,  transcribing  Gildas,  mingles  both  tra- 
ditions^,— and  in  the  earliest  English  chroniclers,  among 
w^hom  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  from  his  greater  detail,  is  par- 
ticularly valuable  and  interesting.  As  these  narratives  are 
accompanied  by  dates,  the  first  point  to  be  ascertained  by  the 
historic  inquirer  is,  the  system,  according  to  which  these  dates 
were  calculated,  before  the  Christian  writers,  through  whom 
only  they  are  transmitted  to  us,  reduced  them  to  the  Julian 
calendar  and  the  Christian  era.  Britain,  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  fifth  century,  could  no  longer  have  reckoned  its  years  by 
Roman  consuls  and  emperors ;    the   epoch  of  the  birth  of 

'  For  the  earlier  traditions  of  the  Saxons  see  hereafter. 

2  Beda,  i.  15,  16,  22,  from  Gildas,  cc.  xxiii.  xxiv.  xxv.,  while  Henry  of 
Huntingdon  copies  Beda,  adding,  however,  the  accounts  which  are  sub- 
stantially given  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle.  The  passages  copied  from  Beda 
should  be  carefully  detached  from  the  rest,  in  order  to  form  a  correct  idea 
of  the  view  here  taken. 


ANGLO-SAXON  TRADITIONS.  71 

Christ,  first  introduced  by  Dionysius  Exiguus  in  the  sixth 
century,  could  not  in  any  case  have  been  adopted  before  its 
close,  and  before  the  conversion  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  prince, 
and  probably  not  before  the  Christian  religion  had  gained  a 
considerable  footing  in  the  country  ^  Of  the  chronology 
brought  by  the  Saxons  into  Britain  we  know  little  more  than 
that  they  reckoned  b}^  lunar  years,  and  increased  their  year 
(which,  like  that  once  in  use  among  the  Romans,  consisted  of 
ten  months  only^)  by  the  addition  of  two  new  months,  and 
of  an  intercalary  month,  on  the  adoption  of  the  Christian 
Roman  calendar^.  Hence,  in  assaying,  as  it  were,  such 
chronological  data,  and  whatever  is  dependent  on  them,  we 
must  have  the  greater  regard  to  their  intrinsic  credibility, 
seeing  that,  for  a  period  of  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
we  are  unable  to  adduce  a  single  trustworthy  authority  for 
the  history  of  the  pagan  Anglo-Saxons. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  narratives  are  given  to  us  by  the  chro- 
niclers in  the  following  words : — 

In  the  year  449,  on  application  made  by  Vortigern,  king 
of  the  Britons,  to  the  '  eethelings '  or  chiefs  of  the  Angles,  or 
Saxons^  for  aid  against  the  Picts  and  Scots,  the  leaders  Hen- 
gest  and  Horsa,  the  sons  of  Wihtgils,  a  great-grandson  of 
Woden,  who,  in  the  sixth  generation,  descended  from  God, 
landed  with  their  followers  from  three  ships  at  Ypwines-fleot^ 
(Ebbsfleet)  in  Kent.     The  Picts  and  Scots  had  already  ad- 

^  On  the  dates  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  subsequent  to  the  introduction  of 
Christianity,  Kerable's  Introduction  to  the  '  Codex  Diplomaticus  ^vi 
Saxonici  '  may  be  consulted  with  advantage. — T. 

'  See  Ideler's  '  Chronologic  '  and  Niebuhr's  Roman  History. 

^  Beda  de  Ratione  Temp. 

*  Beda,  i.  15.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  443,  which  probably  follows  some  other 
narrative  in  assigning  the  year  443,  or  the  following  year,  to  the  invitation 
of  the  Angles. 

"  Sax.  Chron.  (which  in  other  particulars  of  this  event  merely  copies 
Beda).  Ethel werd,  lib.  i.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  Goths  migrated  in 
three  ships  ;  sec  Jornandes,  p.  98  :  the  Winili  or  Longobards  in  three 
divisions  ;  see  P.  Warnefrid,  i.  3  :  the  Warager  under  three  leaders  j  see 
Nestor. 


72  ANGLO-SAXON  TRADITIONS. 

vanced  to  Stamford  in  Lincolnshire.     While  on  the  one  side 
they  fight  with  darts  and  spears,  on  the  other  with  battle- 
axes  and  long  swords,  the  Picts,  unable  to  withstand  such 
force,  seek  for  safety  in  flights     The  victorious  Saxons  tri- 
umph over  the  enemy  whithersoever  they  advance,  and  gain 
vast  booty.     The  strangers  inform  their  countrymen  in  Sax- 
ony of  the  fertility  of  the  island,  and  the  sloth  of  its  inhabit- 
ants ;  whereupon  a  fleet  of  sixteen  sail  immediately  brings 
over  a  larger  body  of  w^arriors,  which,  added  to  the  former 
band,  form  an  irresistible  army.     A  fixed  habitation  is  as- 
signed them  by  the  Britons,  as  reward  and  pay  for  the  further 
defence  of  Britain,  according  to  the  difference  of  the  three 
races :  to  the  Jutes  in  Kent,  to  the  Saxons  in  Wessex  and 
Essex,  to  the  Angles  northwards.     The  story  of  Rowena  is 
here  mentioned  merely  as  a  British  tradition-.     Beda  further 
relates,  that  Horsa  fell  in  a  battle  against  the  Britons,  and 
that  his  monument  was  yet  to  be  seen  in  the  eastern  part  of 
Kent^.  The  Saxons  afterwards  come  in  greater  numbers,  and 
form  an  alliance  with  the  Picts "*.     He  then  gives  some  words 
from  Gildas  on  the  battles  of  Ambrosius  Aurelianus  with  the 
Saxons,  and  immediately,  through  one  of  those  singular  hal- 
lucinations under  which  he  occasionally  labours,  passes  on  to 
the  battle  of  Bath,  which  he  places  in  the  year  492,  or  in  the 
forty-fourth  year  after  the  arrival  of  the  Saxons.     On  a  later 
occasion  he  calls  the  son  of  Hengest,  Oeric  (Eric),  surnamed 
Oisc^  (^sc),  from  whom  the  royal  race  of  Kent  derived  its 

1  H.  Hunt.  lib.  ii. 

2  H.  Hunt.  "  dicitur  a  quibusdam."     Cf.  Nenn.  cc.  xxxvii.  xlix. 

3  At  Horsted.     Archieol.  vol.  ii.  p.  107  ;  Hasted's  Kent,  vol.  ii.  p.  177. 

— T. 

*  This  account  of  Beda,  i.  15,  is  not  to  be  found  either  in  Gildas  or  Nen- 
nius,  who  would  hardly  have  omitted  it,  had  it  been  founded.  It  may 
possibly  have  arisen  from  a  misunderstandmg  by  Beda  of  the  passage  in 
Gi'das,  c.  xxiii.  "  testantur  se  cuncta  insula  rupto  foedere  (sc.  cum  Vorti- 
gerno  inito)  depopulaturos." 

5  It  may  be  well  to  observe  that,  in  the  orthography  of  personal  proper 
names,  Beda  uses  the  Northumbrian  dialect,  writing  oi  for  se  and  e,  oe  and 


ANGLO-SAXON  TRADITIONS.  73 

patronymic  appellation  of  Oiscings'  (JEscIngs).  The  other 
traditions  which  we  are  about  to  relate,  were  therefore  un- 
known tOj  or  regarded  by  Beda  as  unworthy  of  notice. 

In  a  battle  where  Ambrosius  Aurelianus,  a  chief  of  Roman 
lineage,  with  two  sons  of  Vortigern,  Gortimer  and  Catigern, 
lead  each  a  separate  body,  Hengest  and  Horsa,  though  with 
an  inferior  number,  each  with  his  band,  march  boldly  to  the 
encounter^.  This  battle  may  be  identical  with  that  of  the 
Derwent,  recorded  without  particular  details  by  the  British 
traditionists.  In  the  sixth  or  seventh  year  after  the  coming 
of  the  Germans,  was  fought  the  battle  at  ^glesthrep,  sup- 
posed to  be  the  present  Aylesford,  where  tradition  declares 
the  British  structure  known  by  the  name  of  Kits  Coty  house 
to  be  the  sepulchral  monument  of  Catigern,  At  the  outset 
Horsa  attacked  the  band  led  by  Catigern  with  such  impetu- 
osity that,  like  dust,  it  was  scattered  in  all  directions,  and  the 
son  of  the  king  was  struck  by  him  to  the  earth.  His  brother 
Gortimer,  however,  a  very  valiant  man,  burst  from  the  flank 
into  the  array  of  Horsa,  and  slew  that  hero.  The  remnant  of 
Horsa's  band  fled  to  Hengest,  who  still  fought  unconquered 
with  the  wedge-formed  array  of  Ambrosius.  The  whole 
weight  of  the  conflict  having  now  fallen  on  Hengest,  who  was 
also  pressed  by  the  brave  Gortimer,  after  a  long  resistance, 
and  a  great  loss  on  the  side  of  the  Britons,  he  who  had  never 
fled  was  now  compelled  to  flee.  This  battle,  though,  from  its 
name,  regarded  as  the  second  mentioned  by  Nennius,  agrees 
in  its  consequences  more  with  the  third  and  last  recorded  by 
him^. 

i  for  e,  a  and  se  for  ea,  u  for  w,  c  and  ch  for  h,  d  for  th  (6).  Examples  of 
all  these  changes  occur  in  the  following,  Oidilualch,  Coinualch,  Coenred, 
Alcfrid,  ^dwine,  Sseberct ;  for  ^thelwealh,  Cenwealh,  Cenred,  EalhfriS, 
Eadwine,  Sseberht. — T. 

1  H.  E.  ii.  5. 

"  H.  Hunt,  lib.ii.  The  battle  between  Aurelianus  and  Hengest  is  {).lso 
mentioned  by  Gildas,  c.  xxv.,  though  without  details. 

^  Sax.  Chron.     H.  Hunt.  a.  455. 


74  ANGLO-SAXON  TRADITIONS. 

In  the  eighth  year  after  the  coming  of  the  Germans,  the 
Britons  led  four  large  bodies  under  as  many  valiant  chieftains 
to  Crecganford  (Crayford)  in  Kent,  against  Hengest  and  his 
son  ^sc :  though  when  the  Britons  had  begun  the  game  of 
war,  they  ill  withstood  the  Saxons,  who,  strengthened  by  a 
body  of  newly-an'ived  chosen  men,  with  their  battle-axes  and 
swords,  fearfully  hewed  the  bodies  of  the  Britons,  nor  ceased 
they  from  the  conflict  until  they  beheld  the  slaughter  of  four 
thousand  of  their  adversaries,  who  in  dismay  fled  towards 
London,  and  never  again  ventured  to  enter  Kent  with  a  hos- 
tile purpose^.  Hengest  and  his  son  JEsc"^  now  assumed 
kingly  power  in  Kent. 

Eight  years  later,  in  465,  Hengest  and  ^sc  assembled  an 
invincible  army,  against  which  all  Britain  went  forth  in  twelve 
noble  warlike  hosts.  They  fought  long  and  bravely,  until 
Hengest  slew  the  tuelve  British  chieftains,  took  their  stand- 
ards, and  put  the  panic-struck  bands  to  flight :  but,  together 
with  other  noted  leaders  and  kinsmen,  Hengest  lost  his 
valiant  thane  Wipped,  after  whom  the  battle-field,  which, 
from  the  preceding  narrative,  we  ought  not  to  look  for  in 
Kent,  received  the  name  of  Wippedes-fleot.  This  battle  was 
followed  by  so  many  tears  and  so  much  sorrow,  that  neither 
people  for  a  considerable  time  ventured  beyond  their  own 
boundaries^. 

Again,  after  a  term  of  eight  years,  in  473,  Hengest  and 
yEsc  gained  another  victory  over  the  Britons :  the  name  of 

1  Sax.  Chron.  Ethelwerd.  Flor.  Wigorn.  H.  Hunt.  a.  457- 
"  Sax.  Chron.  Flor.  Wigorn.  a.  455.  Huntingdon  places  the  assump- 
tion of  the  kingly  power  hy  Hengest  and  his  son  in  457,  where  the  men- 
tion of  .(Esc  seems  a  later  addition  to  the  text,  the  verb  being  left  in  the 
singular  :  "  Exindc  reynavit  Hengist  et  Esc  filius  suus."  Ethelwerd  also 
(rightly  I  suspect)  omits  all  mention  of  ^sc,  saying  merely,  that  Horsa 
being  slain,  Hengest  "  cepit  regnura."  Whether  Hengest's  assumption  of 
the  royal  dignity  was  a  consequence  of  Horsa's  death  or  of  the  complete 
expulsion  of  the  Britons  from  Kent,  is  doubtful,  though  the  latter  seems 
the  more  probable  cause. — T. 
3  Sax.  Chron.     Ethelw.     Flor.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  a.  465. 


CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.  75 

the  field  is  forgotten.    They  made  vast  booty,  and  the  Britons 
fled  before  them  as  from  lire^ 

In  the  fortieth  year  after  his  arrival^,  or  twice  eight  years 
after  the  last  battle,  Hengest  died,  and  after  him  Eric,  sur- 
named  yEsc,  the  patriarch  of  the  dynasty  of  the  ^scings, 
reigned  twenty-four  years,  increasing  his  territory  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Britons,  until  the  end  of  the  eighth  cycle  of  eight 
years  after  the  coming  of  the  Germans  into  England.  From 
this  time  for  the  following  eighty  years,  the  history  of  the 
kingdom  of  Kent  affords  no  chronological  data,  and  records 
little  beyond  the  names  of  the  first  ^scings,  namely  Octa 
or  Ocha,  the  son  of  Eric  or  ^sc,  and  Eormenric,  the  son  or 
brother  of  Octa.  Under  the  year  568  ^thelberht  is  named, 
who  reigned  forty-eight  years,  whose  successor  Eadbald  was 
followed  by  Earconberht,  each  of  whom  reigned  twenty-four 
years. 

The  great  importance  in  the  histoiy  of  England  of  the 
conquests  of  Hengest  must  justify  us  for  occupying  some 
space  in  an  attempt  more  accurately  to  determine  the  value 
of  the  foregoing  narratives.  The  first  point  for  consideration 
is  the  year  of  the  landing,  which,  according  to  the  later  Anglo- 
Saxon  chronicles,  is  449.  The  more  ancient  Beda,  in  three 
different  places^,  merely  says,  that  the  first  landing  of  the 
Saxons  took  place  during  the  seven  years'  reign  of  Marcianus 
and  Valentinianus,  the  beginning  of  which  in  his  History  he 
places  in  the  year  449,  but  in  his  Chronicon  in  459 :  the 
right  year  is  known  to  be  450.  The  English  accounts  being 
thus  evidently  incorrect,  the  hitherto  apparently  neglected 
statement  of  the  older  and  nearly  contemporaneous  Prosper 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  473. 

2  H.  Hunt.  a.  488.  "Mortuus  est  Hengist  xL  anno  post  adventum 
suumin  Britanniam."  The  Sax.  Chron.  Ethelw.  and  Flor.  Wigorn.  make 
no  mention  of  the  fortieth  year,  which  is,  moreover,  undoubtedly  incorrect, 
and  added  apparently  through  prepossession  for  the  number  eight  and  its 
multiples, — T. 

^  H.  E.  i.  15,  V.  24,  "quorum  tempore  Angli  a  Brittonibus  accersiti 
Brittauiam  adicrunt."    Chron.  a.  459. 


76  CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  ANGLO-SAXONS. 

Tyro  becomes  important,  namely,  that  Britain,  as  early  as  in 
the  year  441,  fell  under  the  dominion  of  the  Saxons  ^  With 
this  year  the  mission  of  the  Britons  to  ^tius,  at  that  time 
resident  in  Gaul,  might  possibly  be  brought  into  connexion : 
yet  Beda  himself,  in  other  parts  of  his  work,  where  he  gives 
the  dates  with  greater  exactitude,  fixes  446,  that  of  the  third 
consulship  of  .^tius^,  for  the  year  of  the  landing  of  the  Angles 
and  Saxons.  It  would  seem  that  Beda,  M^hose  glaring  defi- 
ciency in  historic  criticism  has  never  been  duly  attended  to, 
followed  in  the  one  account  the  Kentish  narratives,  in  the 
other,  the  North-Anglian  authorities,  both  of  whom  may  be 
correct  for  their  respective  localities.  On  the  first-mentioned 
account  of  Beda  later  chroniclers  have  founded  the  beginning 
of  their  Saxon  era. 

The  oldest  Anglo-Saxon  chronologists  reckoning  their  years 
from  the  arrival  of  the  Saxons,  we  have,  in  the  adoption  some- 
times of  the  year  445  and  sometimes  449,  an  explanation  why 
the  dates  of  the  earliest  annals  so  frequently  differ  from  each 
other  by  exactly  four  years ^.     The  year  428,  to  be  found  in 

^  "Britannise  usque  ad  hoc  tempus  variis  cladibus  evcntibusque  latae 
(laceratse)  in  ditionem  Saxonum  rediguntur."  Pr.  Tyro,  a.  441,  ap.  Ca- 
nisium,  and  Petrie,  C.  H.  p.  Ixxxii.  2. 

'  H.  E.  V. 23,  "anno  adventus  Anglorum  in  Britanniam,  circiter  ducen- 
tesimo  octogesimo  quinto,  Dominicffi  autem  incarnationis  anno  septingen- 
tesimo  tricesimo  primo."  Id.  i.  23,  "anno  decimo  quarto  ejusdem  principis 
(Mauricii,  hoc  est  anno  696)  adventus  vero  Anglorum  in  Brittaniam  circiter 
centesimo  quinquagesimo."  The  '  Northumbrian  Chronology  '  (Wanley, 
p.  288  ;  Petrie,  C.  H.  p.  290)  places  the  arrival  of  the  Angles  292  years 
ijefore  737,  consequently  in  445.  See  also  Petrie,  p.  120,  note  *.  Nennius 
(c.  xxviii.)  assigns  a  period  of  forty  years  from  the  extinction  of  the  Roman 
power  in  Britain  till  the  landing  of  the  Germans,  where  it  is  evident  that, 
as  well  as  in  other  parts  of  his  history',  he  mixes  up  Anglo-Saxon  with 
British  traditions. 

^  See  also  the  '  Annales  Juvavienses  Majores,'  where  the  death  of  JEthel- 
berht  of  Kent  is  mentioned  under  the  year  620,  but  which  is  usually  as- 
signed to  616,  while,  according  to  a  contrary  calculation,  the  year  of  the 
death  of  Finnan  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  is  placed  in  658,  instead  of  662.  A 
similar  confusion  occurs  in  the  year  of  the  death  of  Penda  of  Mercia, 
which  is  usually  given  in  654,  but  in  the  Northumbrian  chronology  already 
cited,  in  658. 


CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.  7/ 

"OTiters  of  no  very  late  times,  as  that  of  the  landing  of  the 
Saxons  in  England,  having  been  already  considered',  need  be 
merely  mentioned  in  this  place. 

We  have  in  our  detail  endeavoured  to  draw  attention  to 
a  circumstance  hitherto  entirely  overlooked, — that  the  events 
in  the  saga  of  the  ^Escings,  or  founders  of  the  kingdom  of 
Kent,  take  place  in  an  eight  times  repeated  cycie  of  eight 
years.  If  so  many  traces  of  fiction  did  not  betray  a  poetic 
source  from  which  these  meagre  chroniclers  derived  their 
narrative,  yet  must  those  numbers  awaken  the  suspicion,  that 
of  a  people,  who  have  preserved  no  more  ancient  chrono- 
logical notices,  Mhose  genealogies,  ascending  in  the  tenth  or 
twelfth  generation  to  the  first  Creator  of  the  world,  betray  a 
very  short  historic  memory,  we  possess  a  fragment  only,  ar- 
bitrarily taken  by  the  Scalds,  of  a  myth  founded  on  some 
historic  sagas. 

Though  so  little  of  the  Old-Saxon  traditions  has  been  trans- 
mitted to  us  through  the  literature  of  the  Christian  Anglo- 
Saxons,  we  possess,  however,  two  poetic  pieces  in  Avhich 
Hengest  appears  as  a  conspicuous  character :  the  one  a  frag- 
ment only,  "  The  Battle  of  Finnesburh  V^  the  other  an  epi- 
sode in  Beowulf^,  the  oldest  national  epic  extant  of  Germanic 
Europe.  We  should  therefore  not  be  startled  at  the  suppo- 
sition of  poems,  founded  on  his  most  memorable  deed,  sung 
by  heathen  Anglo-Saxons  in  the  first  century  after  it  took 
place'* ;  nor  if  in  the  history  of  the  later  founded  Anglo-Saxon 

'  See  p.  62,  note^. 

2  See  Hickes,  Thes.  t.  i.  p.  192  ;  Conybeare's  '  Illustrations,'  p.  1/3,  and 
Beowulf  by  Kemble,  vol.  i.  p.  238. 

^  [First  published  by  Thorkelin  at  Copenhagen  in  1815,  4to,  whose  text 
abounds  in  the  grossest  errors,  but  from  which  his  original  transcript,  now 
at  Copenhagen,  is,  singularly  enough,  in  great  measure  exempt.  His  "ver- 
sio  Latina  "  is  worthy  of  the  text.  An  edition  of  a  different  character  ap- 
peared in  1833,  and  again,  with  considerable  improvements,  in  1835,  by 
J,  M.  Kemble,  Esq.  M.A.,  which  was  in  1837  followed  by  a  prose  trans- 
lation of  the  poem,  a  valuable  glossary  and  body  of  notes  by  the  same  able 
hand.— T.]  The  name  of  Hengest  [as  well  as  that  of  Hnsef],  though  oc- 
curring several  times  in  the  poem,  has  at  each  time  been  misunderstood  by 
Thorkelin ! 

''  This  is  perhaps  not  exactly  the  place  to  remark,  that  in  Busching's 


78  CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  ANGLO-SAXONS. 

kingdoms,  we  detect  many  traces  of  poetic  conception  in  the 
fragments  preserved  by  the  chroniclers. 

Whether  the  number  eight  was  merely  the  division  given  by 
the  probably  historic  nmnbers  forty  and  sixty-four,  or  whether 
it  had  an  astronomic  allusion,  or  was  founded  on  some  myth, 
we  are  unable  to  discover.  That  the  Saxons  were  not  stran- 
gers to  astronomic  traditions,  appears  probable  from  their 
primitive  saga,  in  which  354,  the  number  of  the  ships  with 
which  their  forefathers  migrated  from  the  land  of  sunrise^, 
corresponds  with  that  of  the  days  of  the  lunar  year.  We  find 
the  number  eight  in  the  division  of  the  twenty-four  hours, 
from  one  morning  to  another,  usual  among  the  Anglo-Saxons 
and  Icelanders.  A  similar  division  exists  in  the  eight  watches 
among  mariners.  As  at  Rome  the  period  of  eight  days  was 
superseded  only  by  the  Jewish- Christian  week  of  seven  days, 
so  both  German  and  Scandinavian  colloquial  terms  point  to  a 
similar  division  of  time  in  the  heathen  North.  This  number 
reminds  us,  moreover,  of  the  oKraerTjpU  of  the  Greeks,  so  fre- 
quently occurring  in  their  games  and  other  institutions. 

If,  in  considering  the  cyclic  chronology  of  the  dominion 
of  the  ^scings,  wq  recollect  how  many  centuries  of  history 
are  a  later  work  of  men,  we  shall  be  unable  wholly  to  sup- 
press our  doubts  regarding  the  existence  in  Kent  of  the 
first  founder  of  that  race.  Among  the  reasons  against  the 
historic  truth  of  the  traditions  of  Hengest  and  Horsa,  the 
first  that  presents  itself  is  the  extraordinary,  and,  except  in 
poetical  tradition,  almost  unheard  of  circumstance,  of  two 
leaders,  at  the  same  time,  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  followers. 
Beda  gives  the  story  of  the  two  brothers  as  a  tradition  only^. 

'  Volkslieder '  there  is  a  child's  song  in  which  alkision  is  made  to  the  Saxon 
invasion  of  Britain.  The  mention  therein  of  the  Old-Saxon  weapon,  the 
long  knife  (spax),  is  remarkable. 

'  See  i.  a.  Sachsenspiegel,  lib.  iii.  c.44. 

"  H.  E,  i.  15.  [The  circumstance  of  two  brothers  being  joint  kings  or 
leaders,  and  bearing  alliterative  names,  is  far  from  unheard  of  in  the  annals 
of  the  North  :  as  instances  may  be  cited  the  sons  of  Ragnar,  Ingvar  and 
Ubba,  of  whom  hereafter;  also  two  kings  in  Rumedal  (Snorre,  t.  i.  p.  81), 
Herlaug  and  HroUaug.     See  also  the  early  Danish  chronicles.— T.] 


ANGLO-SAXON  RUNES.  79 

Their  synonymous  names  are  yet  more  striking,  which  have 
been  considered  as  bearing  allusion  to  the  horse  held  sacred 
by  the  Germans',  to  their  military  banner''^,  and  to  the  white 
horse,  the  arms  of  the  county  of  Kent.  The  poems  of  the 
founding  of  the  kingdom  of  Kent  are  unfortunately,  through 
the  early  decay  of  that  power,  irretrievably  lost,  and  there  is 
as  little  hope  of  illustrating  the  traditions  from  historic  nar- 
ratives as  from  the  heroic  compositions  of  the  bard  or  glee- 
man^. 

The  inquiry  into  the  chronology  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  na- 
turally leads  to  the  question,  what  were  the  means  employed 
by  them  to  aid  the  memory,  and  preserve  to  posterity  the 
remembrance  of  past  generations  ?  That  the  art  of  writing 
was  not  very  general  among  them  we  must  conclude  from 
their  numerous  symbolical  legal  usages ;    nevertheless  the 

1  Tac.  Ger.  c.  x.  "  Ibid.  c.  vii.     Ejd.  Hist.  iv.  22. 

^  According  to  a  tradition  of  Ocka  Scharlensis,  a  Frisian  historian  of  the 
tenth  century  (printed  at  Amsterdam  in  1507),  Hengist  and  Horsa  were 
the  sons  of  Udolph  Haro,  the  seventh  and  last  duke  of  the  Frisians,  and 
of  Svana,  a  daughter  of  the  noble  Witgistus  (Wihtgils?),  dwelling  near 
Hamburg,  and  sister  of  two  earlier  individuals  deceased,  named  also  Hen- 
gist  and  Horsa.  I  am  acquainted  with  this  story  (which  is  justly  rejected 
by  Verstegan  and  later  English  writers)  only  through  the  work  of  Suffridus 
Petri,  'De  Frisionum  Antiquitate  et  Origine,'  Colon.  Agrip.  1590. 


Having,  since  the  foregoing  was  written,  received  the  original  work 
of  Ocka,  revised  and  enlarged  by  John  Vlitarp  and  Andreas  Cornelisz 
(Leeuwaarden,  1597,  fol.),  I  find  that,  in  speaking  of  Hengist,  born  in  361, 
and  Horsus,  who  had  already  served  in  the  army  of  Valcntinian,  and  landed 
in  Britain  in  385,  the  author  generally  follows  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Frisian  historian  this  Hengist  was  hanged  in  the  year  389 
by  Eldol  (Cf.  Galfr.  Monum.  vi.  6),  and  the  conquest  of  Britain  was  achieved 
by  the  followers  of  the  sons  of  the  second  Frisian  king  Odilbalt,  who  were 
born  in  441,  and  likewise  called  Hengist  and  Horsa,  and  had  been  taught 
the  art  of  war  under  the  Northern  kings,  but  were  at  last  slain  by  Gormund 
and  his  Irishmen.  In  Ocka's  work  no  mention  is  made  of  Svana  nor  of 
her  father  '  Wsethgist '  (Wihtgisl,  Wihtgils).  [From  the  tale  of  the  scop  or 
gleeman  in  Beowulf,  Hengest  certainly  appears  as  (what  he  has  always 
till  of  late  been  considered)  a  Jutish  leader.  The  whole  episode  will  be 
found  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  accomfjanied  by  what  I  believe  to  bq  a 
literal  translation,  with  a  few  conjectural  readings  of  the  text,  which  do 
not,  however,  affect  the  parts  relating  to  the  country  of  Hengest. — T.  j 


80  ANGLO-SAXON  RUNES. 

Anglo-Saxon,  and  in  part  English  expressions  for  writing  and 
alphabetic  signs,  viz.  writan,  to  write,  and  staef,  letter,  and 
the  many  Anglo-Saxon  derivatives  from  these  roots,  as  staef- 
creeft,  art  of  letters,  grammar;  staefen-row,  alphabet;  staef- 
ge^vrit,  staeflic,  staef-plega,  etc.,  justify  the  conclusion,  that  if 
the  Anglo-Saxons  had  appropriate  names  for  writing  and  ob- 
jects connected  with  it,  the  art  itself  could  not  have  been 
unknown  to  them.  Of  runes,  the  use  of  which  among  the 
Germans  seems  to  have  been  known  to  Tacitus',  many  traces 
still  exist  in  England,  where  the  word  rune,  however,  rather 
signified  a  mystery,  than,  as  among  the  Scandinavian  nations, 
an  alphabetic  character.  That  the  Germans  brought  alpha- 
betic writing  with  them  to  Britain  appears  partly  from  the 
circumstance  that  they  were  acquainted  only  with  the  old 
runic  alphabet  of  sixteen  letters,  and  that  their  characters 
closely  resembled  those  of  the  northern  Germans^,  but  par- 
ticularly from  the  adoption  of  some  of  the  Saxon  characters 
into  the  Roman  alphabet  introduced  by  the  Christian  priests, 
which  was  found  inadequate  to  express  all  the  Anglo-Saxon 
sounds.  These  are  the  runes  p,  afterwards  exjiressed  by  V 
or  W,  and  p,  \  (for  which  the  later  D,  -S  was  also  used),  now 
expressed  by  Th.  During  the  early  culture  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  by  the  missionaries,  the  other  runic  characters  the 
sooner  fell  into  disuse  from  being  unknown  to  the  Britons, 
who  at  a  later  period  exercised  over  them  considerable  influ- 
ence.    Although  we  have  to  regret  the  loss  of  all  the  alpha- 

^  Ger.  c.  iii.  "  Aram  Ulixi  consecratam,  monumentaque  et  tumulos 
quosdam  Grjecis  Uteris  inscriptos  in  confinio  Germanic  Raetiseque  adhuc 
extare."    lb.  c.  x.  "  Virgam  frugifer^e  arbori  decisam  in  surculos  amputant, 

eosque  notis  quibusdam  discretes  super  candidara  vestem spargunt." 

Were  these  twigs,  used  for  casting  lots,  marked  with  runes  ?  [See  a  passage 
connected  with  this  subject  in  '  The  Legend  of  St.  Andrew/  edited  by 
Mr.  Kemble  for  the  .^Elfric  Society,  or  in  Archseol.  vol.xxviii.  p.  332. — T.] 

2  Of.  W.  C.  Grimm,  'Ueber  Deutsche  Runen,'  Gottingen  1821,  and 
his  supplement  to  that  work  in  the  '  Wiener  Jahrbiicher,'  1828,  Bd.43. 
Geijer, '  Svea  Rikes  Hafder,'  T.  i.  134-185,  with  whom  I  agree  in  the  result, 
though  not  in  particular  points. 


ANGLO-SAXON  RUNES.  81 

betic  writings  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  from  the  time  of  paganism, 
which,  on  perishable  wood,  recorded  the  genealogies  of  their 
kings,  legal  documents  and  poems, — yet  are  lasting  though 
somewhat  later  monuments  inscribed  with  them  not  want- 
ing, from  which  we  may  conclude  that  here,  as  in  the  North, 
they  were  in  use  as  the  writing  of  the  people  for  some  cen- 
turies ;  hence  we  meet  with  them  on  boundary  stones,  fonts, 
and  similar  public  monuments. 

The  use  of  runes  as  a  peculiar  kind  of  writing  may  be 
traced  in  England  till  the  fourteenth  century  ^ ;  and,  if  we  err 
not,  they  continued  in  use  both  there  and  in  Germany  for 
inscriptions  and  seals  to  even  a  later  period,  in  consequence  of 
the  superior  facility  which  their  right-lined  forms  afforded  to 
the  engraver  over  those  of  the  usual  round  monkish  charac- 
ters. That  we  have  failed  in  discovering  their  numerals  is 
much  to  be  regretted,  by  an  acquaintance  with  which  many 
an  enigmatic  myth  of  the  North  might  be  found  susceptible 
of  an  historic  interpretation.  From  the  undoubted  connexion 
of  the  runic  characters  with  the  Phoenician  and,  consequently, 
with  the  ancient  Greek  alphabet,  we  may  perhaps  conclude 
that  the  runic  numerals  were  those  characters  in  their  ancient 
order,  which  we  know  from  some  manuscripts ;  a  supposition 
which  as  far  as  the  number  19  finds  confirmation  in  the 
notation  used  on  the  old  runic  calendar,  in  reference  to 
the  cycle  of  nineteen  years  ^.  If  we  further  consider  how 
long  these  characters  continued  in  use  among  the  common 
people  and  perhaps  in  commerce,  the  question,  however  re- 
pugnant to  received  opinion,  may  be  asked,  whether,  not- 
withstanding the  influence  of  the  Arabian  or  Indian  numeral 


'  See  Cod.  Sangallens.  270  and  878  ;  it.  Cod.  Isidor.  Paris,  in  Grimm, 
tab.  ii.,  and  ibid.  tab.  iii.;  from  later  A.-S.  manuscripts  in  Hickes,  t.  i. 
pp.  135,  136,  and  t.  iii.  tab.  6  ;  Duncan  and  Repp's  account  of  the  monu- 
ment in  Ruthwell  Garden,  Edinb.  1833  [and  Kemble's  paper  on  Anglo- 
Saxon  Runes,  in  Archaeologia,  vol.  xxviii. — T.]. 

"  Hickes,  t.  i.  p.  34. 

VOL.  I.  G 


82  ANGLO-SAXON  NUMERAL  SYSTEM. 

system  on  our  own,  the  present  so-called  Arabian  first  eight 
numerals  are  not  eight  runes,  to  which,  as  they  appear  in 
ancient  manuscripts,  they  bear  a  closer  resemblance  than  to 
the  real  Arabian  ciphers  ?  That  this  supposed  similarity  is 
less  striking  in  the  Northern  than  in  the  later  wide-spread 
Anglo-Saxon  runes,  seems  in  favour  of  the  hypothesis.  Pla- 
nudes  indeed  says,  that  the  numerals  used  by  him  are  of 
Indian  origin^ ;  but  how  different  from  our  ciphers  are  those 
figures  as  we  find  them  in  his  time  and,  some  centuries 
earlier,  in  Roger  Bacon,  as  well  as  in  other  manuscripts ! 
It  would  be  rash  to  pretend  to  decide  on  a  point  regarding 
which  our  materials  for  judging  are  so  scanty  and  so  uncer- 
tain ;  yet  the  doubt  may  be  forgiven  on  calling  to  remem- 
brance that  science  and  art  have  often  been  found  nearer  to 
their  home  than  short-sighted  learning  imagined. 

Of  greater  importance  for  historical  investigation  would  be 
the  knowledge  of  the  numeral  system  in  use  among  the 
Saxons.  I  am  inclined  to  the  belief  that  the  octonary,  on 
account  of  its  facility  of  division,  was  the  one  followed,  and 
that  herein  may  be  found  a  further  reason  for  the  frequent 
use  of  the  number  eight  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  narratives. 
From  this  system  it  appears  also  probable  that  the  name  of 
the  eighth  rune,  'hun,'  is  nearly  connected  with  hundred',  also, 
that  both  Scandinavians  and  Germans  had  a  small  and  a  great 
hundred  and  thousand,  by  the  latter  of  which  the  numbers 
120  and  1200  were  denoted^,  and  hence  perhaps  the  frequent 
occurrence  of  the  number  12  (3  x  4).  The  greatest  weight 
usual  in  the  North,  which  emphatically  bore  the  name  of 
'  vaett,'  contained  eighty  pounds,  and  was  increased  to  a  hun- 

'  See  Montucla,  Histoire  des  Mathematiques,  i.  p.  3/5  sq.  The  se- 
cond rune  Ur  resembles  in  all  the  alphabets  the  cipher  for  two  as  it  appears 
in  manuscripts  of  the  fourteenth  centurj-. 

^  Rask,  Anvisning  til  Islandskan,  p.  130.  Mone,  Gesch.  des  Heiden- 
thums,  ii.  79,  p-  89.  For  traces  of  a  reckoning  by  a  great  hundred  see 
Diss,  on  Domesday  Book,  p.  xlvii.  Ellis,  Introd.  to  Domesday,  vol.  i. 
p. 148. 


NATIONAL  TRADITIONS.  83 

dred^  in  later  times  only.  The  Anglo-Saxons  placed  the  word 
^hund'  before  the  numbers  70  to  120,  a  practice  evidently  de- 
rived from  a  time  when  that  syllable  had  not  acquired  its  later 
signification  of  number,  but  indicated  only  a  certain  multipli- 
cation; which  notation  might  perhaps  have  connexion  with  the 
number  of  the  sixteen  ancient  runes,  the  eleventh  of  which 
might  denote  20,  and  so  on,  the  fifteenth  60,  and  the  last 
100;  in  like  manner,  at  a  later  period,  after  six  new  runes 
had  been  added,  the  twenty-first  might  have  been  employed 
for  the  great  himdred,  and  the  last  rune  for  its  multiple, 
the  great  thousand.  As  an  idiom  now  lost  in  the  English 
tongue,  but  as  showing  the  close  relationship  subsisting 
between  the  Anglo-Saxon  method  of  reckoning  and  that  of 
the  Scandinavian  and  other  Germanic  people,  may  be  cited 
the  use  of  the  word  '  healf,'  half,  which  they  subtract  from 
the  preceding  whole  number,  while  in  other  tongues  the  half 
is  added  to  the  same  ;  an  idiom  which  receives  illustration 
from  the  custom  adopted,  in  writing  the  numerals  during  the 
middle  age,  of  drawing  a  stroke  through  the  whole  number, 
thereby  signifying  that  a  half  is  to  be  subtracted  from  it'^. 

Before  we  resume  the  subject  of  the  settlements  of  the 
Germans  in  Britain,  the  manifest  deficiency  of  the  historic 
picture, — which  in  this  instance  has  very  little  claim  to  be 
regarded  as  a  faithful  min-or, — renders  it  necessary  to  give  a 
more  detailed  account  of  the  descent  of  these  people ;  a  subject 
the  more  important,  as  with  greater  rapidity  and  more  last- 
ing consequences,  they  converted  the  newly  acquired  land,  in 
language,  laws  and  customs,  into  a  native  country  for  their 
posterity. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  attending  the  invasion  of 
Britain  by  the  Germanic  races,  that  people  Mhose  language 
was  sufficiently  formed  to   supplant  both  the   old   mother- 

*  Gragas  II.  in  Gloss.,  though  Bioni  Haldorsen,  voc.  Vsett,  explains  it 
by  '  octoginta  pondo,  nonnunquara  olim  centum  pondo.' 

*  This  practice  is  not  yet  entirely  obsolete  in  Scotland. — T. 

G  2 


84  NATIONAL  TRADITIONS. 

tongue,  and  the  language  of  business,  of  education,  and  of 
the  church, — while  in  every  other  province  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire, with  the  exception  of  border  districts,  the  language  of 
the  barbarians  expired, — should  have  preserved  only  meagre 
genealogic  memorials,  but  no  ancestral  tradition,  historic  re- 
cords, or  even  any  distinct  aUusions  to  the  country  w^hich 
they  had  previously  occupied.  But  this  want  of  native  hi- 
story will  appear  the  less  singular,  when  we  call  to  mind  that 
the  immigration  did  not  take  place  in  great  bodies,  but  gra- 
dually, frequently  hy  very  small  settlements,  which  spread 
themselves  over  the  greater  part  of  England  and  the  south 
of  Scotland,  during  the  course  of  one  or  two  centuries.  In 
the  English  language,  particularly  in  the  rural  districts, 
■where  the  Norman  French  has  exercised  less  influence,  we 
still  possess  living  witnesses  of  the  identity  of  the  invaders 
w4th  the  inhabitants  of  the  banks  of  the  Lower  Elbe  and  of 
the  neighbouring  countries,  to  the  north  and  south,  from 
Jutland  to  the  mouths  of  the  Rhine.  The  existing  monu- 
ments of  the  old  Lower  Saxon  dialect,  especially  the  '  Har- 
mony of  the  Four  Gospels,'  of  the  ninth  century,  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Heliand^,  agree  much  more  closely  with 
the  Anglo-Saxon  in  the  foi-mation  of  words,  in  inflexion,  and 
the  whole  vocabulary,  than  the  Upper  German  writings  of 
the  same  period.  Widely  as  the  modern  English  tongue 
deviates  from  the  present  German,  there,  nevertheless,  yet 
lives  in  the  various  dialects  of  England,  and  particularly  of 
Scotland,  a  rich  store  of  Old-Saxon,  and  the  speech  and  the 
song  of  the  Scottish  ploughman  not  unfrequently  receive  their 
best  illustration  by  a  comparison  with  the  expressions  of  the 
Holsteiner,  Hadeler,  or  Frisic  husbandman  or  mariner. 

An  insight  into  the  very  close,  immediate  connexion  be- 
tween the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Low  German  dialects  is  not 

*  Heliand.  Poema  Saxonicum  seculi  noni,  cdidit  J.  A.  Schmeller. 
Monachii,  Stutgartiaa  et  Tubingse.  1830,  4to.  Also,  Glossarium  Saxo- 
nicum e  Poemate  Heliand,  ib.  1840. — T. 


NATIONAL  TRADITIONS.  85 

without  important  results  for  many  centuries  of  English  hi- 
story, and  a  firm  footing  for  the  illustration  of  the  civil  in- 
stitutes in  both  these  neighbouring  countries  is  thereby  ob- 
tained. The  Scandinavian  dialects  are  far  more  remote  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  we  are  fully  justified  in  regarding  the 
traces  yet  to  be  found  in  English  of  the  old  Norse  tongue  as 
the  echo  of  the  invasion  of  the  Jutes,  and  yet  more  of  the 
later  ones  by  the  Danes  or  Northmen,  and  are  enabled  to  fix 
with  confidence  the  period  of  the  introduction  of  certain 
Northern  elements,  which,  as  legal  antiquities,  sometimes 
at  the  present  day  present  themselves  as  still  living. 

To  the  proofs  derived  from  language  regarding  the  native 
land  of  the  Saxons  who  passed  over  to  Britain,  belongs  the 
resemblance  both  of  the  personal  names  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
and  of  local  names  in  the  western  parts  of  England  to  those  of 
Lower  Saxony ;  though  with  respect  to  the  former,  the  com- 
parison is  rendered  very  difficult  by  the  want  of  old  Lower 
Saxon  documents,  few  of  which  reach  beyond,  or  even  so  far 
as  the  twelfth  century,  besides  being  exposed  to  much  uncer- 
tainty, through  the  early  spread  of  originally  national  proper 
names  by  wanderings  and  intermarriages.  But  the  resem- 
blance of  local  names,  exclusive  even  of  those  that  preserve 
historical  and  mythological  recollections,  is  too  striking  not  to 
have  been  long  ago  called  into  notice  ^ ;  yet  the  lists  may  be 
greatly  increased,  and  gain  in  value  by  the  aid  of  more  ancient 
records.  The  most  important  names  to  us  must  be  those 
which,  occurring  in  Old- Saxony  only,  lead  to  the  inference 
of  similar  political  institutions  there,  where  it  is  worthy  of 
notice  that  the  name  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  noble,  '  setheV  is  to 
be  found  in  EtheUngstede-,  and  that  the  local  termination  in 
Wick,  luich,  so  frequent  in  England,  with  its  compounds 

^  See  Ch.  U.  Grupens,  Abh.  'De  Lingua  Hengisti '  in  Observat.  Rer.  et 
Antiquit.  Germanic,  et  Roraanar.;  and,  with  particular  reference  to  districts 
on  the  Elbe,  Wedekinds  noten  zu  deutschen  Geschichtschreibern,  Bd.  i. 

-  Now  Tellingstadt  in  Dithmarschen. 


86  NATIONAL  TRADITIONS. 

Wykgraf,  wykvogt,  Wykscheffel  (wispel),  are  not  common  to 
all  Germany,  but  exist  only  in  Old-Saxony  and  Friesland. 

Of  greater  and  more  immediate  interest  for  the  history  of 
England  is  the  agreement  between  the  public  and  private 
legal  institutions  of  the  Germans  and  those  of  the  English 
Saxons,  which  abundantly  manifests  itself  as  well  in  their 
general  characteristics  as  in  incidental  notices  and  detached 
fragments,  the  further  consideration  of  which  Ave  defer  for 
the  present,  as  an  opportunity  will  hereafter  be  given  for  the 
discussion  of  them  in  connexion  with  the  history  of  the  An- 
glo-Saxon constitution. 

But  if,  on  every  close  comparative  consideration  of  the 
copious  language,  numerous  settlements,  and  civil  institutes 
of  both  nations,  new  proofs   of  identity  shall  be  found,  a 
more  favourable  and  more  faithful  picture  will  present  itself 
of  the  state  of  civilization  of  the  continental  and  of  the  insular 
Saxons  than  the  meagre  narratives  of  the  older  historians 
have  been  able  to  supply.     Even  though  it  were  the  petulant, 
rugged  youth  who  first  forsook  their  home,  and  took  pos- 
session of  a  foreign  land,  yet  these  emigrants,  unconsciously 
to  themselves,  had  their  share  in  the  transmission  to  England 
of  the  most  valuable  possession  of  their  country,  in  language 
and  customs,  which  succeeding  multitudes  of  their  elder  and 
more  peaceful  kinsmen  afterwards  fully  effected.    But  let  the 
modern  world  not  forget,  that  the  existing  notions  of  property, 
of  inheritance,  and  the  institutions  founded  thereon,  are  the 
slow  and  artificial  production  of  many  centuries,  and  that 
states  of  society  sometimes  present  themselves  to  the  geogra- 
pher and  the  historian  exhibiting  no  inconsiderable  degree  of 
mental  culture,  yet  with  no  consciousness  of  the  necessity  of 
those  fundamental  principles  of  present  social  order.     The 
system  of  an  annual  changing,  or  at  least  changeable  pos- 
session of  land,  and  the  custom  necessarily  attending  it,  of 
migrating,  prejudicial  as  they  were  to  the  solid  interests  of 
nations,  nevertheless  required  activity  and  strength  of  mind : 


NATIONAL  TRADITIONS.  87 

the  individual  too,  whose  home  afforded  him  no  permanent 
settlement,  would  not  respect  that  of  a  stranger ;  while  piracy, 
ennobled  by  stratagem  and  valour,  is  indebted  only  to  an 
established  system  of  social  order  for  its  disgrace  and  punish- 
ment. Even  in  later  times  the  prince  of  the  Hebrides  bore 
without  scruple  the  title  of  ^  archpirate ' :  the  Barbary  States 
also  afford  examples  of  odious  but  not  wholly  savage  com- 
munities, professing  piracy  as  a  trade ;  and  the  letters  of 
marque  of  the  Europeans  prove  how  easy,  even  to  ourselves 
at  the  present  day,  is  the  suspension  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  our  whole  legal  system,  and  the  return  to 
la'W'ful  private  robbery. 

The  ancestral  traditions  of  the  Saxons  belong  scarcely  to  the 
province  of  history.  The  tradition  that  they  sprung  from  the 
Danes  and  Northmen,  though  questioned  by  Wittekind,  was 
probably  founded  on  the  transient  dominion  of  the  Danes 
over  the  northern  Saxons^,  and  receives  some  countenance  in 
the  intermediate  position  of  these  people  between  Germany 
and  the  North.  As  neighbours  of  the  Danes,  on  the  confines 
of  the  Cimbric  Chersonesus,  the  Saxons  were  known  to 
Ptolemy.  We  find  them  soon  aftenvards  in  the  South,  ex- 
tending themselves  along  the  sea-shore  towards  the  Rhine ^. 
With  both  these  traditions,  a  third,  to  which  the  monks  of 
Corvey  gave  full  credit,  is  not  incompatible,  viz.  that  the 
Saxons  having  come  to  their  neighbourhood  in  ships,  and 
first  landing  in  Hadeln,  drove  the  Thuringians  thence  by  craft 
and  violence.  If  this  event  took  place,  it  cannot  have  been 
later  than  at  the  time  stated,  that  of  the  emperor  Vespasian, 

1  "  Confinalis  Danise  est  patria  quae  nominatur  Saxoniaj  qute  antiquitus 
et  ipsa  ex  Dania  pertineie  dicebatur."  Geog.  Raven,  iv.  c.  17. 

"  "  Saxones,  gentein  oceani  in  litoribus  et  paludibus  inviis  sitam."  Oro- 
sius,  vii.  32,  whose  words  here  as  elsewhere  are  copied  by  Paulus  Diac. 
de  Gest.  Roman,  lib.  xi.  In  geographical  notices  the  unaltered  confirm- 
ations of  a  copyist  are  sometimes  of  value.  The  '  Insulse  Saxonum  '  of 
Ptolemy  are  probably  to  be  sought  for  in  the  present  North  Friesland  : 
Eiderstedt,  Nordstrand,  Wieking-Harde  and  Biiking-Harde.  See  Falck, 
Schleswig-Holsteinsches  Privat-recht,  Th.  ii.  p.  10. 


88  NATIONAL  TRADITIONS. 

as  M'e  soon  afterwards  find  the  Saxons  in  league  with  the 
Franks.  Wittekind  does  not  inform  us  whence  these  Saxons 
came  who  landed  in  Hadeln,  and  there  is  no  ground  for  contro- 
verting, but,  in  accordance  with  other  narratives  and  with  the 
ordinary  march  of  nations  from  north  to  south,  for  supposing 
that  they  were  from  the  north  shore  of  the  Elbe,  or  Nordal- 
bingian  Saxons,  M'ho  took  possession  of  the  southern  shore  of 
that  river,  and  soon  spread  themselves  over  those  tracts,  as 
far  as  the  Weser  and  the  Rhine  ^,  until,  in  the  time  of  Charle- 
magne, they  were  in  possession  of  the  territory  forming  the 
eight  bishoprics  founded  by  him,  or  of  the  '  gaus,'  or  districts, 
of  the  later  Upper  and  Lower  Saxony  and  Westphalia.  In 
the  account  which  makes  the  Saxons  to  have  passed  from 
Britain  to  Hadeln^.  a  later  inversion  of  the  tradition  is  to  be 
recognised,  originating,  perhaps,  in  the  return  of  some  bo- 
dies, of  Saxons  from  England^. 

That  a  considerable  portion  of  the  German  invaders  of 
Britain  were  strictly  Saxons'*  is  the  more  probable,  as  the 
names  of  the  territoi'ies  occupied  by  them,  Essex,  Sussex, 
Middlesex  and  Wessex,  prove  their  Saxon  origin ;  and  even 
at  the  present  day,  after  all  the  immigrations  of  other  races, 

'  This  is  the  country  which  Beda,  yElfred  and  other  English  writers  call 
Old-Saxony  in  contradistinction  to  the  newer  Saxon  realm  in  England. 
Herewith  also  agrees  the  account  of  Adam  of  Bremen,  i.  3,  that  the  Saxons 
first  had  their  habitation  on  the  Rhine,  and  thence  passed  over  to  Britain. 
To  seek  for  Old-Saxony  in  Holstein,  with  Camden  and  others  after  him, 
is  not  admissible,  as  in  the  oldest  accounts  we  always  find  the  latter  coun- 
try written  Holsatia.  Adam.  Brem.  ii.  8.  "  Holsati  dicti  a  sylvis  quas 
accolunt."  And  from  him,  Annalista  Saxo  a.  983.  "  Holcetae  dicti  a 
sylvis  quas  incolunt."  Cf.  also  Albert.  Stad.  a.  917.  The  Sachsenspiegcl 
(b.  iii.  art.  64.  §  3.)  has  'Holtseten.' 

^  Meginhard,  Transl.  S.  Alexandri,  and  Adam.  Brem.  i.  4,  fromEinhard. 

3  Gildas,  Hist.  c.  xxv.     Beda,  i.  16.     Galf.  Mon.  vi.  13. 

■*  The  oldest  continental  writers  for  the  most  part  mention  only  the 

Saxons  as  immigrants.     Prosp.  Aquit.  a.  441.   "  Britannise in 

ditionem  Saxonum  rediguntur."  Geog.  Raven,  v.  §  31.  "  In  oceano  occi- 
dentrle  est  insula  qua;  dicitur  Britannia,  ubi  olim  gens  Saxonum,  veniens 
ab  antiqua  Saxonia,  cum  principe  suo,  nomine  Anschis,  modo  habitare 
videtur;"  also  Wittekind,  lib.  i.  [The  territories  occupied  by  the  Saxons 
were  small  in  comparison  with  those  of  the  Angles.    See  note  ^  p.  89. — T.] 


NATIONAL  TRADITIONS.  89 

their  Celtic  neighbours,  the  Highland  Scots,  the  Welsh,  the 
Irish,  and  the  Bretons,  speak  of  the  English  only  under  the 
denomination  of  Saxons,  though  other  hordes  either  accom- 
panied or  followed  them,  among  which  the  Angles  are  chiefly 
conspicuous,  but  whose  origin — though  they  were  undoubt- 
edly more  numerous  than  even  the  Saxons,  and  sufficiently 
powerful  to  impart  their  name,  as  a  national  denomination, 
to  the  whole  new  Germanic  land,  to  the  exclusion  of  that 
of  the  Saxons  1,  until,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  historians 
introduced  that  of  Anglo-Saxons,  —  is,  nevertheless,  in- 
volved in  very  considerable  obscurity.  Both  Beda  and  Alfred 
distinctly  mention  the  district  of  Angeln  as  the  original  seat 
of  this  people^  a  name  now  confined  to  the  country  between 
the  She,  or  Schley,  and  Flensburg,  but  which  anciently  must 
have  comprised  a  much  larger  territory^.  The  testimony  of 
Beda,  who  lived  in  one  of  the  states  founded  by  the  Angles, 
and  scarcely  a  century  from  the  time  of  its  foundation,  is  here 
particularly  valuable.  The  old  British  tradition  makes  Hen- 
gest  and  his  companions  embark  for  Britain  from  the  Isle  of 
Angul^,  although  they  are  else  confidently  spoken  of  as  Sax- 

1  Already  in  a  letter  of  Gregory  I,,  a.  596,  the  inhabitants  of  '  Saxonia 
transmarina,'  as  they  are  denominated  in  the  superscription,  are  in  the 
text  called  'gens  Anglorum.'  Hardt.  iii.  p.  509.  Du  Chesne, t.  i.  p.  897. 
So  also  in  all  the  letters  of  the  same  pope  in  Smith's  Beda,  Appendix  vi., 
and  in  Bedae  Opera  Historica  Minora,  Appendix,  ed.  Stevenson. 

-  Beda,  i.  15.  "  Porro  de  Anglis,  hoc  est,  de  ilia  patria  quae  Angulus 
dicitur,  et  ab  eo  tempore  usque  hodie  manere  desertus  inter  provincias 
Jutarum  et  Saxonura  perhibetur,  Orientales  Angli,  Mediterranei  Angli, 
Merci,  tota  Nordanhymbrorum  progenies,  id  est,  illarum  gentium  quae  ad 
boream  Humbri  fluminis  inhabitant,  ceterique  Anglorum  populi  sunt  orti." 
yElfred's  Account,  §  3.  Ohther's  Voyage,  §  10.  Dahlmann's  Forschungen, 
Th.  i.  p.  418  sq.  Nestor  also,  the  Russian  chronicler,  makes  mention  of 
the  Angles. 

^  See  Ethelwerd,  lib.  i.,  who  mentions  Sleswic,  by  the  Danes  called  Haith- 
aby,  as  the  capital  of  that  country. 

•*  Nennius,  c.  xxxvii.      "  Hengistus cum  suis  senioribus,  qui  secum 

vencrant  de  insula  Angul."  [Some  MSS.  read  Oghgul.— T.]  Gerv.  Tilb.  ed. 
Maderus,p.41.  "Ab  illis  Saxonibusab  Engla  insula  venientibus  seminarium 
ortum  est  Anglorum." 


90  NATIONAL  TRADITIONS. 

ons,  and  the  peopling  of  the  kingdom  of  Kent,  founded  by 
them,  was  ascribed  to  Jutes  ^ 

The  Angles^  possessed  in  Britain  those  parts  which  after- 
wards formed  the  kingdoms  of  East  Angha,  ISIercia,  and 
Northumbria  (in  the  ancient  and  hteral  acceptation  of  that 
name,  comprising  the  country  to  the  north  of  the  Humber, 
viz.  the  county  of  York  and  the  present  Northumberland,  the 
latter,  if  it  were  already  included  under  that  appellation,  form- 
ing but  a  small,  and  the  most  remote  portion  of  it),  or,  in 
other  words,  the  country  to  the  north  of  the  counties  of  Hert- 
ford, Northampton,  and  Warwick.  This  northern  portion  of 
England  is  distinguished  from  the  south  by  two  denomi- 
nations, which  can  be  ascribed  only  to  the  Angles  :  while  the 
parts  inhabited  by  the  Saxons  were  divided  into  hundreds, 
the  like  division  in  all  the  Anglian  territories  bore  the  name 
of  wapentake^,  which  is  still  retained  in  the  county  of  York, 
and  partially  in  those  of  Derby  and  Lincoln.  It  will  hardly 
be  objected  that  this  appellation  was  introduced  at  a  later 
period  by  the  Danes,  since,  of  all  the  Anglian  states,  East 
Anglia,  which  first  fell  under  a  regular  Danish  government, 
is  the  only  one  where  it  does  not  occur.  In  the  present 
counties  of  Northumberland  and  Durham,  which  had  early 

^  Beda,  i.  15.     Procopius,  lib.iv.,  says,  BQirrixv  Si  rviv  vviirou  Uun  -niiat, 

'Tco'kvctv'h^u'Kora.ra.  'iyfivat AyyiT^oi  re  xxt  ^Qi'craoves  >ii*i  0/  rfi  viiaoa 

cfAuuviAot  'B^'iTTuuii,  without  mentioning  the  Saxons. 

"  Of  the  Old  Angles  we  possess  two  remarkable  monuments  :  the  poem 
of  Beowulf  (seep.  77  and  note),  in  which  the  old  Anglian  saga  is  ennobled 
by  an  Anglo-Saxon  of  the  eighth  century,  and  the  laws  of  the  Angles  of 
Haithaby,  generally  known  under  the  probably  corrupt  title  of  '  Leges 
Angliorurn  et  Werinorum,'  for  which  Dahlmann  acutely  proposes  to  read 
'  Angliorurn  Etverinorum,'  or  '  Hetverinorum.'  See  Kraut  on  the  I,ex  Angl. 
etWerin.  in  Falk's  Eranien,  iii.  [The  reading  'Werinorum '  is,  however, 
as  old  as  Cnut's  Forest  Laws  :  see  p.  93,  note'*.' — T.] 

^  Leges  Edw.  Conf.  xxx.  "  Everwichescire,  Nicholescire,  Notingeham- 
scirr,  Leicestrescire,  Norhamtunescire,  et  usque  ad  Watlingestrete,  et  VII. 
milliaria  ultra  Watlingestrete,  sub  lege  Anglorum.  Et  quod  alii  ('  Angli,' 
some  MSS.)  vocant  hundredum,  supradicti  comitatus  vocant  wapentagium." 
Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  England,  folio  edit.  p.  196. 


ANGLES.  91 

and  long  been  Danish,  as  well  as  in  Cumberland  and  West- 
moreland, the  division  called  a  ward  is  met  with,  which  may, 
however,  date  only  from  the  Norman  times.  Another  national 
denomination  of  the  Angles  accords  precisely  with  the  pre- 
ceding, viz.  that  of  the  civic  estabhshment,  the  '  by.^  Fre- 
quently as  local  names  with  this  termination  occur  to  the 
north  of  Warwick,  we  shall  vainly  seek  for  them  southwards 
of  that  town  ^  To  the  distinction  between  Angles  and  Saxons 
it  may,  perhaps,  also  be  ascribed,  that  beyond  the  Wathng 
Street,  many  of  the  local  names  end  or  begin  with  '  kirk ' 
(church),  while  to  the  south  we  find  ^minster'  (monastery). 
These  remarks  on  isolated  differences  of  expression  between 
Angles  and  Saxons,  here  confined  to  local  instances,  may  be 
extended  to  the  important  and  well-ascertained  variations  in 
dialect  prevailing  between  the  inhabitants  of  Mercia  and  those 
of  Wessex. 

The  testimony  of  manuscripts  of  the  same  work  in  the  dia- 
lects of  Wessex  and  Mercia'^,  and  of  a  period  when  the  Danes, 
having  scarcely  obtained  their  first  peaceful  settlement  in 
England,  could  exercise  no  influence  over  the  language  and 
culture  of  their  ten-itory,  seems  to  place  the  age  of  both  dia- 
lects, and,  consequently,  the  difi^erence  of  both  races,  beyond 
a  doubt ;  and  will,  when  the  investigation  is  rendered  more 
easy,  probably  remove  all  uncertainty  regarding  the  descent 
of  the  Angles. 

Another  hypothesis  must  not,  however,  be  entirely  over- 
looked, according  to  which  the  Angles  were  either  the  Anglii 
of  Tacitus,  or  the  Angrivarii,  the  inhabitants  of  the  later  duchy 
of  Engern.     Ptolemy  relates  that  a  nation,  bearing  the  name 

^  The  correctness  of  this  observation,  with  reference  to  the  earliest  times, 
cannot  indeed  be  proved,  in  consequence  of  the  want  of  documents.  Derby, 
in  which  I  have  first  met  with  this  termination,  owed  its  name  of  Deoraby 
to  the  Danes,  having  been  originally  called  Northweorthig.  Ethelwerd,  iv.  2. 

2  In  that  of  Mercia  is  the  Cambridge  MS.  of  the  Chronicle  (C.  C.  S.  11, 
Wanley,  p.  130),  and  a  MS.  of  Alfred's  Boethius  used  by  Rawlinson  in  his 
edition.  [I  believe  the  genuine  Anglian  dialect  to  be  that  which  is  usually 
denominated  the  Northumbrian. — T.] 


92  [ANGLES. 

of  Angles,  dwelt  to  the  south  of  the  Elbe,  in  a  territory  which, 
perhaps,  may  be  sought  for  in  the  old  North  Thuringia^  No 
account  of,  not  even  the  slightest  allusion  to,  any  connexion 
between  these  southern  Angles  and  those  of  Sleswig  is  extant ', 
yet,  if  the  supposition  be  not  groundless,  that  the  Saxons 
moved  southwards  from  the  northern  bank  of  the  Elbe,  it  is 
not  imj)robable  that  hordes  also  of  their  Anglian  neighbours 
in  the  north  might  have  accompanied  them. 

Nor  may  we  seek  for  the  Anglian  settlers  in  the  midst  of 
the  German  continent,  seeing  that  the  grounds  alleged  in 
favour  of  that  opinion  rest  on  a  manifest  misunderstanding^. 
At  an  early  period  the  servility  of  genealogists  had  declared 
Hengest  and  Horsa  for  sons  of  the  duke  of  Engern,  with  the 
view  of  bestowing  on  those  individuals  an  origin  that  should 
be  welcome  both  to  the  Saxons  and  English^ ;  but  of  an 
argument,  however  specious,  founded  merely  on  blazonry,  we 
ought  to  be  extremely  distrustful.  The  duchy  of  Engern 
bore,  it  is  said,  a  white  horse  in  its  banner,whence  that  charge 
came  into  the  shield  of  the  dukes  of  Liineburg  and  the  pre- 
sent Guelphs'^ ;  the  same  is  also  borne  by  the  county  of  Kent, 

*  Von  Wersebe,  Beschreibung  der  Gauen  zwischen  Elbe  und  Werra, 
p.  69.  Von  Ledebur,  Land  und  Volk  der  Bructerer,  p,  2/4,  but  who,  in 
what  he  says  about  the  Old-Saxons,  is  far  from  satisfactory  ;  and,  in  what 
he  states  concerning  the  Angli  and  Warni,  misunderstands  in  an  extraordi- 
nary manner  the  passage  of  Procopius,  lib.  iv.,  who  does  not  consider  the 
Angli  and  Warni  as  allies  in  England,  but  speaks  of  the  Angli  who  from 
Britain  overcame  the  Warni  encamped  on  the  opposite  coast  of  Belgium. 

^  In  Adam.  Brem.  i.  4,  where  he  speaks  of  the  Saxons  who  had  gone 
over  to  Britain,  the  words  "  et  vocati  sunt  Angli,"  after  "  Saxones  circa 
Rhenum  sedes  habebant,"  are  wanting  in  the  Vienna  MS. 

^  Gobelini  Personae  Cosmodrom.  Eetate  vi.  "Duces  exercitus  illius,  qui 
de  Saxonia  in  Britanniam  profectus  est,  filii  ducis  Angarise  sive  de  Engere 

fuerunt, et  inde  forte  est  quod  arma  ducis  Saxoniassunt  equus  albus." 

See  also  Verstegan,  p.  131. 

■*  Not  the  device  of  the  Saxons,  who,  according  to  Wittekind,  bore  an 
cagln  hovering  over  a  lion  and  a  dragon.  The  golden  dragon  was  the  royal 
standard  of  Wessex.  H.  Hunt.,  lib.  iv,  "  Edelhun  prsecedens  Westsexenses, 
regis  insigne,  draconem  scilicet  aureum  gerens,"  etc.  The  horse  in  the 
arms  of  Brunswick-Liineburg  was  not  added  till  the  year  1362.  See  Miillcr 
in  Neue  vaterliindische  Archiv.  1832,  p.  176  ;  Scheldt  vom  deutschen 
Adel,  p.  228. 


ANGLES.  93 

where  Hengest  and  Horsa,  according  to  tradition,  first  landed 
and  ruled.  But  here  all  dates  are  M'anting,  and  Kent,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  was  not  occupied  by  a  race  of  Angles. 

Of  the  laws  of  the  Angles  there  is  no  collection  extant ; 
the  loss  of  them,  more  especially  those  of  OfFa,  is  matter  of 
deep  regret,  as  they  would,  no  doubt,  have  afforded  us  some 
important  data  whereby  to  judge  of  the  identity  of  the  British 
Angles  with  one  of  the  continental  races.  We  know,  however, 
from  detached  sources,  that  the  laM's  of  the  southern  and 
northern  English,  or  of  the  Saxons  and  Angles,  even  in  their 
later  form,  differed  in  many  points  from  each  other  ^;  but  the 
law  of  Mercia  is  usually  cited  as  agreeing  with  that  of  East 
Anglia^  ;  hence  an  accordance  of  the  law  of  Mercia  with  that 
of  the  continental  Anglians  ought  not  to  be  overlooked — in 
the  latter  of  which,  among  all  the  written  German  laws,  the 
denomination  *  adaling '  (oetheling)  is  alone  to  be  found — viz. 
that  both  fix  the  wergild  of  the  free  at  two  hundred  shillings^. 
The  disproportion  in  the  wergild  of  the  noble  among  the  An- 
glians may  perhaps  be  accounted  for  by  the  circumstance, 
that  a  new  nobility,  the  '  sixhyndesmen,'  formed  out  of  the 
military  retainers  that  had  passed  into  Britain,  had  stept  into 
the  place  of  the  old  nobles,  while  the  wergild  of  the  old 
nobility  by  birth  was  doubled,  and  their  rank  raised  in  pro- 
portion. We  possess,  however,  a  very  remarkable  testimony 
of  the  origin  of  the  wergild  of  the  free  from  the  law  of  the 
Anglians,  and  of  its  validity  in  England,  in  the  Forest  Laws 
of  Cnut,  which  seems  to  place  even  the  later  application  of 
that  law  in  England  beyond  a  doubt'*. 

^  See  Laws  of -lEthelred,  vii.  9,  13,  and  the  title  'Wergilds/  in  the  An- 
cient Laws  and  Institutes  of  England. 

-  Cnut's  Sec.  Laws,  Ixxii. 

^  See  tit.  '  Mercian  Law,'  in  Anc.  Laws  and  Instt.  Lex  Angl.  et  Wer. 
tit.  i. 

•*  Const,  de  Foresta,  xxxiii "emendct  secundum  pretium  hominis 

mediocris,  quod  secundum  legem  Werinorum,  i.  Thuringorum,  est  ducen- 
torum  solidorum."  [The  reading  '  Churingorum/  for  'Thuringorum,' given 


94  ANGLES. 

But  the  accordance  of  the  laws  of  the  Anglians  with  those 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  is  in  general,  and  even  in  many  indi- 
vidual points,  very  remarkable.  Particularly  important  in 
the  former  is  the  precept  regarding  the  succession  to  inherit- 
ances in  the  male  line^  {lancea,  the  spear-side  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons^);  the  Saxons  also  acknowledging  only  heirs  male, 
to  which,  as  far  as  the  fifth  generation,  they  give  the  prefer- 
ence over  descendants  in  the  female  line.  Important  also  is 
the  title  '  De  Postestate  Testandi,'  or,  Of  freedom  in  testa- 
mentary bequests^.  The  higher  fine  imposed  for  injury  done 
to  the  hand  of  the  harper,  the  goldsmith,  and  the  embroider- 
ess^,  of  which  no  mention  occurs  in  the  other  German  laws, 
calls  to  mind  the  harp  of  the  North,  of  Denmark  and  of  En- 
gland, at  the  same  time  that  the  several  female  ornaments^ 
imply  the  existence  of  cities,  such  as  from  the  foregoing  we 
may  suppose  Haithaby  to  have  been.  A  striking  character- 
istic of  the  Anglians  was  the  sanctity  of  domestic  security, 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  heavy  penalty  affixed  to  its  vio- 
lation, implying  both  civilization  and  notions  of  property,  the 
later  advancement  of  which  appears  in  the  great  respect  shown 
by  the  laws  for  the  house  of  the  English  burgher^. 

In  the  laws  of  the  Anglians  and  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  is 
found  also  the  common  principle,  that  those  who  first  forcibly 

in  Spelman's  Glossarium,  is  apparently  a  mere  clerical  or  typographical 
error  :  Canciani  has,  "  hoc  est  Thuringorum." — T.] 

1  Lex  Angl.  et  Wer.  tit.  vi.  Leges  Henrici  L  Ixx.  §  20,  where,  though 
the  passage  is  copied  from  the  Leges  Ripuariorum,  c.  Ivi.,  yet  it  in  principle 
agrees  with  the  Anglian  law,  and  can  have  been  adopted  only  in  conse- 
quence of  its  conformity  with  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

"  See  Testamentum  Alfred!  Regis.  Hence  is  also  the  proverb  to  be  ex- 
plained, "Bicge  spere  of  side  otJer  here  :"  "  lanceam  eme  de  latere,  aut 
fer  earn,"  which  in  Leges  Edw.  Conf.  xii.  is  thus  cited  in  the  law  of 
'  Manbote,'  "  Emendationem  faciat  parcntibus,  aut  guerram  paciatur." 

^  Lex  Angl.  et  Wer.  tit.  xiii.  That  the  Anglo-Saxons  were  acquainted 
with  this  appears  from  Cnut's  Sec.  Laws,  Ixxi.  LL.  Hen.  L  Ixxv.  §  11. 
See  also  Anc.  Laws  and  Instt.  p.  185. 

4  Lex  Angl.  tit.  v.  20.  *  Lex  Angl.  tit.  vii.  3. 

8  See  title  '  Harasocn/  in  Anc.  Laws  and  Instt.  of  England.— T. 


ANGLES.  95 

enter  another's  property  shall  pay  a  heavier  fine  than  those  who 
follow  ^  According  to  both  laws  a  thief  might  be  slain,  if  his 
crime  was  affirmed  by  oath^.  Whether  the  enactments  of  the 
Anglians  regarding  duels,  among  whom  they  were  allowed  in 
all  cases  of  two  shillings  and  upwards,  show  any  connexion 
between  their  laws  and  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  will  be 
doubted  by  those  who  deny  the  existence  of  that  mode  of 
judicial  proof  among  the  latter,  on  the  ground  that  the  word 
for  single  combat,  '  eornest,' — though  certainly  Germanic, — 
is  not  of  Anglo-Saxon^  origin  :  yet  William  the  Conqueror 
speaks  of  the  judicial  combat  as  a  known  English  custom; 
and  that  the  Anglians  themselves  lacked  an  appropriate  terra 
is  evident  from  the  language  of  their  law,  which  says,  ''  let 
the  field  (campus)  decide'*."  The  omission  of  all  mention  in 
the  Anglo-Saxon  laws  of  this  undeniably  existing  custom 
may,  perhaps,  justify  the  inference,  that  the  laws  of  East 
Anglia  contained  circumstantial  provisions  regarding  judicial 
combats.  The  existence,  however,  in  England  of  anotlier 
means  of  proof  in  judicial  proceedings,  similar  in  form  and 
application  to  what  is  enacted  in  that  old  Germanic  law,  is 
undoubted — the  fire,  or  iron  proofj  for  accused  females,  con- 
sisting in  walking  over  nine  red-hot  ploughshares^. 

Thus  may  the  assertion  appear  justified,  that  the  laws  of 
the  Anglians  agree,  not  only  in  general  characteristics  com- 
mon to  all  Germanic  laws,  with  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
and  may  be  regarded  as  a  chief  source  of  them,  but  also,  that 
no  other  Germanic  laws  coincide  with  them  so  closely  in  single 

'  Lex  Angl.  tit.  x.  c.  9.     Laws  of  Jithelberht,  xvii. 

^  Lex  Angl.  tit.  vii.  4.    Laws  of  Ine,  xvi.  xxxv.    Laws  of  Wihtrsed,  xxv. 

^  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  223. 

■*  "  Campus  judicat ;  "  hence,  Kampe,  champion,  campio  ;  Kamp,  Low 
Saxon  for  field. 

"  Lex  Angl.  tit.  xiv.  Annal.  Winton.  ap.  Du  Cange,  voce  '  Voraeres  '  ; 
Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra,  t.  i.  Cf.  Theodor.  Monach.  Hist.  Reg.  Norv. 
c.  xxxiv.  ap.  Langebek,  t.  v.  p.  340.  Capit.  ad  Leg.  Salic,  c.  ix.  Capit.  1.  iv. 
App.  ii.  c.  3.  LL.  Longob.  1.  i.  c.  10.  §  3,  and  even  LL,  Hen.  L  Ixxxix. 
§  1.     Other  laws  enjoin  twelve  ploughshares. 


96  ■  JUTES. 

points  ;  so  that  if  all  other  historic  grounds  were  wanting-, 
we  must,  nevertheless,  place  the  laws  of  the  Anglians  in  the 
nearest  relationship  to  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 

The  third  race  which  increased  the  new  population  of  Bri- 
tain was  that  of  the  Jutes,  apparently  less  numerous  than  either 
of  the  before-mentioned,  as  they  possessed  only  Kent,  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  a  part  of  Wessex,  where  for  some  centu- 
ries the  Jutish  race  was  distinguished  from  the  Saxon  ^  Kent 
has  certain  customs  of  its  own,  among  which  the  law  of  in- 
heritance called  Gavelkind^  is  well  known,  and  also  a  peculiar 
dialect^.  Even  on  a  slight  glance  over  the  history  of  En- 
gland, we  must  be  repeatedly  reminded  of  the  distinguishing 
nationality  of  the  men  of  Kent.  More  accurate  inquiries, 
however,  into  the  history  of  nations  than  have  hitherto  taken 
place,  and  especially  into  the  history  of  England,  will  alone 
enable  us  to  ascertain  whether  the  oldest  Jutish  law  resembles 
the  custumal  of  Kent,  and  whether  the  Jutish  forefather  may 
yet  be  traced  in  the  Kentish  man  of  the  present  day.  One 
circumstance  is,  however,  too  striking  not  to  have  drawn  to 
it  the  attention  of  others — while  the  other  English  shires  are 
parted  into  hundreds  or  wapentakes,  the  county  of  Kent 
alone  is  divided  into  six  lathes'^  of  regular  form,  and  of  nearly 
equal  magnitude.  These  divisions,  which  have  in  later  times 
become  mere  districts  for  judicial  purposes,  served  at  an  earlier 
period  for  the  quartering  and  muster  of  the  military  and  of 
the  general  levy.  But  in  the  Jutish  law^  a  military  expedi- 
tion is  still  called  a  '  lething'   (in  modern  Danish,  'leding^) ; 

^  Beda,  i.  15,  iv.  16.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  449.  Juti  Vectiani,  and  Cantiani 
Juti,  about  the  year  900  are  mentioned  by  Wallingford,  ap.  Gale,  i.  p.  538. 

2  See  page  39. 

•''  A  remarkable  and  valuable  specimen  of  the  Kentish  dialect  exists  in 
the  '  Ayenbyte  of  Inwyt '  (MS.  Arundel.  57.),  which,  though  written  in 
1340,  may  still  be  regarded  as  Anglo-Saxon.  See  Csedmon,  Pref.  p.  xii. 
Mr.  T.  Wright,  to  whom  all  lovers  of  early  English  lore  are  greatly  be- 
holden, has  announced  an  edition  of  this  interesting  relic. — T, 

*  LL.  Edw.  Conf.  xxxi.  var,  lect.  13. 

*  Lib.  iii.  c.  2.  12. 


FRISIANS,  ETC.  gf 

M'hence  the  district  summoned  together  for  such  expedition 
may  have  borne  that  name.  In  hke  manner  the  word  '  fyrd/ 
the  mihtary  levy  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, — the  old  signification 
of  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been  preserved  in  any  other 
monuments  of  the  German  tongue, — is  still  used  in  Holstein, 
where  it  signifies  the  assembly  of  the  States,  originally  for 
mihtary  purposes,  at  Bornhoved.  The  earliest  record  known 
to  us  of  any  of  the  customary  laws  of  Kent  ^  refers  chiefly  to 
circumstances  arising  out  of  the  feudal  system ;  while  the 
Jutish  Law  of  King  Waldemar  the  Second,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  has  adopted  many  Saxon  and  other  foreign  prin- 
ciples ;  both,  however,  contain  the  enactment,  that  the  son, 
in  reference  to  the  property  of  the  deceased  husband,  shall 
be  considered  of  age  in  his  fifteenth  year^;  a  principle  which, 
though  on  the  one  side  in  accordance  with  the  Danish  laws, 
and,  on  the  other,  valid  among  the  socmen^  in  other  parts 
of  England,  is  probably  not  derived  from  the  Saxon  laws,  but 
rather  to  be  referred  to  the  immigration  of  the  Jutes. 

It  is  hardly  probable  that,  in  those  days  of  national  migra- 
tions and  military  services,  so  splendid  an  enterprise  as  the 
conquest  of  Britain  should  not  have  allured  many  bands  from 
the  kindred  tribes  of  Germany ;  these,  however,  were  not,  it 
seems,  sufficiently  numerous  to  claim  notice  in  the  most  au- 
thentic narratives.  Frisians,  on  account  of  their  proximity, 
their  skill  in  seamanship,  their  language  so  nearly  resembling 
the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  the  traditions  already  mentioned,  we 
might  expect  to  meet  with  before  all  others'* ;  but  from  affinity 

'  Statutes  of  the  Realm,  vol.  i.  p.  223-225.  Many  of  the  usages  there 
mentioned  will,  however,  be  recognised  as  common  Anglo-Saxon  law. 

'  Jiit.  Lov,  lib.  i.  c.  7- 

^  Glanvile,  lib.  vii.  c.  9.  §  2. 

''  Fin  filius  Folcwald,  who  was  a  Frisian  chief,  appears  as  an  ancestor 
of  Hengest  in  the  genealogies  as  given  by  Nennius  and  those  following  him  ; 
but  the  Saxon  authorities,  viz.  the  Chronicle,  Asser,  Ethelwerd,  the  Textus 
RofFensis,  also  Florence  and  Snorre,  concur  in  naming  Godwulf  as  the 
father  of  this  Fin;  while  in  'Beowulf,'  'The  Scop's  Tale'  (Traveller's 
Song),  and  'The  Battle  of  Finnesburh,'  Fin  son  of  Folcwalda  appears,  not 

VOL.  I.  H 


98  FRISIANS,  ETC. 

of  language,  however,  no  inference  is  to  be  drawn,  as  it  would 
tend  to  the  exclusion  of  the  remoter  German  races ;  nor 
should  too  much  importance  be  attached  to  such  words  as 
'  seax,'  the  long  knife  of  the  Saxons,  from  which  they  are  sup- 
posed to  have  derived  their  name,  and  which  was  common 
also  to  the  Frisians  ^,  and  is  still  to  be  met  with  in  that  country ; 
as  on  the  same  ground  the  Icelanders  must  also  be  considered 
as  Saxons^.  Even  the  striking  similitude  between  the  old 
Frisic  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  public  and  private  law,  although 
affording  the  most  decisive  testimony  as  to  the  relationship 
of  the  two  nations,  does  not  allow  us  to  make  any  further  in- 
ference with  regard  to  Britain ;  more  especially  as  our  oldest 
accounts  of  the  Frisians  are  too  defective  to  enable  us  to  as- 
certain what  influence  the  connexion  with  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
and  the  migration  of  the  latter  may  have  had  on  the  tribes 
of  Friesland.  The  assertion  of  Procopius'"^,  that  Angles  and 
Frisians  dwelt  on  the  isle  of  '  Brittia,'  notwithstanding  the 
fables  in  the  rest  of  the  narrative,  appears  credible  on  account 
of  its  antiquity  and  other  circumstances  to  be  discussed  here- 
after. Later  testimonies  show  with  greater  certainty  the  ex- 
istence of  the  descendants  of  Frisic  forefathers  in  England, 

as  an  ancestor,  but  as  an  adversary  of  Hengest,  by  whom  he  is  attacked 
and  slain  in  his  dwelling,  Finnesburh  or  Finnesham,  in  Friesland.  I  find 
it  therefore  much  more  reasonable  to  prefer  in  this  case  the  Saxon  autho- 
rities, and  to  suppose  that  there  were  two  Fins,  living  at  very  distant  times, 
than  to  seek  to  reconcile  them  with  an  apparent  error  of  Nennius,  by  the 
aid  of  hypotheses  hardly  in  accordance  with  our  notions  of  a  more  than 
semi- barbarous  people.  In  these  meagre  traditions  exist,  I  firmly  believe, 
faint  traces  of  persons  that  once  had  being,  and  actions  that  once  took 
place ;  but  that  they  generally  require  a  mythic  interpretation  is  to  me 
more  than  questionable. — T. 

'  Asega-Buch,  tit.  iii.  §  13,  tit.  v.  §  17-  [J.  Grimm  considers  the  de- 
rivation from  sax  (sahs,  a  stone  or  stone  loeapon,  saxum)  as  undeniable.  D. 
M.  p.  204,  and  Massmann's  '  AbschwiJrungsformeln,'  p.  18.  At  all  events, 
the  coincidence  of  the  words,  seax,  franca  and  angul,  signifying  weapons, 
with  the  names  of  three  warlike  nations,  is,  if  accidental,  not  a  little  remark- 
able.—T.] 

'  Sax,  machiera.   B.  Haldorsen. — T. 

3  De  Bello  Goth.  lib.  iv.  c.  20. 


THE  VARIOUS  RACES  IN  BRITAIN.  99 

but  do  not  prove  the  establishment  of  any  state  or  consider- 
able settlement  of  that  people  in  the  country  ^ 

Of  the  participation  of  the  Franks  there  exists  some,  though 
not  sufficiently  specific  accounts  :  the  same  may  be  observed 
with  respect  to  the  Longobards.  Little  doubt  can,  however, 
be  entertained  regarding  either  the  one  or  the  other,  as  we 
elsewhere,  in  similar  undertakings,  find  Saxons  united  with 
Franks  and  Longobards ;  the  latter  especially,  when  the  com- 
plete occupation  of  the  British  southern  or  eastern  coasts 
made  a  new  field  for  conquests  desirable^. 

But  little  attention  has  hitherto  been  paid  to  the  national 
diversity  of  the  Germanic  races  which  established  themselves 
in  Britain,  and  the  collective  appellation  of  Angles,  which 
became  common  at  an  early  period,  as  well  as  the  subsequent 
political  unity,  have  caused  us  to  overlook  the  variety  of  ele- 
ments of  which  the  population  of  Great  Britain  is  composed ; 
although,  at  the  present  day,  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  fifteen 
centuries,  even  in  the  instance  of  the  Celtic  tribes,  striking 
varieties  in  laws  and  dialect,  as  well  as  peculiarities  of  figure, 
hair,  and  eyes,  are  still  discernible,  and  prove  their  indelible 

^  Vita  S.  Swiberti :  "  Egbertus  sitiens  salutem  Frisonum  et  Saxonum, 
eo  quod  Angli  ab  eis  propagati  sunt."  The  Sax.  Chron.,  a.  897,  mentions, 
that  the  ships  constructed  by  Alfred  were  shaped  neither  Uke  the  Frisian 
nor  the  Danish  ;  and  also  gives  us  the  names  of  three  Frisians  of  distinc- 
tion slain  in  a  sea-fight  with  the  Danes,  together  with  seventy-two  men, 
Frisians  and  English.  The  circumstance,  however,  that  they  are  men- 
tioned separately  leads  us  to  regard  these  Frisians  rather  as  allies  than  in- 
habitants. In  Vita  S.  Liudgeri,  c.  xi.,  Frisian  merchants  are  spoken  of  as 
strangers.  Beda  also  (iv.  22)  has  a  storj'  of  a  slave  bought  by  a  Frisian 
in  London. 

-  See  Paul.  Diacon.  De  Gestis  Longob.  lib.  ii.  c.  6,  and  lib.  iii.  c.  6.  Of 
the  connexion  between  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  Longobards  we  shall  again 
have  occasion  to  speak  ;  but  will  here  observe,  that  Sceaf,  one  of  the  an- 
cestors of  Woden  in  the  genealogy  of  the  West  Saxon  kings,  is  called  a 
king  of  the  Longobai'ds,  and  that  the  old  Longobardic  kings,  Agelmund, 
Lethus,  Audoin,  and  his  son  Alboin,  are  celebrated  in  Anglo-Saxon  song. 
See  'The  Song  of  the  Traveller  '  in  Conybeare's  Illustrations,  p.  9.  [Also 
Cod.  Exon.  p.  318  ;  Beowulf,  edit.  Kemble  ;  and  Ettmiiller's  '  Scopes  Vid- 
sidh,'  accompanied  by  a  valuable  commentary,  illustrative  of  the  persons 
mentioned  in  the  poem  and  its  ethnography. — T.] 

H  2 


100  THE  VARIOUS  RACES  IN  BRITAIN. 

natural  affinity  with  those  of  the  ancient  country.  Must  not 
these  characteristics  have  displayed  themselves  in  early  times 
much  more  manifestly  than  at  present  ?  The  answer  is  ob- 
vious ;  and  to  this  cause,  no  doubt,  may  be  ascribed  the  great 
weakness  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  power,  when,  fleeing  before  the 
invading  Northmen,  the  sons  yielded  the  dominion  of  the  land 
which  their  valiant  forefathers  had  conquered.  The  slow  in- 
troduction of  Christianity,  the  disputes  of  the  clergy  in  the 
north  and  south  of  England  by  which  it  was  followed,  the 
disunion  which  prevailed  during  the  invasions  of  foreign  foes, 
the  treaties  with  them, — in  short,  the  most  important  events 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  sovereignty,  find  their  true  and  natural 
illustration  in  an  attentive  consideration  of  the  diversities  of 
race. 

These  original,  though  not  strongly  marked  differences 
among  the  invaders,  lead  us  to  the  obvious,  though  neglected 
remark,  that  a  considerable  part  of  what  we  are  accustomed 
to  regard  as  the  religion,  law,  customs,  and  language  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  arose  only  in  the  course  of  some  centuries, 
from  the  blending  of  the  several  elements.  As  any  attempt 
at  detail  of  what  the  immigrants  brought  with  them  from 
their  home  is  not  admissible  in  this  place,  we  shall  defer  till 
a  future  opportunity  the  discussion  of  that  which  may  be 
more  strictly  regarded  as  Anglo-Saxon,  occasionally  adverting 
to  what  appears  originally  to  belong  to  the  Saxons,  to  the 
Angles,  or  to  the  Jutes. 

Such  were  the  races  which,  in  the  course  of  a  century  and 
a  half,  succeeded  in  gaining  possession  of  the  greater  eastern 
portion  of  Britain.  The  more  Roman  the  several  districts 
had  been,  the  sooner  did  the  forsaken  cities  and  towns  become 
the  prey  of  the  barbarians.  Of  the  resistance  made  by  the 
Lloegrians,  or  Britons  of  the  present  England,  at  the  outset 
of  the  struggle,  few  accounts  are  preserved.  The  discord 
among  the  British  princes,  by  which  the  progress  of  the 
enemy  was  greatly  facilitated,  seems  to  have  caused  in  the 


AMBROSIUS  AURELIANUS.  lOl 

British  traditlonlsts  themselves  an  indifference  towards  the 
fallen  or  lost  states.  Contemporary,  though  apparently  not 
in  alliance  with  Vortigern  was  Ambrosius  AurelianuSj  a  chief- 
tain of  Roman  descent,  perhaps  one  of  the  British  provincial 
emperors,  who,  though  involved  in  a  war  with  the  British 
prince  Guitolin,  or  Wetheling,  withstood  the  advances  of  the 
Saxons  with  Roman  tactics.  It  is  probable  that  there  were 
yet  both  Roman  and  Romanized  warriors  in  detached  fast- 
nesses, who,  hoAvever,  would  seem  only  to  have  increased  the 
general  disorder'.  A  defeat  sustained  by  the  Saxons,  which 
compelled  them  to  return  home  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  re- 
inforcements, was  wisely  turned  to  account  by  Ambrosius,  in 
exciting  the  Lloegrians,  and  strengthening  them  against  a 
further  advance  of  the  enemy.  In  many  successive  battles 
and  skirmishes,  the  Lloegrians  were  alternately  conquerors 
and  conquered.  The  last  considerable  defeat  sustained  by 
the  Saxons  was  at  the  siege  of  Bath^:  other  though  incon- 
siderable contests  took  place,  but  which  are  known  to  us  only 
through  the  accounts  of  the  establishing  of  the  several  Anglo- 
Saxon  kingdoms. 

The  contemporary  who  records  the  victory  at  Bath,  gained 
by  his  countrymen  in  the  first  year  of  his  life,  and  Avho  bears 
witness  of  its  consequences  after  a  lapse  of  forty-four  ycars^, 
Gildas,  siu'named  the  Wise,  considers  it  superfluous  to  men- 
tion the  name  of  the  far-famed  victor ;  but  his  wide-spread 
work,  and  the  yet  more  M'ide-spread  extracts  from  it  in  Beda, 
have  reached  no  region  in  which  the  fame  of  king  Arthur 
had  not  outstript  them, — the  noble  champion  who  defended 
the  liberty,  usages  and  language  of  the  ancient  country  from 

'  Gildas,  c.  xxv.,  and  from  him  Beda,  i.  16.      Nenn.  c.  xxviii.  "  Dura 

ipse  (Gorthigernus)  regnabat,  urgebatur et  a  Romanico  impetu,  necnon 

ct  a  timore  Ambrosii."  id.  c.  i.,  and  Gale,  ibid. 

2  Gildas,  c.  xxvi,     Annal.  Camb.  a.  516. 

^  Beda,  i.  16,  has  misunderstood  this  passage,  and  placed  the  battle  in 
the  forty-fourth  year  after  the  coming  of  the  Saxons,  i.e.  in  492.  The 
'  Annales  Cambrise  '  give  516  for  the  year.     Matt.  Westmon.  520. 


102  ARTHUR. 

destruction  by  savage   enemies;   Avho   protected   the   cross 
against  the  pagans,  and  gained  security  to  the  churches  most 
distinguished  for  their  antiquity  and  various  knowledge,  to 
which  a  considerable  portion  of  Europe  owes  both  its  Chris- 
tianity and  some  of  its  most  celebrated  monasteries.     Called 
to  such  high-famed  deeds,  he  needed  not  the  historian  to  hve 
through  all  ages  more  brilliantly  than  the  heroes  of  the  chro- 
nicles, among  whom  he  is  counted  from  the  time  of  Jeffrey  of 
Monmouth :  but — not  to  mention  the  works  which,  about  the 
year  720,  Eremita  Britannus  is  said  to  have  composed  on  the 
Holy  Graal,  and  on  the  deeds  of  king  Arthur^, — the  rapid 
spread  of  JefFrey^s  work   over  the   greater  part  of  Europe 
proves  that  the  belief  in  the  hero  of  it  was  deeply  rooted.    In 
the  twelfth  century  a  Greek  poem,  recently  restored  to  light, 
was  composed,  in  celebration  of  Arthur  and  the  heroes  of  the 
round  table  ^.     Still  more  manifestly,  however,  do  the  nume- 
rous local  memorials  which,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  then 
Christian  part  of  Europe,  from  the  Scottish  hills  to  Mount 
Etna^,  bear  allusion  to  the  name  of  Arthur ;  while  on  the 
other  hand,  the  more  measured  veneration  of  the  Welsh  poets 
for  that  prince,  who  esteem  his  general,  Geraint,  more  highly 
than  the  king  himself,  and  even  relate  that  the  latter,  far  from 
being  always  victorious,  surrendered  Hampshire  and  Somer- 
setshire to  the  Saxons,  may  be  adduced  as  no  worthless  tes- 
timony for  the  historic  existence  of  king  Arthur'*.    Even  those 

1  See  Warton,  H.  E.  P.  vol.  i.  p.  x.  note  b,  edit.  1840.— T. 

^  This  fragment  of  306  verses  was  first  published  by  Von  der  Hagen  in 
his  'Denkmaledes  Mittelalters,'  Berlin,  1824,  8vo.  Godfrey  of  Viterbo 
also  proves  how  rapidly  the  story  became  spread  over  Europe  through  Jef- 
frey of  Monmouth.  Part  xviii.  of  his  Chronicle  contains  some  stories,  in 
hexameters  and  pentameters,  of  Voltiger,  Orsus,  Engist,  Corinna  (Rowena), 
Uterpendragon,  Merlin,  Hierna  (Hibernia),  etc. 

^  Gers'as.  Tilbur.  ap.  Leibnitz,  i.  p.  921. 

■*  Turner,  Hist,  of  the  A.-S.  b.  iii.  c.  3.  He  regards  Llywarch  Hen 
and  other  poets  as  contemporary  with  Arthur.  Similar  accounts  are  also 
to  be  found  in  the  '  Historia  Anglise  ad  primordia  Regis  Stephani,'  ascribed 
by  Bale  and  Pits  to  Richard  of  Devizes  (see  Stevenson's  Preface  to  Chron. 


ARTHUR.  103 

traditions  concerning  him,  which,  at  the  first  glance,  seem 
composed  in  determined  defiance  of  all  historic  truth, — those 
uhich  recount  the  expedition  against  the  Romans,  on  their 
demand  of  subjection  from  him,  appear  not  totally  void  of 
foundation,  when  we  call  to  mind  that  a  similar  expedition 
actually  took  place  in  Gaul ;  and  are,  moreover,  informed,  on 
the  most  unquestionable  authority,  of  another  undertaken  in 
the  year  468,  on  the  demand  of  Anthemius,  by  the  British 
general  Riothamus, — who  led  twelve  thousand  Britons  across 
the  ocean  against  the  Visigoths  in  Gaul, — and  of  his  battles 
on  the  Loire  ^  This  very  valuable  narrative  gives  us  some 
insight  into  the  connexions  and  resources  of  those  parts  of 
Britain  which  had  not  yet  been  afflicted  Avith  the  Saxon 
pirates. 

Arthur  fell  in  a  conflict  on  the  river  Camel  in  Cornwall, 
against  his  nephew  Medrawd"^ :  his  death  was,  however,  long 
kept  secret,  and  his  countrymen  waited  many  years  for  his 
return  and  his  protection  against  the  Saxons.  The  discovery 
of  his  long-concealed  grave  in  the  abbey  of  Glastonbury  is 
mentioned  by  credible  contemporaries^, and  excited  at  the  time 
no  suspicion  of  any  religious  or  political  deception.     Had  the 

Ric.  Div.  p.vii.),  and  in  Chron.  Radulfi  Nigri,  composed  about  1161,  both 
existing  only  in  manuscript. 

'  Jornandes  de  Rebus  Geticis,  c.  45.     Sidonius  Apollin.  iii.  ep.  9. 

2  So  Annal.  Cambr.  a.  53".  According  to  Jeffrey,  lib.  xi.  c.  2,  x\rthur 
in  the  year  542  resigned  his  crown. 

^  Girald.  Cambrens.  de  Inst.  Principis.  [Bromton,  coll.  1152,  places 
the  exhumation  in  the  time  of  Henry  H.,  Wendover  in  that  of  Richard  I. 
His  words  are,  "  Eodem  anno  (1191)  inventa  sunt  apud  Glasconiara  ossa 
famosissimi  regis  Britannise  Arthuri,  in  quodara  vetustissimo  recondita 
sarcophago,  circa  quod  duae  antiquissimae  pyrarnides  stabant  erectse,  in 
quibus  literse  erant  exaratte,  sed  ob  nimiam  barbariem  et  deformitatem  legi 

minime  potuerunt cui  (sarcophago)  crux  plumbeasuperposita  fuerat,  in 

qua  exaratura  erat,  '  Hie  jacet  inclytus  Britonum  rex  Arthurus,  in  insula 
Avalonis  sepultus.'"  Roger  de  Wendover  Chronica,  t.  iii.  p.  48.  The  vera- 
city of  the  stoiy  seems  extremely  questionable.  Malmesbury  (lib.  iii.)  says, 
"Arturis  sepulchrum  nusquam  visitur,  unde  antiquitas  nseniarura  adhuc 
eum  venturum  fabulatur." — T.] 


104  SOUTH  SAXONS. 

king  of  England,  Heniy  the  Second,  who  caused  the  exhu- 
mation of  the  coffin  in  the  year  1189,  wished  merely,  through 
an  artifice,  to  convince  the  Welsh  of  the  death  of  their  national 
hero,  he  would  hardly  himself  have  acted  so  conspicuous  a  part 
on  the  occasion.  Poem  and  tradition  bear  witness  to  the  spirit, 
and  his  ashes  and  the  gravestone  to  the  life  and  name  of  Arthur. 
Faith  in  the  existence  of  this  Christian,  Celtic  Hector  cannot 
be  shaken  by  short-sighted  doubt,  though  much  must  yet  be 
done  for  British  story,  to  render  the  sense  latent  in  the  poems 
of  inspired  bards,  which  have  in  many  cases  reached  us  only 
in  spiritless  paraphrases,  into  the  sober  language  of  historic 
criticism. 

While  the  British  nation  was  more  obstinately  than  suc- 
cessfully defending  itself  against  the  power  of  the  Saxons^, 
as  it  had  done  of  old  against  the  Romans,  the  greater  part  of 
the  island  was  becoming  the  prey  and  the  home  of  strangers. 
The  British  narratives  of  this  period  are  extremely  deficient, 
and  the  Anglo-Saxon  accounts,  particularly  their  chronology, 
seem  deeply  tinged  with  the  fabulous. 

Hengest  was  yet  living  when,  in  the  year  477^  -^lle  (^Ui)  ^ 
and  his  three  sons,  Cymen,  'Wlencing,  and  Cissa,  landed 
from  three  ships  at  the  place  afterwards  called  Cymenes-ora^, 
on  the  coast  of  Sussex.  On  the  landing  of  the  Saxons  the 
Britons  raised  a  loud  cry,  numerous  bodies  of  them  hastened 
from  the  neighbouring  country,  and  Avar  instantly  commenced. 
The  Saxons,  who  excelled  in  stature  and  bodily  strength,  re- 

*  Many  of  the  natives  fled  to  the  ancient  seats  of  the  Veneti  and  Corio- 
solytani,  where  it  is  said  that  their  successors,  both  in  manners  and  lan- 
guage, still  evince  their  affinity  to  the  Welsh.     Einh.  Annal.  a.  786. 

2  Beda  (ii.  5)  merely  mentions  his  name  as  the  first  Bretwalda.  The 
remaining  account  is  from  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  the  accuracy  of  whose 
excerpts  from  sources  with  which  we  are  acquainted  is  a  voucher  for  the 
same  quality  in  those  from  lost  or  unknown  authorities.  See  also  Sax. 
Chron.     Of  the  two  forms  (^lle,  jElli)  that  in  '  i '  is  the  more  ancient. 

2  Keynor  on  Selsea.  The  locality  of  Cymenes-ora  appears  from  a  charter 
a.  673  in  Monast.  Angl.  t.  vi.  p.  1163. 


SOUTH  SAXONS.  105 

ceived  their  enemies  with  undaunted  valour,  while  the  latter 
imprudently  hurrying  forwards,  were,  as  they  approached 
disorderly  and  in  separate  bodies,  slaughtered  by  the  compact 
phalanx  of  Saxons,  each   successive  band   arriving  only  to 
witness  and  share  the  fate  of  its  predecessor.     The  Britons 
were  driven  into  the  neighbouring  forest  of  Andredes-leah, 
while  the  Saxons  established  themselves  on  the  coast,  and 
gradually  extended  their  settlements,  until,  in  the  eighth  year 
after  their  landing  in  Sussex,  the  princes  and  chieftains  of 
the  Britons,  having  united  their  forces,  engaged  with  them  in 
a  great  battle  at   Mearcredes-burne,  the  issue  of  which  is 
doubtful.     The  armies  much  injured  and  weakened,  each  ex- 
ecrating its  conflict  with  the  other,  returned  to  their  habita- 
tions :  but  ^lle  sent  to  his  German  countrymen  to  demand 
reinforcements,  which,   arriving    six  years  after,   proceeded 
with  that  chieftain  to  the  siege  of  the  strong  old  Roman  city 
of  Andredes-ceaster,  or  Anderida.    The  Britons  now  gathered 
like  swarms  of  bees,  and  warred  on  the  besiegers  by  day  with 
stratagems,  by  night  with  attacks.     No  day  nor  night  passed 
in  which  new  tidings  of  disaster  did  not  embitter  the  minds 
of  the  Saxons,  who  with  redoubled  ardour  continued  their 
assaults  on  the    city ;    but  the   Britons  w'ere  constantly  at 
hand,  with  their  arrows  and  other  missiles,  in  the  rear  of  the 
assailants ;    and  when  the  Saxons,   turning  from  the  walls, 
directed  their  steps  and  arms  against  them,  the  Britons,  who 
excelled  in  speed,  hastened  to  the  forests,  issuing  from  whence, 
on  the  return  of  the  Saxons  to  the  works,  they  were  again 
ready  to  assail  them  from  behind.     The  Saxons  being  thus 
Avearied,  many  too  having  fallen,  divided  their  army  into  two 
bodies,  of  Avhich  while  one  attacked  the  city,  the  other  might 
be  armed  against  the  assaults  of  the  British.     The  citizens, 
now  worn  out  by  hunger,  and  no  longer  in  a  condition  to 
withstand  the  ardour  of  the  besiegers,  found,  with  their  wives 
and  children,  their  death  by  the  sword.     Not  one  escaped, 
and  Anderida  was  razed  to  the  ground  by  the  exasperated 


106  SOUTH  SAXONS. 

victors.  Henry  of  Huntingdon  knew  merely  the  site  of  the 
once  noble  city;  in  our  days  even  this  is  become  an  object  of 
fruitless  research,  ^lle,  who  had  assumed  the  royal  dignity 
in  Sussex,  was  now  regarded  as  the  supreme  head  of  all  En- 
gland, as  the  first  Bretwalda  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  :  so  at  least 
we  are  informed  by  Beda ;  though  if  we  take  into  consider- 
ation the  narrow  compass  of  the  Germanic  possessions  in 
Britain  at  that  time,  if  we  call  to  mind  that  for  almost  a  cen- 
tury no  mention  is  made  of  a  second  Bretwalda,  Me  may  per- 
haps safely  ascribe  the  Bretwaldaship  of  ^Ue  to  the  liberal 
pen  of  the  poet  who  has  left  us  so  circumstantial  an  account 
of  those  early  conflicts  ^ 

file's  death  is  said  to  have  taken  place  between  the  years 
514  and  519 :  it  appears,  therefore,  that  to  him,  as  to  Hengest, 
was  assigned  a  term  of  fifty  years  in  England.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son  Cissa^,  after  whom  we  have  a  period  of  a 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  during  which  neither  chronicler  nor 
poet  has  transmitted  to  us  one  line  concerning  the  kingdom 
of  Sussex,  which,  enclosed  between  two  of  the  new  Germanic 
states,  could  not  extend  its  limits  by  conquests  in  the  British 
territories.  Even  the  name  which  it  bore  before  the  rise  of 
other  Saxon  states  gave  occasion  to  the  distinctive  appellation 
of  South  Saxons,  has  not  been  preserved.  We  are,  however, 
informed  that  its  thick  forest  and  barriers  of  rock  preserved 
Sussex,  the  last  hold  of  paganism,  against  the  arms  of  the 
other  states ;  also  that  Cissa's  posterity  maintained  the  royal 
dignity  in  Sussex,  although  their  influence,  through  the  rising 
greatness  of  the  other  Germanic  kingdoms,  was  necessarily 
much  diminished^. 

'  It  is  remarkable  that  the  genealogy  of  ^Elle,  the  first  Bretwalda,  is  the 
only  one  not  given  among  those  of  the  founders  of  the  several  kingdoms  of 
the  Octarchy. 

"  His  memory  is  preserved  in  the  name  of  Cissan-ceaster,  now  Chi- 
chester. 

^  H.  Hunt.  lib.  ii.  "  Regnavit  post  eum  Cissa,  filius  ejus,  progeniesque 
eorum  post  eos ;  at  in  processu  temporura  valde  minorati  sunt."     .^Eddii 


GEWISSAS,  OR  WEST  SAXONS.  107 

To  its  first  German  population  belongs  apparently  the  sin- 
gular division  of  Sussex  into  six  ^  rapes  ^/  each  of  which  is 
again  divided  into  hundreds.  These  districts  were  probably 
intended  for  military  purposes. 

The  establishment  of  the  third  German  kingdom  in  the 
south  of  Britain  is,  through  the  supremacy  afterwards  ac- 
quu-ed  by  Wessex,  a  subject  of  paramount  interest.     Cerdic, 
a  descendant  in  the  ninth  generation  from  Woden,  who  in 
conflicts  at  home  had  already  proved  the  energy  of  his  soul, 
in  the  view  of  adding  to  his  military  renown,  landed  nine 
years  after  the  death  of  Hengest'^,  attended  by  his  enterprising 
and  emulous  son  Cjnric,  from  five  ships  at  a  spot  afterwards 
called  Cerdices-ora^,  the  locality  of  which  is  no  longer  known. 
He  posted  his  Saxons  in  close  order  of  battle  before  his  ships, 
where  they  obstinately  maintained  their  ground  against  the 
repeated  bold  attacks  of  the  islanders,  until  the  approach  of 
night.     Cerdic  and  his  son  proved  their  valour  also  in  another 
battle  with  the  Britons,  and  extended  themselves  along  the 
sea-shore.     The  progress  of  the  Saxons,  however,  Avas  not 
great  until  six  years  later,  when  Port  with  his  two  sons,  Bieda 
and  Mffigla,  landed  from  two  large  ships'*.     The  error  com- 
mitted on  the  earlier  landings  of  the  Germans,  as  well  as  on 
Caesar's,  and  at  a  later  period  on  that  of  WiUiara  the  Nor- 
man, was  here  repeated — the  disembarkation  was  not  pre- 
vented ;  the  country  was  called  together  with  great  clamour ;  ^ 
uncombined  attacks,  boldly  commenced  and  by  great  num- 
bers, were  repulsed  by  the  firmness  of  the  enemy ;  the  im- 
prudent Britons  fled  in  amazement,  and  Port  remained  victor 
on  the  spot,  which  from  him,  as  it  is  said,  derives  the  name 

Vita  S.  Wilfridi,  c.  xl.  (South  sex)  "  provincia  gentilis,  quae  prse  rupiuni 
multitudine  et  silvarum  densitate  aliis  provinciis  inexpugnabilis  extitit." 
yEdde  was  contemporary  with  Beda.  The  assertion  of  Matthew  of  West- 
minster, that,  after  Cissa's  death,  Sussex  became  a  province  of  Wessex,  is 
of  little  weight  against  the  foregoing. 

^  The  Old  Norse  '  hreppr '  denotes  a  nearly  similar  territorial  division. 

"  A.D,  495.  ^  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn,  a.  495.  *  a.d.  501. 


108  GEWISSAS,  OR  WEST  SAXONS. 

of  Portsmouth.  Mention  is  made  of  the  death  of  a  noble 
yomig  Briton  in  one  of  these  conflicts^  probably  Geraint  ab 
Erbin,  prince  of  Djvnaint,  whose  fall  in  the  battle  of  Llong- 
borth  is  lamented  in  the  elegies  of  his  friend  Llywarch  Hen*. 
With  extraordinary  pomp  of  diction^  the  war  is  announced 
of  the  greatest  king  of  the  Britons,  Nazaleod  or  Natanleod, 
but  who  is  described  elsewhere  only  as  a  general  of  the  British 
king  Uther.  All  Britain  united  against  the  foreign  intruders  ; 
Cerdic  on  his  side  formed  an  alliance  with  ^sc  king  of  Kent^ 
with  yElle  the  great  king  of  the  South  Saxons,  also  with  Port 
and  his  sons.  Cerdic  and  Cynric  led  the  two  orders  of  battle. 
Of  these  Natanleod  attacked  the  most  powerful,  the  right 
wing  commanded  by  Cerdic ;  the  Saxon  banners  were  beaten 
down,  their  ranks  broken;  Cerdic  fled,  and  vast  slaughter 
was  instantly  made  among  his  forces :  his  son,  however,  at 
the  head  of  the  left  wing,  pressed  on  the  rear  of  the  pursuers : 
a  new  and  bloody  fight  began ;  Natanleod  fell,  and  with  him 
five  thousand  Britons ;  the  rest  found  safety  in  their  speed. 

A  few  years  only  had  passed  in  the  tranquillity  of  secure 
possession,  when  new  auxiliaries  arrived  for  new  exploits.  In 
the  year  514  Stuf  and  Wihtgar,  nephews  of  Cerdic,  came  with 
three  ships  and  landed  at  Cerdices-ora.  On  the  following 
morning  the  British  leaders  arrayed  their  forces  according  to 
the  rules  of  war.  As  one  division  advanced  over  the  hills, 
and  another  was  proceeding  cautiously  through  the  valley, 
the  beams  of  the  rising  sun,  which  just  shone  out,  gleamed 
on  their  golden  shields :  the  hills  around  were  illumined  with 
their  brilliancy,  and  the  air  seemed  brighter.  The  Saxons, 
dreading  with  great  dread,  marched  to  the  encounter;  but 
when  these  two  great  armies  met  in  conflict,  the  energy  of 

^  So  Turner,  who  does  not,  however,  notice  an  inconsistency  in  the 
chronology  of  29  years,  Palgravetoo,  vol.  ii.  p.  ccxxxiv,  says  that  Geraint 
was  slain  in  the  year  501,  and  at  p.  cclxiii,  in  530. 

-  H.  Hunt.  "  Bellum  scripturus  sum  quod  Nazaleod,  rex  maximus  Brit- 
tannorum,"  etc.    Cf.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  508,  and  ibidem  Gibson.  Fl.  Wigorn. 


GEWISSAS,  OR  WEST  SAXONS.  109 

the  Britons  was  extinguished.  Stuf  and  Wihtgar  conquered 
many  districts,  and  Cerdic's  power  through  them  became  for- 
midable :  he  now  marched  through  the  land  contident  in  his 
strength.  After  twice  eight  years,  Stuf  and  Wihtgar  M-ith 
their  uncle  gained  a  great  victory  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  at  a 
place  which  afterwards  bore  the  name  of  Wihtgares-burh 
(Carisbrook).  This  victory  put  Cerdic  in  possession  of  that 
isle,  which  he  bestowed  on  his  two  nephews  ^ 

Cerdi^  also  fought  a  great  battle  against  the  Britons  at  a 
place  afterwards  named  Cerdices-ford  (Charford  in  Hamp- 
shire), in  which  the  latter  displayed  great  valour,  until,  on 
the  approach  of  evening,  the  Saxons  gained  the  victory. 
Though  great  the  loss  sustained  on  this  occasion  by  the  in- 
habitants of  Albion,  it  would  have  been  yet  greater  had  not 
the  setting  sun  put  an  end  to  the  conflict-. 

Having  now  passed  thrice  eight  years  in  Britain,  in  the 
midst  of  battles,  Cerdic  and  Cynric  assumed  the  kingly  title. 
The  original  kingdom  of  the  Gewissas^,  or  West  Saxons,  was, 
as  is  evident  from  the  site  of  the  last-mentioned  battle,  hardly 
more  extensive  than  the  other  Germanic  states  in  Britain, 
and  barely  reached  beyond  the  borders  of  Hampshire  and  the 
territory  of  the  Sumersaetas.  These  provinces  are  stated  to 
have  been  surrendered  to  the  Saxons  by  King  Arthur,  after 


'  A.D.  530. 

-  A.D.  519.     H.  Hunt.  lib.  ii. 

^  Beda,  iii.  7,  and  Smith's  note.  "  Occidentales  Saxones,  qui  antiquitus 
Gevissag  vocabantur." — So  called  either  from  their  western  locality,  analo- 
gously with  Visigothi,  or  from  Gewis>  the  great-grandfather  of  Cerdic. 
Asser,  Vita  iElfr.  inil.,  says,  "  Gewis,  a  quo  Britones  totam  illam  gentem 
Gegwis  nominant."  The  British  historians  also,  who  never  distinguish 
the  other  tribes,  know  the  Giuoys.  See  Annal.  Camb.  a.  900.  Galf. 
Mon.  iv.  15,  V.  8,  viii.  10,  xii.  14,  [who  speaks  of  Gewissi  in  Warwick- 
shire and  Worcestershire  during  the  time  of  the  Romans.  (See  p.  38.) 
The  denomination,  as  applied  to  a  British  tribe,  was  probably  derived  by 
the  traditionists  of  that  nation  from  Gevissa,  the  mother  of  Glovi,  from 
whom,  according  to  them,  the  city  of  Gloucester  was  named.  See  p.  G/, 
note  '.— T.] 


no  GEWISSAS,  OR  WEST  SAXONS. 

he  had  given  a  check  to  their  further  advances  near  Bath ' : 
the  possession  of  them,  however,  impUes  also  that  of  a  por- 
tion of  the  land  of  the  Dorsaetas  and  the  WiltScCtas,  Eight 
years  afterwards  the  Gewissas  gained  another  great  battle 
over  the  Britons  at  Cerdices-leah^.  Cerdic^s  death  is  record- 
ed in  the  sixteenth  year  of  his  reign  over  the  West  Saxons, 
and  like  that  of  Hengest  and  ^lle,  in  the  fortieth  after  his 
arrival  in  Britain^,  a  number,  as  already  observed,  used  merely 
to  denote  a  long  reign,  the  precise  duration  of  which  is  not 
known.  A  similar  custom  of  using  this  number  for  any  un- 
determined large  number  prevailed  also  among  the  Persians, 
even  when  the  real  number  was  known  to  be  larger.  Cynric 
succeeded  his  father  in  Wessex  :  the  Isle  of  Wight  was  given, 
as  a  kingdom  dependent  on  Wessex,  to  his  cousins,  of  whom 
Wihtgar,  it  is  said,  was  a  son  of  Cerdic's  sister"*.  The  Isle 
of  Wight  was  peopled  by  Jutes ;  hence  it  is  probable  that 
Cerdic's  sister  was  married  to  a  powerful  Jute,  whose  sons 
led  their  victorious  followers  from  Jutland,  if  not  from  Kent, 
which  had  been  long  inhabited  by  that  people. 

Cynric  gradually  extended  the  boundaries  of  his  kingdom, 
the  capital  of  which  was  Winchester  (Wintan-ceaster),  the 
old  Venta  Belgarum.  A  vast  army  of  Britons  being  assem- 
bled to  attack  him,  he,  in  conjunction  with  the  forces  of  his 
friends,  hastened  to  encounter  them,  and  near  Searobyrig 
(Old  Sarum'^)  totally  defeated  and  put  their  numerous  host 

'  Gildas,  c.  xxvi.,  where  see  Stevenson's  pref.  p.  viii.  Radulphus  in  R. 
Higdeni  Polychron.  p.  224.  Ric.  Divisiensis  MS.  ap.  Langhorne,  Chron. 
Regum  Anglise,  p.  70.     See  p.  102. 

2   A.D.  527. 

^  So  W.  Malm.  According  to  the  Sax.  Chron.,  which  places  his  death 
in  534,  he  died  in  the  thirty-ninth  year  after  his  arrival,  according  to  the 
calculation  of  the  lunar  year  before  noticed  with  regard  to  Hengest.  [Ac- 
cording to  five  MSS.,  Malmesbury  assigns  a  reign  of  only  fifteen  years  to 
Cerdic  ;  only  two  MSS.  have  sixteen. — T.] 

Asseri  Vita  ^Ifredi,  init.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i.     According  to  H.  Hunt. 
lib.  ii.  this  donation  took  place  in  534,  shortly  before  the  death  of  Cerdic. 

5  A.D.  552. 


EAST  SAXONS.  Ill 

to  flight.  Less  favourable  to  Cynric  and  his  son  Cea\Ylin 
^vas  a  great  battle  fought  some  years  later  against  the  united 
forces  of  the  Britons,  in  which  the  latter  were  indebted  to 
their  order  of  battle,  according  to  the  rules  of  Roman  tactics  ^, 
for  their  preservation  from  the  defeat  with  which  they  were 
threatened  from  the  strength  and  valour  of  the  Saxons.  The 
chronicles  assign  to  Cynric  a  reign  of  twenty-six  years,  yet 
state  his  death  to  have  taken  place  in  the  sixty-fifth  year  after 
his  landing  in  Britain ;  but  an  account  seems  to  have  existed, 
according  to  which  he,  like  the  son  of  Hengest,  died  in  the 
sixty-fourth  year  after  his  arrival,  and  consequently  in  the 
twenty-fourth  year  after  the  death  of  Cerdic-.  Contradic- 
tions between  historic  traditions  and  the  verses  of  the  poet 
were  difficult  to  reconcile,  and  they  are  much  more  so  now  : 
all  that  is  incumbent  on  us  is  to  point  out  the  great  uncer- 
tainty of  the  several  accounts,  though  the  facts  which  are  re- 
corded may  in  their  general  outlines  be  acknowledged  as  au- 
thentic. 

Although  it  may  excite  in  us  no  surprise  that,  in  a  time  of 
universal  dissolution,  the  occupation  of  isolated  tracts  of  coast 
by  an  enemy  attracted  at  first  but  little  notice,  and  that  at  a 
later  period  the  reward  of  historic  glory  was  bestowed  only 
on  the  new  and  powerful  lords  of  the  soil,  it  might,  never- 
theless, have  been  expected  that  circumstantial  and  trust- 
worthy accounts  would  have  communicated  to  us  the  events 

^  A.D.  556.    H.  Hunt.  lib.  ii.  "  Novem  acies tribus  scilicet  in  fronte 

locatis,  et  tribus  in  medio,  et  tribus  in  fine,  ducibusque  in  ipsis  aciebus 
convenienter  institutis,  virisque  sagittariis  et  telorum  jaculatoribus  equiti- 
busque  jure  Romanoruni  dispositis."  A  similar  passage  occurs  shortly 
after,  "  Cum  autem  Brittones  more  Romanorum  acies  distincte  admo- 
verent." 

2  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  560.  H.  Hunt.  "  Regnum  Westsexe 
incipit  anno  adventus  Anglorum  Ixxi.,  anno  ab  incarnatione  Domini  519.'' 
"  Cerdic  regnavit  xvii.  annis  in  Westsexe."  According  to  this  account 
Cynric  succeeded  his  father  in  536,  or  twenty-four  years  before  his  death.; 
though  the  same  chronicler  says,  "  Kinric  cum  regnasset  xxvi.  annis  mor- 
tuus  est." 


112  EAST  SAXONS. 

connected  with  the  city  of  London,  a  place  of  prominent  in- 
terest in  every  age,  through  its  commerce  and  the  arts  in- 
separable therefrom.  But  the  pen  of  the  genius  of  trade  is, 
like  the  net  of  the  fisher,  devoted  only  to  the  contemplated 
gain.  No  territory  ever  passed  so  obscurely  into  the  pos- 
session of  an  enemy  as  the  north  bank  of  the  Thames,  where 
the  kingdom  of  the  East  Saxons  comprised  the  counties  of 
Essex  and  Middlesex,  of  which  the  latter  continued  probably 
for  some  time  in  a  state  of  independence.  The  year  527  is 
mentioned  as  that  of  the  first  landing  of  the  Saxons  there ; 
and  ^scwine,  or  Ercenwine^,  as  its  first  prince,  a  son  of 
OfFa,  a  descendant  of  Seaxneat  (Saxnot),  the  abjuration  of 
Mhose  M'orship,  together  with  that  of  Thor  (Thunaer)  and 
Woden,  was,  after  a  lapse  of  ages,  exacted  from  the  Saxon 
converts  of  the  continent^,  ^scwine  is  said  to  have  reigned 
during  a  patriarchal  period  of  sixty  years  :  his  name  reminds 
us  of  -^sc,  the  prince  of  the  Jutes,  on  the  southern  shore  of 
the  Thames,  and  of  the  race  of  the  vEscings,  though  that  of 
his  father  would  indicate  a  relationship  to  the  Offings,  the 
royal  race  of  Mercia ;  while  his  descent  from  the  Saxon  gods, 
as  well  as  the  name  of  his  kingdom,  speak  for  his  pure  Saxon 
lineage.  The  geographical  position  of  this  state  may,  how- 
ever, be  rather  in  favour  of  the  supposition  of  a  mixture  of 
several  races,  to  which  the  account  of  a  more  critical  chroni- 
cler, who  gives  Sleda,  in  the  year  587j  as  the  first  king  of 
Essex,  seems  no  contradiction^ ;  though  it  is  far  from  im- 
probable, that  the  earliest  settlements  of  the  Germans  on  this 
coast  reach  up  to  a  much  remoter  period,  and  have  connexion 
Avith  the  appellation  of  ^  Litus  Saxonicum.' 

Northwards  of  the  East  Saxons  was  established  the  king- 

'  H.  Hunt.     Geneal.  ap.  Fl.  Wigorn. 

-  See  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  203.  Massmann's  '  Abschworungsformein/ 
np.  14,  67.     Pertz,  Monum.  Hist.  Germ.  t.  iii.  p.  ig. — T. 

^  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  He  makes  no  mention  of  his  father,  but  says  merely 
that  he  was  the  tenth  in  descent  from  Woden,  which  involves  no  incon- 
sistency with  the  other  accounts. 


MERCIA.  113 

dora  of  the  East  Angles,  in  which  a  northern  and  a  southern 
people  (Northfolc  and  Suthfolc)  were  distinguished.  It  is 
probable  that,  even  during  the  last  period  of  the  Roman 
sway,  Germans  were  settled  in  this  part  of  Britain ;  a  sup- 
position that  gains  in  probability  from  several  old  Saxon 
sagas,  which  have  reference  to  East  Anglia  at  a  period  an- 
terior to  the  coming  of  Hengest  and  Horsa.  The  land  of  the 
Gyrwas,  containing  twelve  hundred  hides,  which  v,as  also 
accurately  divided  into  a  southern  and  a  northern  portion, 
comprised  the  neighbouring  marsh  districts  of  Ely  and  Hun- 
tingdonshire, almost  as  far  as  Lincoln.  Of  the  East  Angles 
Wehha  or  Wewa^,  or  more  commonly  his  son,  Uffa  or  WufFa, 
from  whom  his  race  derived  their  patronymic  of  Uffiugs  or 
Wuffings,  is  recorded  as  the  first  king'-. 

The  neighbouring  states  of  Mercia  originated  in  the  marsh 
districts  of  the  Lindisware,  or  inhabitants  of  Lindsey  (Linde- 
sig),  the  northern  part  of  Lincolnshire.  With  these  were 
united  the  Middle  Angles^.  This  kingdom,  divided  by  the 
Trent  into  a  southern  and  a  northern  portion,  gradually  ex- 
tended itself  to  the  borders  of  Wales.  Among  the  states 
which  it  comprised  was  the  little  kingdom  of  the  Hwiccas, 
conterminous  with  the  later  diocese  of  Worcester,  or  the 
counties  of  Gloucester,  Worcester,  and  a  part  of  Warwick. 
This  state,  together  with  that  of  the  Hecanas,  comprising  the 
ancient  bishopric  of  Hereford,  bore  the  common  Germanic 
appellation  of  the  land  of  the  Magesaetas^. 

Henry  of  Huntingdon,  though  a  writer  abounding  in  tra- 
ditions, and,  at  the  same  time,  a  native  or  inhabitant  of  those 
parts,  gives  us  no  legends  relative  to  the  establishment  of  the 
two  last-mentioned  states.  After  the  victory  at  Cerdices- 
ford,   and   probably  at   an  earlier   period,   many  chieftains 

^  Fl.  Wigorn.  Geneal.  ap.  Petiie.     Nennii  App.  ^ 

=  Beda,  ii.  15.     H.  Hunt.  a.  571. 

3  Beda,  i.  15,  iii.  21.  Malmesb.  de  Antiq.  Glaston.  Eccles.  ap.  Gale,  i. 
p.  295.  *  Fl.  Wigorn.  Appen. 

VOL.  I.  I 


114  MERCIA. 

passed  over  from  Germany  to  those  territories,  and,  in  emu- 
lation of  each  other,  possessed  themselves  of  several  tracts. 
Their  number  has  caused  their  names  to  be  forgotten  :  their 
territories  towards  the  end  of  the  century  were  united  with 
the  two  last-mentioned  kingdoms'.  Creoda,  or  Cridda,  the 
^  son  of  Cynewald,  and  tenth  in  descent  from  Woden ^,  appears 
as  the  first  king  of  Mercia. 

In  addition  to  the  doubts  attending  the  descent,  and  even 
the  name  of  the  Angles,  the  genealogies  of  their  kings  demand 
and  merit  discussion.  In  that  of  the  kings  of  Mercia  we 
find  three  names  in  succession,  which  accord  with  a  similar 
unbroken  series  in  the  Danish  traditions,  viz.  the  descendants 
of  Woden,  Wihtlaeg,  Waermund,  and  Offa^,  who  stand  in  the 
Danish  chronicles  as  Wiglet,  Wermund,  and  Uffo,  descend- 
ants of  Odin,  and  ancestors  of  the  conquerors  of  Britain'^. 
Even  the  resemblance  of  the  names  of  OfFa's  posterity,  An- 
geltheowand  Eomer,  to  the  Danish  Ingeld  and  laomer  is  very 
remarkable ;  and  that  the  progenitors  of  Woden,  both  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  and  Scandinavian  genealogies,  have  many  names 
in  common,  and  that  among  these  Sceaf  is  regarded  in  the 
latter  as  a  king  of  Sleswig,  or  the  country  of  Angeln,  may, 
after  what  has  already  been  stated,  seem  the  more  worthy  of 
notice.  An  inquiry  into  the  value  of  these  resemblances  in 
an  historic  point  of  view  would  here,  perhaps,  be  out  of  place  ; 
but  attention  should  be  directed  to  the  evidence  furnished  by 
this  accordance  of  the  traditions,  in  favour  of  deriving  the 

^  H.  Hunt.  p.  313.  "  Ea  tempestate  venerunt  multi  et  ssepe  de  Ger- 
mania,  et  occupaverunt  Eastangle  et  Meice."  Matt.  Westmon.  a.  527, 
Radulphus  ap.  Higden  Polychron.  lib. v. p. 224,  has  the  year492.  Florence 
says  of  Mercia  merely,  "  Post  initium  regni  Cantuariorum,  principium  ex- 
titit  regni  Merciorum."  But  of  East  Anglia,  "  Regno  posterius  Cantuari- 
orum, et  prius  regno  Occidentalium  Saxonum  exortum  est;"  consequently 
before  the  year  405.  "  Sax.  Chron.  a.  626. 

^  Sax.  Chron.     In  Nennius,  Guithleg,  Guerdmund,  and  Offa. 

•*  See  Erici  Chron.  Sax.  Grammat.  Sv.  Aggonis  Hist.  Reg.  Dan.  c.  i. 
has  only  the  two  last.  The  Icelandic  Langfedgatal  also  omits  the  first,  and 
calls  Uffo,  Olaf. 


ANGLES  AND  WARNI.  115 

origin  of  the  Angles  and  Mercians  from  the  country  north  of 

the  Eider. 

The  history  of  the  Angles  receives  some  light  from  a  By- 
zantine historian.     Procopius,  who  died  in  562,  before  UfFa 
reigned  in  East  Anglia,  mentions  a  king  of  the  Angles  in 
Brittia  or  Britain,  in  the  years  534-547,  whose  sister  was  be- 
trothed to  Radiger,  king  of  the  Warni,  but  who,  on  the  death 
of  his  father,  in  violation  of  his  engagement,  married  his  step- 
mother, a  sister  of  the  Frankish  king  Theudebert.   To  revenge 
the  slight,  the  Anglian  lady,  after  a  fruitless  expostulation  by 
embassy,  sailed,  with  an  army,  and  attended  by  one  of  her  bro- 
thers, to  an  outlet  of  the  Rhine.     In  a  battle  which  followed 
their  landing,  the  Warni  were  defeated,  and  their  prince,  being 
captured  in  his  flight,  was  brought  bound  into  the  presence 
of  the  Angle,  who,  to  his  glad  surprise,  after  reproaching  him 
for  his  want  of  faith,  and  on  his  promise  to  atone  for  it  by  re- 
nouncing his  stepmother  and  fulfilling  his  prior  engagement, 
restored  liim  to  liberty  and  treated  him  honourably.     Their 
marriage  followed  as  a  matter  of  coursed     However  fabulous 
other  accounts  communicated  by  that  writer  may  be,  concern- 
ing some  Angles  sent  to  the  emperor  Justinian  at  Constan- 
tinople, the  fact  is,  nevertheless,  worthy  of  notice,  that  Angles 
and   Frisians   are  mentioned  by  him   as  inhabitants  of  the 
island ;  also  a  king  of  the  Angles  at  that  period,  and  (as  in 
the  before-mentioned  laws^)  a  connexion  between  the  Angles 
and  the  Warni.  What  the  same  author  states,  that  the  power- 
ful king  of  the  Franks,  Theudebert,  took  advantage  of  the 
emigration  of  some  Angles  to  his  country,  and  of  the  distracted 
condition  of  Britain,  for  the  purpose  of  arrogating  to  him- 
self the  appearance  of  a  supremacy  over  it,  was  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  the  pretensions  of  the  Frankish  monarchs  to  the 
dignity  of  Emperor  of  the  West,  which  must  also  find  addi- 
tional grounds  in  the  ancient  provincial  administration,  under 
which  Britain  was  considered  a  diocese  subordinate  to  Gaul. 

1  De  Bello  Gothico,  iv.  20.  2  ggg  pp   g3_9(5_ 

I  2 


116  ANGLES. 

Political  relations  between  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  the  court  of 
Byzantium,  of  a  tendency  hostile  to  the  Franks,  were  in  the 
following  century  apprehended  by  the  latter',  a  suspicion 
which  at  least  implies  other  close  connexions  between  them. 
Pope  Gregory  the  Great  also,  in  a  letter  to  the  Frankish 
kings,  Theuderic  and  Theudebert,  relative  to  his  design  of 
converting  the  Angles,  appears  to  speak  of  them  as  subjects 
of  those  princes ;  from  which,  however,  nothing  is  perhaps 
to  be  inferred  beyond  pretensions,  which  he  deemed  it  ad- 
visable to  treat  with  delicacy  and  favour  in  his  intercourse 
with  his  royal  Christian  allies^. 

The  history  and  the  poetry  of  those  remote  and  unlettered 
ages  have  long  lain  reconciled  in  the  same  grave,  and  we 
cannot  awaken  the  ashes  of  the  one  without — and  often  un- 
consciously— bringing  the  other  back  to  light.  As  connected 
with  this  remark,  we  must  not  omit  to  mention  that  East 
Anglia  contains  a  rich  store,  little  known  and  still  less  inves- 
tigated, of  old  traditions  :  among  others  the  saga  of  King 
Atla  of  Northfolk,  the  founder  of  Attlebury ;  of  Roud,  king 
of  Thetford^;  also  the  yet  more  wide-spread  one  of  Havelok, 
or  Cuharan  (Cwiran),  king  of  Northfolk,  and  son  of  Ethel- 
bert  the  Dane,  who  dwelt  in  that  country  before  the  time  of 

^  Beda,  iv.  1. 

-  Gregorii  Epist.  lib.  vi.  c.  58.      Bedse   Opera   Minora  ed.  Stevenson, 

p.  234 "magnam  de  vobis  materiam  praesuraendi  concepimus, 

quod  subjectos  vestros  ad  earn  converti  fidem  per  omnia  capiatis,  in  qua 
eorura  nempe  reges  estis  et  domini.  Atque  ideo  pervenit  ad  nos  Anglorum 
gentem  ad  fidem  Christianam,  Deo  miserante,  desideranter  velle  converti." 

^  This  poem,  consisting  of  about  12,000  verses,  was  originally  either  in 
Anglo-Saxon  or  Semi-Saxon,  and  was  translated  into  French  verse  at  the 
desire  of  a  certain  countess,  ichen  the  oriyinal  could  not  he  iinderstood  (i.  e. 
by  the  Anglo-Norman  nobility),  probably  in  the  thirteenth  century;  which 
version  was  translated  into  Latin  by  John  Brame  or  Brome,  who  informs 
us  that  the  French  difl'ered  considerably  from  the  English  original.  Tlie 
original  name  of  the  king  appears  to  have  been  Waldeus,  not  Atla.  The 
latin  elaboration  of  the  poem  is  in  the  library  of  C.C.C.  Camb.  A  manu- 
script of  the  French  Ptoraance  of  King  Atla,  once  Mr.  Heber's,  is  now  in 
the  possession  of  Sir  T%  Phillipps,  Bart.  See  Sir  F.  Madden's  note  in 
Warton,  H.  E.  P.  vol.  i.  p.  41,  edit.  1840.— T. 


NORTHUMBRIA.  II7 

Hengest  and  Horsa', — traditions  Avhich  seem  to  confirm 
Avhat  historj^  from  the  days  of  Carausius,  renders  far  from 
improbable. 

The  country  to  the  north  of  the  Humber  had  suffered  the 
most  severely  from  the  inroads  of  the  Picts  and  Scots.  It 
became  at  an  early  period  separated  into  two  British  states, 
the  names  of  which  were  retained  for  some  centuries,  viz. 
Deifyr  (Deora  rice),  afterwards  Latinized  into  Deira,  extend- 
ing from  the  Humber  to  the  Tyne,  and  Berneich  (Beorna 
rice),  afterwards  Bernicia,  from  the  Tyne  to  the  Clyde.  Here 
also  the  settlements  of  the  German  races  appear  anterior  to 
the  date  given  in  the  common  accounts  of  the  first  Anglian 
kings  of  those  territories,  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century. 
The  traditions  respecting  Hengest  relate  that  he  founded  for 
his  son  Octa,  and  for  Ebusa  the  son  of  Horsa^  Germanic 
states  in  the  north  of  Northumbria,  or,  according  to  the  older 
traditions,  beyond  the  Firth  of  Forth,  whither  they  sailed  with 
forty  ships,  but  which  seem  inconsistent  with  the  account, 
that  Hengest  himself,  when  driving  before  him  the  Picts  and 
Scots,  did  not  advance  further  than  Lincolnshire.  According 
to  a  much  neglected  account,  Deira  had  already  been  sepa- 

^  A  limited  edition  of  '  The  Ancient  English  Romance  of  Havelok  the 
Dane/  4to,  accompanied  by  the  French  text  and  a  valuable  glossary,  was 
published  in  1828  by  Sir  F.  Madden,  of  which  the  French  text  has  been 
reprinted  at  Paris.  The  tale  of  Havelok  is  also  given  in  '  L'Estorie  des 
Engles,  solum  la  Translation  Maistre  GefFrei  Gaimar,'  ap.  Petrie,  C.  H. 
p.  764.  Later  English  chroniclers  likewise  (as  Knyghton,  lib.  i.  c.  5,  who 
cites  a  Historia  de  Grimesby)  make  mention  of  the  story.  See  also,  in 
'Literary  Introduction,'  remarks  on  Robert  de  Brunne. 

-  Nennius,  c.  xxxviii.  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.,  who  calls  Octa  the  brother 
of  Hengest  and  Ebusa  the  son.  A  confirmation  of  these  accounts  may  be 
found  in  Galfr.  Monum.  lib.  i.  c.  i.,  where  Modrawd  promises  to  Childeric 
the  country  between  the  Humber  and  Scotland,  and  that  which  in  Vorti- 
gern's  time  Horsa  and  Hengest  possessed  in  Kent.  According  to  Jeffrey, 
who  is  here  very  prolix,  Octa  son  of  Hengest  received  York,  and  his  cousin 
Eosa,  Alcluyd  with  the  remaining  country  bordering  on  Scotland.  See 
lib.  viii.  c.  6,  8,  18,  21,  23.  Abisa,  Ebusa,  Eowis,  Eosa  denote  the  same 
individual. 


118  NORTHUMBRIA. 

rated  from  Bernicia  by  Soemil  the  son  of  Zegulf  (Ssefugl), 
whose  grandson  Guilglis  (Wihtgils)  was  the  father  of  Hen- 
gest,  and  grandfather  of  YfFe  (Yffi),  of  whom  we  are  about  to 
speak  ^ ;  and  we  know  also,  from  other  accounts,  that  both 
Hengest  and  Yffe  descended  from  the  same  son  of  Woden, 
Wecta  or  Waegdoeg^.  This  tradition  is  important  from  the 
information  it  contains  that  the  Saxon  settlements  in  the 
North  of  Britain  were  older  than  those  in  the  South.  At- 
tention must  also  here  again  be  drawn  to  the  circumstance 
already  noticed,  that  while  the  South-English  chronicles  fix 
the  landing  of  Hengest  and  Horsa  in,  or  rather  after,  the  year 
449,  the  oldest  North-English  authorities  place  the  arrival  of 
the  Angles  in  445  or  446,  not  to  mention  the  earlier  invasion 
of  these  people.  Nennius  fixes  447  for  the  year  of  Hengest's 
landing,  from  which  it  would  seem  that  the  Saxon  chieftains 
of  the  North  threw  off  the  supremacy  of  the  Kentish  kings 
after  a  lapse  of  a  full  century,  instead  of  founding,  according 
to  the  received  tradition,  a  new  kingdom  in  the  year  547. 
Fifty  years  later,  or  about  the  year  500,  the  city  of  Eboracum 
is  said  to  have  been  taken  by  the  Saxons,  and  the  archbishop 
to  have  fled  to  Armorica,  where  he  founded  the  bishopric  of 
Dol.  Nor  perhaps  to  be  totally  rejected  is  the  story  that 
Colgrim  and  his  brother  Baldwulph  conquered  these  coun- 
tries, but  were  beaten  by  Arthur  in  the  year  516,  on  the  river 
Duglas^. 

Ida,  the  son  of  Eoppa,  a  descendant  of  Woden  (to  whom 
in  this  genealogy  five  forefathers  are  assigned),  is,  accoi'ding 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  traditions,  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the 
Anglian  kingdom  of  Bernicia,  in  the  year  547 ;  or  rather  as 
the  first  who  freed  the  land,  hitherto  governed  by  nine  sub- 

1  Nenn.  App.  Soemil  and  his  son  Swearta  (Swerthing)  are  wanting  in 
the  genealogy  given  in  the  Sax.  Chron.  Swerthing,  a  prince  of  the  Saxons, 
was  the  slayer  of  Frothi  IV.     See  Saxo.  pp.  273,  282,  edit.  Miiller. 

*  Sax.  Chron.  a.  560,  etc. 

^  Nenn.  c.  Ixiv.  Galf.  Monum.  lib.  ix.  c.  1,  and  from  the  latter.  Matt. 
Westra.  a.  516. 


BRITONS.  119 

ordinate  rulers,  from  the  supremacy  of  the  kings  of  Kent^ 
He  arrived  with  forty  or  sixty  ships  of  the  Angles^,  and, 
after  having  reigned  twelve  years,  is  said  to  have  fallen  in  a 
battle  against  Urien  of  Cumberland  and  Reged,  leaving  twelve 
sons.  Bebbanburh,  now  Bamborough,  perpetuates  the  name 
of  his  consort  Bebbe^.  His  immediate  successor  seems  to 
have  been  Glappa,  who  was  followed  by  Adda,  yEthelric,  and 
Theodric,  sons  of  Ida.  About  the  same  time  ^lle  son  of 
YfFe  (Yffi),  of  descent  equally  illustrious,  conquered  the 
greater  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Deira"^. 

So  trivial,  and  yet  more  uncertain,  are  the  accounts  left  us 
of  the  conquest  of  a  great  kingdom  by  the  barbarous  dwellers 
on  the  shores  of  the  German  Ocean,  and  of  the  spoliation 
perpetrated  among  structures  and  other  property,  the  fruits 
of  Roman  civilization,  on  a  people  accustomed  to  servitude, 
who  knew  but  little  how  to  use  them  and  still  less  to  defend 
them. 

The  Britons  were  soon  restricted  to  the  western  parts  of 
the  island,  where  they  maintained  themselves  in  several  small 
states,  of  Avhich  those  lying  to  the  east  yielded  more  and  more 
to  Germanic  influence ;  the  others,  protected  by  their  moun- 
tains, preserved  for  a  considerable  time  a  gradually  decreasing 
independence.     As  opportunities  for  touching  on  the  history 

'  Scala  Chron.     Cf.  Gale  ad  Nennium,  c.  Ixv.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

-  Chronol.  ap.  Wanley  and  Petrie.  Fl.  Wig.  Sim.  Dunelm.  Wallingford. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  547-  According  to  Nenn.  App.  Bebbe  was  the  consort 
of  Jithelfrith,  the  grandson  of  Ida.  "  Eadfered  Flesaurs  reguavit  xii.  annis 

in  Berneich,  et  alios  xii.  in  Deur, et  dedit  uxori  suae  Dinguo  Aroy,  quae 

vocatur  Bebbab,  et  de  nomine  suae  uxoris  suscepit  nomen,  id  est,  Bebban- 
burch."  The  passage  in  Beda  (iii.  6)  does  not  decide  who  was  the  hus- 
band of  Bebbe. 

■•  Sax.  Chron.  a.  560.  In  stating  the  perplexed  genealogy  of  the  kings 
of  Bernicia  to  the  year  592,  the  authority  has  been  followed  of  the  chro- 
nicle in  Wanley  and  Petrie,  and  of  Simeon,  who  in  matters  connected  with 
Northumbria  is  particularly  trustworthy.  These  two  authorities,  though 
slightly  differing  in  the  regnal  years,  agree  in  the  order  of  succession,  while 
the  lists  in  Florence  and  Nennius  are  irreconcileablc  both  with  the  above 
authorities  and  with  each  other. — T. 


120  CYMRY  OR  WELSH. 

of  these  small  British  states  will  hereafter  be  but  rarely  af- 
forded, a  short  notice  of  them  is  the  more  desirable :  though 
some  separate  states  occasionally  occur  as  united  into  one, 
while  others  may  have  arisen  from  comparatively  later  par- 
titions. 

In  the  south-west  we  meet  with  the  powerful  territory  of 
Damnonia,  the  kingdom  of  Arthur,  which  bore  also  the  name 
of  West  Wales.  Damnonia,  at  a  later  period,  was  limited  to 
Dyvnaint,  or  Devonshire,  by  the  separation  of  Cernau,  or 
Cornwall.  The  districts  called  by  the  Saxons  those  of  the 
Sumorsaetas,  of  the  Thornsaetas  (Dorsetshire),  and  the  Wilt- 
saetas  were  lost  to  the  kings  of  Dyvnaint  at  an  early  period ; 
though  for  centuries  afterwards  a  large  British  population 
maintained  itself  in  those  parts  among  the  Saxon  settlers,  as 
well  as  among  the  Defnsaetas,  long  after  the  Saxon  conquest 
of  Dyvnaint,  who  for  a  considerable  time  preserved  to  the 
natives  of  that  shire  the  appellation  of  the  ^  Welsh  kind.' 

Cambria  (Cymru),  the  country  which  at  the  present  day 
we  call  Wales,  was  divided  into  several  states,  the  chief  of 
which  were — Venedotia  (Gwynedd),  consisting  of  the  greater 
part  of  North  Wales.  The  king  of  Gwynedd  was  supreme 
over  the  other  states ;  his  residence  was  at  Aberfraw  ^ ; — Dime- 
tia  (Dyved),  or  West  Wales^,  comprising  the  district  bounded 
by  the  Tywi  on  the  south-east,  and  the  Tewi  on  the  north- 
west, or,  in  a  wider  sense,  the  country  over  which  the  eccle- 
siastical supremacy  of  the  see  of  Mynyw  or  Menevia  (St. 

^  Now  a  village  on  the  west  coast  of  Anglesey.  Its  name  (aber  Fraw, 
the  efflux  of  the  Fraw,)  is  derived  from  being  situated  where  the  brook  Fraw 
flows  into  the  sea.  Glossary  to  Anc.  LL.  and  Instt.  of  Wales. — T. 

^  Or  South  Wales  ;  but  as  Cornwall  is  sometimes  called  South  Wales, 
in  like  manner  the  name  of  W^est  Wales  is  applied  to  Dimetia.  Much 
valuable  information  respecting  the  old  geography  and  inhabitants  of  Wales 
is  to  be  found  in  the  '  Itinerarium,'  '  Cambrise  Descriptio/  and  '  De  Iliau- 
dabilibus  Wallite '  of  Giraldus.  [See  also  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of 
Wales,  from  which,  and  from  Mr.  Owen's  notes,  the  account  of  the  an- 
cient territorial  division  of  Wales  given  in  this  translation  has  been  chiefly 
compiled. — T.] 


CYMRY  OR  WELSH.  121 

David's)  extended.  The  residence  of  the  Dimetian  princes 
was  at  DinevMT^  To  the  east  of  Gwynedd  and  the  moun- 
tains, of  which  Snowdon  forms  the  highest  point,  was  Powys, 
the  princes  of  which  resided  at  iVIathraval^.  In  Deheubarth, 
or  South  Wales,  were  several  small  states,  the  southernmost 
of  which,  G  went  (Monmouthshire),  or  South-east  Wales,  the 
country  of  the  Silures,  forming  the  present  diocese  of  Llan- 
daif  (Landav),  the  royal  seat  of  which  was  at  Caerleon  upon 
Usk,  and  Morganwg  (Glamorganshire)  lay  on  the  northern 
bank  of  the  Severn.  Near,  if  not  comprised  within  this  state, 
between  the  rivers  Usk  and  Taif,  was  the  small  principality 
of  Gleguising.  Along  the  Irish  Channel  lay  Ceredigion  and 
Brecheiniog,  whose  names  are  easily  recognised  in  those  of 
the  present  counties,  and  which  appear  to  have  been  under 
separate  rulers. 

The  chief  tribes  of  the  Britons,  or,  as  they  call  themselves, 
Cymry,  are  distinguished  by  the  various  dialects  of  their  com- 
mon mother-tongue,  among  which  the  Venedotian,  the  Di- 
metian, and  that  of  Glamorgan,  are  the  principal.  The  Cym- 
rian  tongue  was  polished  by  illustrious  poets, — Aneurin  and 
Taliesin  in  the  sixth,  Llywarch  Hen  and  others  in  the  next 
following  centuries,  whose  works  in  a  state  of  tolerable  purity 
have  been  preserved  to  the  present  time^. 

The  usages  and  laws  of  the  Cambrians  were  in  all  these 
states  essentially  the  same.  An  invaluable  and  venerable 
monument  of  them,  although  of  an  age  in  which  the  Welsh 
had  long  been  subject  to  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  had  adopted 
many  of  their  institutions  and  customs,  are  the  laws  of  the 


'  Near  Llandilo  vawr,  in  the  Vale  of  Tywi.  Some  remains  of  the  castle 
are  visible.  Gloss,  ut  sup. — T. 

"  Situated  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Vale  of  Meivod,  near  the  junction  of 
the  two  streams  which  form  the  river  Evyrnwy.  Gloss,  ut  sup. — T. 

^  See  Turner's  Vindication  of  the  genuineness  of  the  ancient  British 
poems,  at  the  end  of  the  last  volume  of  the  third  and  following  editions  of 
his  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 


122  CUMBRIA. 

king  Howel  Dda',  who  reigned  in  the  early  part  of  the  tenth 
century,  which,  with  some  local  modifications,  Mere  acknow- 
ledged as  valid  in  the  other  states  of  Wales. 

The  partition  of  Cambria  into  several  small  states  is  not, 
as  it  has  often  been  supposed,  the  consequence  of  a  division 
made  by  king  Rodri  Mawr,  or  Roderic  the  Great,  among  his 
sons ;    but  which,  supposing  it  to  have  taken  place,  could 
have  reference  only  to  the  sovereignty  over  territories  which 
many  centuries  before  occur  as  separate  states.     Of  Dyfed, 
during  the  first  centuries  after  the  coming  of  the  Saxons,  we 
know  very  little ;  but  with  regard  to  Gwynedd,  which  was  in 
constant  warfare  with  Northumbria  and  Mercia,  our  infor- 
mation is  less  scanty  :  of  Gwent  also,  as  the  bulwark  of  Dime- 
tia,  frequent  mention  occurs.     On  the  whole  we  are  less  in 
want  of  a  mass  of  information  respecting  the  Welsh,  than  of 
accuracy  and  precision  in  that  w-hich  we  possess.     While  the 
Welsh,  in  their  historic  narratives,  as  remarkable  for  singu- 
larity of  expression  as  for  their  poetic  garb,  give  either  no 
dates  whatever,  or  dates  on  which  no  i*eliance  can  be  placed, 
the  several  states  and  their  rulers  are  seldom  spoken  of  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  chronicles  otherwise  than  under  the  universal 
appellation  of  the  Britons,  and  their  kings  :  hence  a  com- 
parison of  their  respective  accounts  is  frequently  impracticable, 
each  nation  usually  speaking  only  of  its  victories,  very  rarely 
of  its  reverses. 

An  obscurity  still  more  dense  than  that  over  Wales  in- 
volves the  district  lying  to  the  north  of  that  countiy,  com- 
prised under  the  name  of  Cumbria.  This  territory,  sometimes 
united  under  a  supreme  chief,  or  Pendragon,  called  also 
Tyern  (Tyrannus),  who,  like  the  other  British  princes,  con- 
sidered themselves  not  only  as  the  successors,  but  also  as  the 
descendants  of  Constantine,  or  of  Maximus,  consisted  of  three 

1  In  the  Venedotian  and  Dimetlan  Codes,  Howel  styles  himself  '  king  ' 
or  '  prince  of  all  Cymru  ; '  in  the  Gwentian  Code,  '  king  of  Cymru,  when 
Cymru  was  in  his  possession  in  its  bounds.' — T. 


GERMANIZING  OF  BRITAIN.  123 

principal  parts.  The  southern,  or  Cumberland,  properly  so 
called,  comprised,  besides  the  present  county  of  that  name, 
also  Lancashire  and  Westmoreland,  which  latter  appears  like- 
wise as  a  petty  kingdom — Westmere.  It  extended  into  the 
later  kingdom  of  Northumbria ;  and  as  the  little  state  of 
Elmet  seems  also  to  have  belonged  to  it,  the  town  of  Leeds 
must  have  been  on  its  border.  The  old  Roman  Lugubalia, 
or  Carleol,  was  its  largest  city,  in  which  Arthur,  Rhyddrich 
Hael,  or  the  Liberal,  and  other  princes  celebrated  in  ancient 
song,  are  said  to  have  held  their  Round  Table  or  courts 
The  two  northernmost  kingdoms  of  the  Britons,  Reged  and 
Strathcluyd,  belong  to  the  history  of  Scotland ;  yet  as  En- 
gland extended  as  far  as  Edinburgh,  they  must  not  be  passed 
without  mention.  Reged,  a  territory  in  the  south  of  Scotland, 
in  or  near  Annandale,  is  rendered  worthy  of  notice  on  account 
of  the  protection  offered  to  the  bard  Taliesin  by  its  prince 
Urien,  celebrated  by  Llywarch  Hen,  who  was  himself  a  prince 
of  Argoed  in  Cumberland.  The  kingdom  of  Strathcluyd, 
comprising  Clydesdale  or  Dunbartonshire — where  its  chief 
city,  Alcluyd,  was  situated — the  counties  of  Renfrew  and 
Dumfries,  and  probably  those  of  Peebles,  Selkirk,  and 
Lanark,  in  the  east,  continued  to  a  much  later  period ;  and, 
although  in  constant  warfare  with  the  Anglo-Saxons,  as  well 
as  with  the  Picts  and  Scots,  its  chiefs  extended  their  power 
over  all  Cumberland,  from  which  they  were  not  expelled  till 
the  early  part  of  the  tenth  century,  when  Cumberland,  under 
Anglo-Saxon  suzerainty,  became  a  principality  held  by  the 
heir  of  Scotland. 

With  respect  to  the  first  institutions  adopted  by  the  Ger- 
man chieftains  in  the  conquered  country,  how  the  relations 
of  service  and  tribute  were  fixed ;  how  the  Germans  gradually 
united  themselves  into  considerable  kingdoms ;  how  far  the 
remains  of  Roman  civilization,  when  they  afforded  no  apparent 
or  palpable  advantage,  were  respected, — with  regard  to  all 

1  A.D.  561. 


124  GERMANIZING  OF  BRITAIN. 

this  we  have  little  beyond  supposition ;  tliough  the  result, 
the  Saxonizing  of  Britain  by  the  Germanic  heretogas,  or 
ealdormen,  and  their  followers,  is  as  manifest  as  the  Roman- 
izing of  Spanish  America  by  Columbus  and  Pizarro.  Of  the 
history  of  these  kingdoms  from  their  foundation  till  their 
gradual  conversion  to  Christianity,  there  exist  scarcely  any 
written  accounts  besides  the  series  of  their  kings,  which,  in 
detached  traditions,  form  but  a  very  insignificant  component 
of  the  national  history. 

While  Anglo-Saxon  sources  are  wanting,  the  British  ones 
also  either  fail  us,  or  must  undergo  a  stricter  critical  ordeal 
than  they  have  hitherto  passed  through,  before  any  reliance 
can  be  placed  on  them.  The  Anglo-Saxon  laws,  even  the 
earliest,  are  too  recent  and  too  exclusively  restricted  to  the 
Germanic  scale  of  penalties  and  atonements  to  aid  us  in 
drawing  a  picture  of  the  condition  of  the  country  immediately 
after  the  Saxon  conquest.  Their  silence  on  many  points  leads 
us,  perhaps,  on  comparing  them  with  the  laws  of  other  Ger- 
manic conquerors,  to  divine  more  than  their  scanty  diction 
expresses. 

The  public  affairs  had,  in  consequence  of  the  departure  of 
the  Romans  and  the  inroads  of  enemies,  fallen  into  the  utmost 
disorder.  What  had  formerly  been  public  or  private  property 
of  the  Romans  became,  either  by  purchase  or  usurpation,  a 
new  unsettled  possession  in  the  hands  of  a  people  who  had 
long  forgotten  how  to  govern.  The  inhabitants  of  the  island 
were  at  that  time,  as  their  language  sufficiently  shows,  scarcely 
to  be  called  Romanized  :  on  the  contrary,  the  posterity  of  the 
Romans  among  them  had  rather  assimilated  themselves  to 
the  original  Britons.  In  this  state  of  dissolution  it  must  have 
been  an  easier  task  to  the  conquerors  of  Britain  than  that 
which  their  warlike  brethren  found  it  in  the  better  organized 
states  of  Europe,  to  obtain  possession  of  the  object  of  their 
efforts,  without  causing  the  rights  of  the  stronger  to  be  felt 
in  the  most  oppressive  manner.   The  former  Roman  property. 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  BRETWALDA.  125 

which  in  the  south,  and  especially  on  the  coasts,  must  have 
been  considerable,  would  satisfy  the  small  number  of  strangers. 
That  a  certain  portion  of  landed  property,  or  of  rents,  or  of 
produce,  was  regularly  set  apart  for  the  conquerors,  as  was 
the  custom  in  other  Germanic  states,  is  not  probable,  as  in 
the  accounts  of  the  later  conquests  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  in 
Britain,  we  meet  Avith  nothing  leading  to  such  a  conclusion. 
Indeed  the  very  gradual  progress  made  in  the  occupation  of 
many  parts  of  Britain  by  detached  hordes,  independent  of 
each  other,  and  of  various  races,  almost  induces  us  to  regard 
it  less  as  a  conquest  than  as  a  progressive  usurpation  of  the 
British  territory.  From  the  circumstance  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  had  to  pass  over  in  ships  to  the  country  destined  for 
their  future  home,  it  follows  that  they  brought  with  them  but 
few  women  and  children ;  and  as  Vortigern  had  no  repug- 
nance to  an  union  with  the  daughter  of  Hengest,  it  is  probable 
that  the  German  warriors,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  a 
few  of  noble  race,  would  not  disdain  to  unite  themselves  with 
the  British  women.  If  thereby  the  natives  soon  became  in- 
termingled with  the  strangers,  still  the  latter,  in  virtue  of  the 
almost  exclusive  advantage  of  the  male  line  with  respect  to 
inheritances,  would  not  find  such  marriages  prejudicial  to 
their  political  independence.  Many  Britons  fled  before  the 
pagan  Germans,  but  the  facility  of  flight  weakened  the  power 
of  resistance,  and  accelerated  the  advances  of  the  enemy. 
Those  Britons  who,  not  being  prisoners  of  war,  peaceably 
remained,  appear  to  have  preserved  their  previous  rights ; 
since  we  find  no  considerable  difference  Avith  regard  to  the 
wergild,  the  capability  of  bearing  witness,  and  other  rights, 
between  the  Britons  and  the  Saxons  \ 

A  most  important  subject  for  consideration,  observable  from 

an  early  period,  is  the  dignity  of  Bretwalda,  borne  by  one  of 

the  most  influential   of  the  Anglo-Saxon  princes  during  the 

period  of  his  life,  and  which  is  said  to  have  contained  within 

*  Laws  of  Ine,  xxiii.,  xxiv,,  xxxii. 


126  THE  DIGNITY  OF  BRETWALDA. 

one  common  bond  all  the  inhabitants  of  Britain.  The  desire 
to  detect  the  continuation  of  Roman  institutions  has  also  in 
this  dignity  been  anxious  to  recognise  an  imitation  of  the 
Roman  emperors  of  the  West^  acknowledged  at  the  same  time 
both  by  Saxons  and  Britons ^  The  acknowledgment  of  the 
Britons,  Avho  were  still  united  under  a  sovereignty  of  their 
own,  may  be  most  confidently  denied  ;  the  passion  for  imi- 
tation in  the  Saxon  warriors,  which  could  prompt  them  to 
favour  one  of  their  fellows,  who  aspired  to  the  authority  of 
their  most  formidable  and  hated  enemy,  may  be  very  strongly 
doubted.  The  pretensions  of  the  most  powerful  Anglo-Saxon 
king  scarcely  extended  over  the  Germanic  provinces  of  the 
southern  part  of  Britain  :  to  other  portions  of  the  Roman 
dominion  they  never  reached.  Imitation,  both  in  the  un- 
civilized and  the  weak,  begins  with  the  tinsel  of  unsubstantial 
show,  with  the  assumption  of  an  empty  name,  of  neither  of 
which  any  trace  appears  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  till  after 
the  lapse  of  some  centuries.  With  the  inquiry  into  the  origin 
of  the  office  of  Bretwalda,  which  in  its  later  form  exhibited 
perhaps  some  traces  of  Roman  imperial  influence,  may,  in  the 
absence  of  more  satisfactory  accounts  respecting  the  duties 
and  rights  ascribed  to  that  dignity,  be  joined  the  questions, 
What  notions  the  Germans  brought  from^  their  native  country, 
and  what  occasion  they  found  in  Britain  for  the  appointment 
of  that  relative  supremacy  ? 

To  the  North-GeiTnanic  and  Danish  nations  kings  ruling 
over  the  whole  race  were  unknown  ;  they  v»^ere  divided  under 
several  chieftains'^,  and  we  know  that  among  these,  although 
the  consideration  of  birth  prevailed,  their  leaders  in  war  were 
chosen  from  the  most  valiant.  To  them  nothing  could  be 
more  foreign  than  to  found  the  dominion  of  a  whole  race  on 
the  common  language  or  on  kinship. 

Of  the  Jutes  and  Danes  especially,  Ave  know  that  they  for 

'  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  563. 

*  Cf.  Dahlmann's  Forschungen,  Bd.  i.  p.  431  sq. 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  BRETWALDA.  127 

several  centuries  lived  under  a  great  number  of  kings,  but 
that  they  acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  the  kings  of  Leire  : 
in  like  manner  as  the  Swedish  kings  were  subordinate  to  those 
of  Upsala;  but  that  monarchy  (einvalld)  was  a  later  insti- 
tution among  them^.     The  Frisian  chiefs  also  acknowledged 
a  superior.     In  Britain  a  connexion  between  the  southern 
and  northern  Saxons  was,  as  we  have  already  seen,  established 
as  early  as  the  first  conquests  of  Hengest :  though  the  neces- 
sity of  a  common  chief  over  all  the  Germanic  provinces  arose 
in  Britain  partly  from  the  great  number  of  independent  kings, 
ealdormen  and   other  potentates,  whose  states  only  in  the 
course  of  time  lapsed  into  the  kingdoms  of  the  '  Heptarchy  '; 
and  partly  from  the  necessity  of  opposing  a  united  resistance 
to  the  Britons,  combined  against  the  divided  power  of  the 
foreign  intruders,  as  well  as  to  the  Picts  and  Scots.    For  this 
purpose — nor  of  any  other  is  a  trace  to  be  discovered,  and 
for  no  other  does  such  an  union  seem  necessary,  or  even  con- 
ceivable— the  Germans  in  Britain  must  have  soon  found  an 
alliance  among  their  tribes  indispensable.  A  common  warfare 
of  several  states  without  a  dictator  was  not  to  be  conceived  j 
and  the  call  to  that  post  was  on  the  most  powerful,  or  on  him 
whose  territory  was  most  exposed  to  hostile  inroads.     The 
latter  case  we  find  the  most  frequent.    Sussex  is  said  to  have 
first  enjoyed  that  supremacy  when  it  had  to  defend   Kent. 
Kent  laid  claim  to  it  while  it  yet  possessed  rights  of  suze- 
rainty in  the  north,  and  subsequently  obtained  it ;  possibly  as 
an  indemnity  for  its  renunciation  of  such  rights. 

Wessex  next  formed  the  bulwark ;  but  this  state  having 
strengthened  itself,  and  the  struggle  being  carried  on  more 
northwards,  the  chief  military  command  passed  to  East  An- 
glia,  and  lastly  to  Northumbria ;  neither  of  whose  Anglian 
states  acknowledged  the  authority  of  the  Bretwalda-  until 

'  Snorre,  Ynglinga  Saga,  c.  xlv. 

^  Beda,  i.  25.  "  Rex  ^Edilberctus  in  Cantia  potentissiraus,  qui  ad  con- 
finium  uscjue  Humbrse  fluminis  maximi,  quo  meiidiani  et  septentrionales 


128  CEAWLIN  OF  WESSEX. 

the  state  of  things  had  become  changed.  That  those  states 
used  the  transient  power  for  the  aggrandizement  of  their  ter- 
ritory was  in  the  nature  of  things,  and,  at  the  same  time,  not 
inconsistent  with  the  object  of  the  institution.  The  elective 
emperor  of  the  Germans,  whose  dignity  was  not  attached  to 
hereditary  states,  nor  to  descent,  but  to  the  importance  of  the 
individual,  represents  what  the  Bretwalda  might  have  been,  if 
the  general  interest  could  have  been  conceived  by  the  bar- 
barian conquerors  in  a  higher  point  of  view.  It  is  probable 
that  not  only  the  choice  of  the  other  kings,  but  also  of  the 
collective  nobility  and  ealdormen,  determined  the  nomination 
of  the  Bretwalda ;  for  as,  according  to  the  words  of  an  old 
writer,  he  possessed  sovereign  power  over  all  these  ^,  it  is  to 
be  inferred  that,  in  the  spirit  of  Germanic  forms  of  govern- 
ment, the  appointment  was  the  result  of  a  preceding  free 
election. 

Notwithstanding  the  high  estimation  in  which  this  dignity 
was  held  from  a  very  early  period,  yet  Beda  is  unable  to  in- 
form us  who  was  invested  with  it  after  -^lle-,  until  Ceawlin, 
the  grandson  of  Cerdic,  became  its  possessor.  A  noble 
^scing,  the  young  yEthelberht  of  Kent,  would  dispute  it 
with  him,  and  invaded  Avith  his  anns  the  territory  of  Wessex. 
A  defeat  at  Wibbandun  (Wimbledon  in  Surrey^)  humbled 
the  bold  aspiring  youth,  whose  disgrace  was  not  effaced  till 
twenty  years  afterwards,  w^hen  he  attained  the  object  of  his 
ambition.  To  his  brother  Cuthwulf,  whom  he  unfortunately 
lost  in  the  same  year,  Ceawlin  was  indebted  for  a  most  im- 
portant victoiy  over  the  Britons,  which  brought  the  towns  of 
Lenbury,  Aylesbury,  Bensington  and  Eynsham  under  his 

Aiiglorura  populi  dirimuntur,  fines  imperii  tetenderat."    Lib.  ii.  5.  "JEdil- 

berct tertius  quidem  in  regibus  gentis  Anglorum,  cunctis  australibus 

eorum  provinciis  quae  Humbrse  iluvio  et  contiguis  ei  terrainis  sequestrantur 
a  borealibus,  iraperavit."     See  also  lib.  ii.  3. 

^  "  Omnia  jura  regni  Anglorum,  reges  scilicet  et  proceres  et  tribunes  in 
ditione  suatenebat."  H.  Hunt.  lib.  ii.  -  Beda,  ii.  5. 

3  Sax.  Chron.  a.  5G8.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i.     H.  Hunt.  lib.  ii. 


CEAWLIN  OF  WESSEX.  129 

dominion  ^     Not  less  fortunate  was  Ceawlin  some  time  after- 
wards, when,  with  the  aid  of  his  brother  Cutha,  or  Cuthwine, 
after  a  battle  at  Derham  in  Gloucestershire,  in  which  three 
British  kings  were  slain — Conmail,  Farinmail  (probably  of 
Gwent),  and  Condidan  or  Cyndillom  (of  Pengwern  or  Shrews- 
bury)— he  won  three  cities,  Bath,   Gloucester,  and  Ciren- 
cester^.    The  last-mentioned  places  did  not,  however,  con- 
tinue under  his  dominion  ;  probably  because  he  did  not  fight 
with  his  West  Saxons  only,  but  with  the  Angles  also,  in  his 
character  of  Bretwalda,  since  we  find  the  territory  of  the 
Hwiccas,  in  which  those  cities  lie,  subsequently  attached  to 
Mercia.     The  Britons  were  now  confined  to  their  mountains 
and  forests.    A  great  victoiy  at  Fethanleah  (Frithern)  on  the 
Severn,  which  gained  him  many  towns,  much  treasure,  and 
vast  booty,  was  yet  granted  to  Ceawlin,  though  purchased 
with  the  life  of  his  valiant  brother  Cutha,  and  probably  also 
with  that  of  his  own  son,  of  whom  the  former  fell  in  the 
beginning  of  the  contest'^ ;  of  the  other  no  further  mention 
occurs  in  the  chronicles.     With  those  friends  Ceawlin  lost 
much ;  the  star  of  his  prosperity  was  set.     Great  guilt  must 
have  accumulated  on  the  head  of  him"^,  against  whom,  after 
thirty  years  of  prosperous  sway  and  successful  warfare,  his 
kindred,  even  though  instigated  by  the  ambition  of  yEthel- 
berht  of  Kent,  could  be  induced  to  enter  into  a  disgraceful 
league  with  the  Britons  and  Scots ^.     He  was  defeated   in 
a  great  battle  fought  in  his  own  territory  at  Wodnesbeorh  in 
Berkshire,  not  far  from  the  frontier  of  Mercia,  and   com- 
pelled to  abdicate  the  throne,  which  Ceolric,  the  son  of  his 

'  Sax.  Chron.  a.  571.  ^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  577. 

3  Sax.  Chrou.  aa.  568,  597-     Fl.  Wigorn.    W.  Malm. 

■•  Malmesbury  says  of  him,  "  Diebus  ultimis  regno  extorris,  miserandum 
sui  spectaculum  hostibus  exliibuit.  Quiaenim  inodiura  sui  quasi  classicum 
utrobique  cecinerat,  conspirautibus  tam  Anglis  quam  Britonibus  apud 
Wodnesdic,  cseso  exercitu,  anno  xxxi,  regno  nudatus  in  exiliura  concessit, 
et  continuo  decessit. 

^  Forduni  Scotichron.  lib.  iii.     Cf.  also  Langhorne  ut  sup. 

VOL.  I.  K 


130  CONVERSION  OF  KENT. 

brother  Cutha,  ascended^,  and  ^thelberht  was  now  acknow- 
ledged as  Bretwalda.  Ceawlin,  for  many  years  to  come  the 
mightiest  monarch  of  the  Anglo-Saxons^,  died  two  years  after- 
Avards  in  all  the  misery  of  exile^.  His  successor,  Ceolric, 
sun'ived  him  only  five  years^. 

The  strife  and  discord  which  tore  and  threatened  destruc- 
tion to  the  Anglo-Saxons  was,  however,  soon  to  be  met  by 
the  kindliest  palliative.  Tlie  grandsons  of  the  Saxon  con- 
querors had  been  so  far  civilized  by  peaceable  possession  and 
gradual  acquaintance  with  the  arts  of  peace,  that  they  could 
lend  their  ear  to  the  preaching  of  Christianity.  Of  all  the 
people  of  unmixed  Germanic  race  the  first  converted  to  the 
faith  of  Christ,  the  Anglo-Saxons  were  called  to  impart  its 
sanctity,  and  all  the  highest  moral  feeling  attached  to  it,  to 
the  rest  of  Germanic  and  Northern  Europe.  The  Roman 
civilization  which  they  found  in  England  had  expanded  the 
narrow  boundary  of  their  habits,  their  energies,  and  perhaps 
of  their  activity,  without,  at  the  same  time,  destroying  the 
nationality  of  their  institutions,  their  laws,  or  their  language. 
Their  mental  cultivation,  which  must  have  been  much  pro- 
moted in  their  intercourse  with  the  Britons,  had  no  doubt 
greatly  refined  even  their  pagan  notions.  Hence  we  see  that 
Christianity  was  received  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  states  in  the 
order  according  to  which  they  had  been  favoured  over  others, 
by  greater  extent  of  settlements  and  length  of  peaceable  pos- 
session. 

An  important  event,  through  which  the  Anglo-Saxons  first 
approached  the  pale  of  the  Christian  commonwealth  of  Europe, 
was  the  marriage  of  king  ^thelberht  with  Berhta,  daughter 
of  Charibert,  king  of  the  Franks, — a  connexion  between  the 
princeswhich  admits  the  supposition  of  an  intercourse  between 
their  subjects,  and  which,  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  does  in 

1  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  591. 

■  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  593.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

3  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  591. 


CONVERSION  OF  KENT.  131 

fact  appear  to  have  subsisted  at  the  great  commercial  fair  of 
St.  Denis,  which  was  visited  by  Anglo-Saxons  ^ 

The  ordinances  of  the  Christian  church,  simple  and  humble 
as  they  were,  could  not  maintain  themselves  in  the  new  pagan 
Anglo-Saxon  kingdoms,  where  royalty  and  the  sacerdotal 
office  were  in  close  connexion.  We  find  them  longest  in  the 
North,  where  the  Angles  established  themselves  but  slowly 
as  independent  states.  Samson  was  nominated  bishop  of 
York  about  the  year  500,  in  which  well-fortified  city  a  Chris- 
tian Roman  school  may  probably  have  continued  till  the  oc- 
cupation of  the  place  by  the  Angles.  The  Anglo-Saxons  could 
not  be  otherwise  than  ill-disposed  to  the  worship  of  Rome 
and  of  their  enemies  in  Britain,  as  well  as  to  other  Roman 
institutions,  which  might  threaten  to  be  prejudicial  to  their 
independence :  the  teachers  of  Christianity,  therefore,  found 
among  their  most  bai'barous  Celtic  neighbours  earlier  admis- 
sion than  among  the  German  invaders.  The  pupil  of  Ger- 
manus,  who  is  said  to  have  accompanied  him  on  his  visit  to 
Britain,  St.  Patric,  the  son  of  a  deacon  on  the  southern  shore 
of  the  Clyde,  who  died  in  493,  continued  in  Ireland,  as  Pal- 
ladius  (since  the  year  430)  among  the  Scots,  successfully  to 
spread  the  faith  of  Christ  during  the  time  when  the  Saxons 
were  establishing  themselves  in  Britain.  Among  the  southern 
Picts,  Christianity  is  said  to  have  maintained  itself  from  the 
period  of  their  conversion  by  the  Briton  Nynias  in  the  year 
394,  and  Christian  Anglo-Saxons,  in  later  times,  celebrated 
their  worship  in  the  stone  church  of  St.  Martin,  founded  by 
him  at  Hwitern  (Candida  Casa)  in  Galloway,  when  that  ter- 
ritory had  been  annexed  to  the  kingdom  of  Bernicia^.  In 
the  year  563  St.  Columba  passed  over  from  Ireland  to  the 

^  Charter  of  Dagobert  of  the  year  629,  ap.  Bouquet,  t.  iv.  p.  629,  and 
more  correct  in  Marini, '  Papiri  Diplomatici,'  p.  97,  in  which  those  Saxona 
only  who  came  from  beyond  sea  to  Rouen  and  Quentavic  to  fetch  honey 
and  wood  are  to  be  held  as  Anglo-Saxons.  See  also  under  Offa  K.  of 
Mercia. 

*  Beda,  iii.  4. 

K  2 


132  CONVERSION  OF  KENT. 

northern  Picts,  with  whom,  employed  in  the  propagation  of 
his  faith,  he  continued  thirty-two  years  ^,  and  formed  excel- 
lent disciples,  through  whom  a  jjleasing  image  of  pious  zeal, 
deep  learning,  and  varied  acquirement  attaches  itself  to  the 
memory  of  the  Scottish  monks.  St.  Columba  received  from 
the  Pictish  prince  the  island  of  Hii,  now  lona  or  I-Colm-Kill, 
(the  isle  of  the  church,  or  cell  of  Columba,)  which  his  name 
has  consecrated,  and  which,  in  honour  of  him,  continued  for 
ages  to  be  the  real  or  fabled  burial-place  of  many  Northern 
princes, — of  Scotland,  Ireland,  Norway,  and  even  of  North- 
umbrian. 

In  the  Cambrian  or  Welsh  states,  as  also  in  Cumbria,  no 
apostasy  from  the  Christian  faith  had  taken  place,  though  no 
conformity  with  the  church  of  Rome  existed ;  and  the  later 
accounts,  which  ascribe  to  Rome  the  sending  of  the  before- 
mentioned  missionaries,  appear  for  the  most  part  very  un- 
worthy of  credit^.  Contrast,  and  their  contests  with  the  pa- 
gans must  have  strengthened  a  faith  among  them  which  re- 
serves its  noblest  crown  for  the  martyr.  Many  churches  in 
Wales  trace  their  foundation  back  to  those  British  saints, 
who,  in  the  time  of  Cerdic  and  his  immediate  successors, 
sought  protection  for  their  faith  and  tranquillity  for  self-con- 
templation behind  the  rocks  and  in  the  sylvan  solitudes  of 
that  country'^.  The  connexion  into  which  the  church  had 
already  entered  with  the  state,  as  well  as  that  very  peculiar 
one,  which  almost  identified  the  form  of  the  Western  empire 
with  the  existence  of  the  clergy,  became  known  also  in  this 
country,  and  preserved   its  ecclesiastical  institutions.      Of 

^  Adamni  Vita  S.  Columbje  ap.  Canisii  Lectt.  Antiquse.  His  biographer 
was  one  of  his  successors  in  the  abbey  at  lona,  and  is  known  also  by  his 
work,  '  De  Locis  Sanctis.' 

-  According  to  Simeon  (De  Eccles.  Dunelm.,  c.  ix.),  Ecgfrith  king  of 
Northumberland  was  buried  at  lona. 

^  As  regards  Patricius,  cf.  Neander's  Geschichte  der  christlichen  Re- 
ligion, Bd.  ii.  259. 

■•  See  the  genealogies  of  the  Saints  in  Lhuyd's  Archseologia  Britannica. 


CONVERSION  OF  KENT.  I33 

these  we  may  mention  the  distribution  into  seven  bishoprics, 
also  the  monasteries  of  Bangor,  and  Avallon  or  Glastonbury. 
We  find  bishops  at  the  election  of  kings :  Dubritius,  at  first 
bishop  of  Llandaff,  subsequently  of  Caerleon,  where  there 
were  two  ecclesiastical  seminaries,  crowned  king  Arthur  in 
the  year  516'.     St.  David,  who  transferred  the  see  from 
Caerleon  to  the  ancient  Menevia,  exerted  himself  at  a  British 
synod,  held  in  519,  to  eradicate  the  traces  of  the  Pelagian 
heresy^.     Mention  also  occurs  of  three  provincial  synods  of 
the  bishopric  of  Llandaff^,  which,  although  they  testify  to  a 
knowledge  of  existing  vices  and  to  a  desire  to  remedy  them, 
at  the  same  time  justify  the  mournful  picture  which  the  monk 
of  Bangor  has   with  black  lineaments   and  chastening  zeal 
drawn  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  British  church.     Gildas 
may  unquestionably  be  numbered  among  the  most  distin- 
guished men  of  his  age,  as  of  all  writings  of  a  similar  de- 
scription, it  has  transmitted  his  alone  to  posterity  and  to  the 
present  time.     Though  his  style  be  bombastic,  his  concep- 
tion bordering  on  the  absurd,  his  historic  dehn cations  unde- 
fined, without  chronology,  he  is,  nevertheless,  a  very  instruc- 
tive voucher  at  a  period,  the  other  relics  of  which  would, 
without  his  labours,  be  much  more  obscure  and  questionable 
than  they  are  at  present.     We  believe  we  err  not,  if  in  him 
we  recognise  the  speaking  representative  of  the  more  serious 
and  pious  Britons  of  the  time,  and  a  model  of  Christian  Bri- 

'  This  report,  as  far  as  the  bishop's  name  is  concerned,  seems  doubtful, 
as  he  may  have  been  mistaken  for  Dibric,  who  died  in  612.  Sec  Annal, 
Camb,  and  Monast.  Angl.  t.  vi.  p.  1220. 

-  This  synod  is  not  to  be  placed,  as  it  is  generally,  in  the  year  519.  The 
Annales  Cambriae  record  it,  with  the  death  of  bishop  David,  under  601, 
and  (according  to  a  later  MS.)  the  synod  of  Victoria,  perhaps  too  early,  in 
569-  The  historians  who  place  David,  Daniel  of  Bangor  (ob.  584.  see 
Annal.  Camb.),  and  Dubritius,  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  have 
not  considered  that  Giraldus,  their  chief  authority,  here  only  follows  Jef- 
frey of  Monmouth. 

^  Spclm.  Concilia,  t.  i.  p.  62  sq.  Wilkins,  Cone.  1. 1.  p.  17.  Usser.  Pri- 
raord.  Eccles.  Angl. 


134  CONVERSION  OF  KENT. 

tish  Roman  refinement.  What  pious,  modest,  apt  sentiments, 
what  rare  learning,  Avhat  pure  endeavour  prevailed  in  the 
British  church,  we  know  from  the  favourable  testimony  of  an 
opponent,  the  Venerable  Beda,  who  praises  and  exalts  no 
catholic  Anglo-Saxon  ecclesiastics  so  highly  as  he  does  those, 
held  out  to  them  as  patterns,  of  the  Britons  and  Scots.  The 
struggle  between  both  churches  in  Britain  is  not  less  inter- 
esting from  the  sympathy  which  we  cannot  refuse  to  the 
fathers  of  the  national  church,  than  from  the  incalculable  po- 
litical importance  of  its  suppression. 

The  points  of  difference  between  the  catholic  and  the 
British  churches  had  reference  to  the  time  of  celebrating 
Easter,  the  form  of  the  tonsure,  the  administration  of  bap- 
tism, the  ecclesiastical  benediction  of  matrimony,  the  mar- 
riage of  priests^,  the  manner  of  the  ordination  of  the  British 
bishops  (of  which  almost  every  church  possessed  one),  and 
other  trifling  differences ;  but,  above  all  things,  to  the  refusal 
to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the  pope  and  the  councils. 
Of  these  points,  however,  those  only  regarding  the  computa- 
tion of  Easter  and  the  administration  of  baptism  were  in- 
sisted on  by  Augustine,  with  the  condition  that  the  British 
priests  should  unite  with  the  missionaries  in  preaching  to  the 
Angles. 

The  British  church,  established  probably  on  the  oldest  di- 
rect traditions  from  Judea,  in  closest  connexion  with  con- 
versions of  the  highest  importance  in  the  history  of  mankind, 
appeared  no  less  by  its  geographical  position  than  by  its  ex- 
alted spiritual  endovrments,  fitted  to  become  the  foundation 
of  a  Northern  patriarchate,  which  by  its  counterpoise  to 
Rome  and  the  rest  of  the  South,  its  guardianship  over  a 
Celtic  and  Germanic  population,  sanctified  by  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  might  have  been  the  instrument  to  impart  to  those 
within  its  pale  that  which  both  meditative  and  ambitious 

'  See  Gieslcr,  Kirchengeschichte,  Bd.  i. 


CONVERSION  OF  KENT.  135 

men,  in  the  middle  age,  sometimes  ventured  to  think  on,  but 
which,  in  comparatively  modern  times,  Martin  Luther  first 
strove  to  extort  for  Romanized  Europe  ^ . 

The  struggles  between  the  Britons  and  the  Anglo-Saxons 
were  carried  on  for  centuries  with  so  much  rancour,  that  it 
ought  to  excite  no  astonishment,  and  still  less  call  for  blame, 
that  the  former  did  not  attempt  the  conversion  of  their  bar- 
barous enemies  and  oppressors.  Most  worthy  therefore  of 
admiration  appears  pope  Gregory  the  Great,  who  first  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  gaining  the  Anglo-Saxon  states  for  Chris- 
tendom and  the  catholic  church,  and  applied  to  the  holy  work 
with  a  perseverance  and  caution  worthy  of  the  happy  result 
by  which  it  Avas  followed.  The  obstacles,  amid  which  the  in- 
troduction of  Christianity  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  ef- 
fected, were,  nevertheless,  very  great,  and  it  required  almost 
a  century  for  the  completion  of  the  task.  The  language  of 
the  Roman  missionaries  proved  the  first  check  to  the  con- 
vincing powers  of  their  eloquence.  Though  the  prince,  by 
family  connexion,  remonstrances,  preaching,  by  papal  briefs, 
which  flattered  his  vanity,  and  presents,  as  they  are  given  in 
modern  times  and  for  a  similar  purpose  to  the  savages  of  re- 
mote regions, — though  he  by  such  inducements  felt  favourably 
disposed,  and  acknowledged  himself  a  Christian,  yet  were  his 

^  On  the  old  British  church  see  bishop  Miinter's  treatise  in  Ullmann's 
u.  A.  ' Theologischen  Studien  und  Kritiken/  1833.  Doellinger  (Kirchen- 
geschichte,  t.  i.  sect.  2),  proceeding  on  catholic  principles,  explains  several 
points  by  much  research,  but  is  too  zealous  in  endeavouring  to  obliterate 
all  traces  of  views  and  discipline,  in  which  the  ancient  British  chnrch  dif- 
fered from  that  of  Rome,  ascribing  to  the  former  an  acknowledgment  of 
the  Roman  supremacy.  The  passage  he  quotes  from  the  epistle  of  Gildas 
does  not  prove  that  the  British  procured  for  themselves  at  Rome  dignities 
in  the  church  of  their  own  country,  but  merely  that  some  of  them  had  sur- 
reptitiously obtained  ordination  in  transmarine  parts,  perhaps  Ireland  or 
Bretagne.  The  mention  made  of  the  bishop  of  Caerleon,  in  the  letter  of 
the  abbot  of  Bangor  to  Augustine,  in  which  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
pontiff  is  not  recognised,  will  no  longer,  after  what  has  been  before  said  "of 
bishop  David,  raise  critical  doubts,  but  may  be  reckoned  among  the  tests 
of  its  authenticity. 


136  CONVERSION  OF  KENT. 

court  and  the  rest  of  his  people  still  unconverted.  If  he 
died,  the  history  of  all  the  large  Anglo-Saxon  states  testifies, 
that  his  successor,  attached  to  its  adherents,  Avould  most 
probably  raise  again  the  banner  of  paganism.  Nor  in  at- 
tempting the  spiritual  conquest  of  any  of  the  other  small 
states  was  there  a  prospect  of  any  great  result,  since,  from 
their  slender  connexion  with  each  other,  and  the  inconsider- 
able influence  of  the  Bretwalda,  which,  in  this  case  especially, 
proved  wholly  ineffectual,  the  conversion  of  his  kingdom  was 
for  the  neighbouring  ones  an  occasion  of  a  more  vigilant  op- 
position. At  the  same  time,  however,  it  must  be  noticed,  as 
a  favourable  circumstance,  that,  notwithstanding  repeated 
relapses  into  paganism,  Christianity  in  one  or  other  of  the 
states  always  preserved  an  altar  and  a  sanctuary. 

The  Avish  and  the  plan  to  draw  the  Anglo-Saxons  within 
the  pale  of  the  Roman  catholic  church  must  have  been  long 
entertained  at  Rome,  though  the  external  impulse,  which  is 
necessary  to  the  production  of  the  greatest  events,  was  want- 
ing, and  which  at  the  first  glance  is  M'ont  to  appear  so  capri- 
cious, so  insignificant,  and  so  incredible,  that  an  attentive 
consideration  of  human  affairs  might  pronounce  it  much  too 
wonderful  for  accident,  but  rather  the  leading  clew  of  hid- 
den wisdom  made  perceptible  only  to  those  directed  by  it. 
Some  young  Angles  were  standing  in  the  Forum  at  Rome, 
there  to  be  sold  as  slaves.  By  whom  they  had  been  con- 
veyed thither  is  whoHy  unknown ;  they  possibly  formed  a 
portion  of  the  booty  taken  in  the  wars  of  the  Bretwalda  with 
the  Northumbrians,  and  had  been  brought  from  the  public 
market  at  London.  These  foreign  boys,  distinguished  by 
their  beautiful  countenance,  fair  skin,  and — that  which  was 
the  sign  of  good  descent — their  comely  locks,  attracted  the 
notice  of  Gregory,  who  some  years  afterwards  was  elected 
pope,  and  v.  as  famed  for  his  attention  to  the  education  of 
youth,  who  for  more  than  a  thousand  years  after  his  death 
were  accustomed  to  celebrate  the  day  dedicated  to  his  name. 


CONVERSION  OF  KENT.  13  7 

On  learning  that  they  were  from  Bntain  and  heathens,  he 
loudly  lamented  that  they  with  such  bright  countenances 
must  become  the  prey  of  the  prince  of  darkness ;  and  that 
such  grace  of  aspect  was  not  accompanied  with  the  grace  of 
inward  light.     On  being  told  that  they  were  called  Angles 
(Angli),  he  exclaimed,  "And  rightly  so,  for  they  have  an  an- 
gelic mien,  and  should  be  the  co-heirs  of  angels  in  heaven." 
On  inquiring  the  name  of  the  province  from  whence  they 
came,  he  was  answered,  that  the  people  to  which  they  be- 
longed were  called  Deiri.     "  It  is  well,"  said  he,  "  de  ira 
eruti,  snatched  from  wrath  and  called  to  the  mercy  of  Christ." 
On  being  informed  that  their  king  was  named  J^lle,  "  Alle- 
luiah,"  said  he,  in  allusion  to  the  name,  "  the  praise  of  God 
the  Creator  ought  to  be  sung  in  that  country."     Whereupon 
he  hastened  to  the  pope,  for  the  purpose  of  beseeching  him 
to  send  some  ministers  of  the  Word  to  Britain,  who  might 
convert  the  inhabitants  to  Christ,  offering  to  accompany  them 
himself;  and  though  the  pope  was  willing  to  grant  his  re- 
quest, the  people  would  not  admit  of  his  absence  from  the 
city  for  so  long  a  period :  but  Gregory,  immediately  after  his 
elevation  to  the  papacy,  executed  his  serious  purpose  by  send- 
ing missionaries  to  the  land  of  the  slaves  who  had  been  the 
objects  of  his  commiseration  ^     These,  under  the  guidance  of 
Augustine,  had  performed  but  an  inconsiderable  part  of  their 
journey,  when  they  were  so  terrified  at  the  description  given 
them  of  the  barbarity  of  the  savage  pagans,  of  whose  speech 
even  they  were  entirely  ignorant,  that,  on  their  arrival  in 
Provence,  they  sent  home  Augustine  2,— who  was  destined  to 
be  bishop  of  the  Angles,  and  Avho  on  all  occasions  appears 
rather  as  a  faithful  instrument  subservient  to  general  opinion 
and  higher  command,  than  as  an  inspired  preacher  of  the 
Word  which  brings  life,— for  the  purpose  of  supplicating  the 
pope  to  release  them  from  so  dangerous,  laborious,  and  doubt- 

'  Beda,  ii.  1.  2  I^j,  j,  23. 


138  CONVERSION  OF  KENT. 

ful  a  mission.  But  Gregory  exhorted  them  to  continue  their 
journey,  recommended  them  to  the  protection  of  the  Frankish 
kings,  Theuderic  and  Theudebert,  to  their  powerful  grand- 
mother, Brunhild,  also  to  the  several  bishops,  and  caused 
Frankish  interpreters  to  accompany  them.  On  the  isle  of 
Thanet,  the  earliest  Anglo-Saxon  acquisition,  Augustine  like- 
wise made  his  landing,  with  a  number  of  monks,  which  An- 
glo-Saxon tradition  fixes  at  about  forty.  To  the  king  of  Kent, 
Augustine  announced  his  coming  from  Rome,  with  a  message 
that  promised  to  the  obedient  eternal  joy  in  heaven,  and 
kingdom  without  end  with  the  true  and  living  God.  Though 
-^thelberht  might  not  have  paid  attention  to  the  faith  pro- 
fessed by  the  great  number  of  his  subjects  forming  the  op- 
pressed British  population,  he  must,  nevertheless,  have  had 
some  knowledge  of  the  religion  of  his  consort  Berhta,  who, 
by  the  terms  of  her  marriage  contract,  enjoyed  the  free  ex- 
ercise of  her  worship,  the  duties  attending  which  were  fulfilled 
by  Liudhard,  a  Frankish  bishop,  who  had  accompanied  her 
to  England,  in  the  church  of  St.  Martin  near  Canterbury, 
which  had  been  preserved  from  the  time  of  the  Christian 
Romans. 

The  king,  soon  after  their  landing,  proceeded  to  the  isle 
for  the  purpose  of  meeting  the  strangers,  where,  apprehend- 
ing the  influence  of  their  sorcery  under  a  roof,  he  received 
them  in  the  open  air.  The  missionaries  approached,  bearing, 
in  place  of  a  banner,  a  silver  cross,  also  a  representation  of 
the  Saviour  painted  on  a  board,  singing  litanies,  supplicating 
for  the  eternal  salvation  of  themselves  and  of  those  for  whom 
and  to  whom  they  were  come.  The  words  and  promises  of 
the  sermon  preached  before  the  king  seemed  to  him  beautiful, 
yet  being  new  and  uncertain,  he  would  not  renounce  the 
faith  of  the  whole  nation :  at  the  same  time  he  gave  the 
foieigners  an  hospitable  reception  in  his  chief  city,  Canter- 
bury, and  allowed  them,  by  their  preaching  and  example,  to 
propagate  their  faith  among  his  people,  to  baptize,  and  to 


CONVERSION  OF  KENT.  139 

solemnize  their  worship  in  the  church  of  his  queen.  The 
conversion  and  baptism  of  iEthelberht  himself^,  which  soon 
followed,  was  attended  with  the  restoration  of  the  old  British 
church  of  the  Holy  Saviour  in  the  royal  city,  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  archiepiscopal  authority  of  Augustine,  who 
had  made  a  journey  to  Aries,  where,  by  command  of  Gregory, 
he  had  received  consecration  at  the  hands  of  the  archbishop 
VirgiHus-,  and  who  on  his  return  sent  Laurentius  and  Petrus, 
two  of  his  companions,  to  announce  to  Gregory  the  progress 
of  his  mission.  These  brought  back  with  them  several  co- 
adjutors, among  whom  were  MeUitus,  Justus,  Paulinus  and 
Rufinianus,  together  with  gifts  for  the  new  church,  consisting 
of  holy  vessels  and  vestments,  books  and  rehcs,  also  letters 
from  the  pope  to  Augustine,  granting  him  the  use  of  the  pall. 
Gregory  now  saw  the  general  conversion  of  the  nation  assume 
a  form 3,  and  the  active  head  of  the  church,  in  the  leisure  and 
tranquillity  Avhich  his  great  mind  was  able  to  command  for 
the  puqiose  of  recording  the  fruits  of  his  profound  and 
learned  contemplations,  could  thank  the  Almighty,  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Britain,  whose  language  had  erst  been  employed 
only  for  heathenish  and  barbarous  purposes,  now  chanted  forth 
the  Hebrew  Hallelujah  to  the  praise  of  God'^.  Who  does  not 
here  call  to  mind  his  early  wish  ?  Well  might  he  rejoice  in 
the  progress  of  the  great  work  of  which  he  had  laid  the 
foundation ! 

The  failure  of  an  important  step  contemplated  by  Augus- 

1  Beda,  i.  26.  a.d,  597,  on  the  feast  of  Pentecost,  or  June  2.  See 
Smith's  note,  also  Stevenson's. — T. 

-  A.D.  597.     Beda,  i.  24  (where  see  Smith's  note)  and  id.  i.  27. 

^  Beda,  i.  27,  29.  We  learn  from  a  letter  of  Gregory  to  Eulogius,  bishop 
of  Alexandria,  that  before  the  following  Christmas  more  than  ten  thousand 
of  the  English  had  been  baptized  by  Augustine  and  his  followers.  By  Thorne 
it  is  stated  that  JLthelberht  resigned  Canterbury  and  the  surrounding 
country  to  Augustine,  and  retired  to  Reculver :  "  Ipse  ^dilberctus  Regul- 
bium  demigravit,  ibique  novum  sibi  palatium  condidit."  See  Smith's  atnd 
Stevenson's  notes. — T. 

■*  Expositio  Jobi  ap.  Bedse  H.  E.  ii.  1. 


140  CONVERSION  OF  KENT. 

tine  proved  a  check  to  the  more  rapid  spread  of  Christianity. 
In  Wales  the  Christian  faith  as  well  as  much  Roman  civili- 
zation had  been  preserved  and  transmitted,  especially  through 
the  schools  of  Bangor  and  Llancarvan ;  and  Augustine  was 
not  slow  to  perceive  how  desirable  for  the  propagation  of 
Christianity  an  union  would  be  between  the  Roman  and  the 
British  clergy.  Through  the  influence  of  -^Ethelberht  a  meet- 
ing between  the  missionaries  and  the  heads  of  the  British 
church  was  effected,  at  a  spot  afterwards  known  by  the  name 
of  Augustine's  Oak^,  on  the  confines  of  Wessex  and  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  Hwiccas ;  when,  after  a  long  and  fruitless  dis- 
cussion of  the  points  on  which  the  two  churches  were  at 
variance,  the  chief  of  which,  it  appears,  was  the  time  of  cele- 
brating Easter,  Augustine,  as  we  are  told  by  Beda,  having,  in 
proof  of  his  authority,  miraculously  restored  a  blind  man  to 
sight ^,  the  meeting  was  adjourned  to  a  future  day. 

Previous  to  the  second  conference,  which  was  attended  by 
seven  British  bishops,  by  the  abbot  Dinoot,  or  Dunawd,  and 
several  learned  divines  from  Bangor,  the  Britons  consulted  a 
certain  hermit,  who  was  held  by  them  in  high  veneration,  as 
to  whether,  in  compliance  with  the  preaching  of  Augustine, 
they  should  renounce  their  own  traditions  ?  He  answered, 
"  If  the  man  is  of  God,  follow  him."  To  their  inquiry,  ^'  How 
are  we  to  prove  this  ?"  he  replied,  "  The  Lord  says.  Take  my 
yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me,  for  I  am  meek  and  humble 
of  heart.  If,  therefore,  Augustine  is  meek  and  humble  of 
heart,  it  is  to  be  believed  that  he  himself  bears  the  yoke  of 
Christ,  and  offers  it  to  be  borne  by  you ;  but  if  he  is  arrogant 

^  The  conference  was,  without  doubt,  literally  held  in  the  open  air, 
under  the  spreading  branches  of  an  oak.  On  this  interesting  subject  see 
Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  238  sq. — T. 

2  From  an  extract  of  a  letter  from  Gregory  to  Augustine,  it  appears  that 
the  great  work  of  the  latter  was  promoted  by  the  intervention  of  other 
miracles  besides  the  one  here  recorded.  In  this  letter  the  pontiff  exhorts 
the  missionary  not  to  be  presumptuous  on  account  of  such  miracles.  See 
Beda,  i.  31  ;  and,  for  the  remainder  of  the  letter,  ejd.  Opera  Minora,  ed. 
Stevenson,  p.  248. — T. 


CONVERSION  OF  KENT.  141 

and  proud,  it  is  manifest  that  he  is  not  of  God,  and  that  we 
need  not  heed  his  words."  To  their  further  question,  "  But 
how  shall  we  ascertain  this  ?"  "Order  it  so,"  said  he,  "  that 
he  and  his  followers  be  the  first  at  the  conference,  and  if  he 
rise  up  to  meet  you,  do  you,  knowing  him  to  be  the  servant 
of  Christ,  hear  him  obediently  ;  but  if  he  contemn  you,  and 
will  not  rise  up  to  you,  you  being  in  number  the  greater,  be 
he  contemned  of  you." 

On  their  arrival  at  the  place  of  conference,  finding  Augus- 
tine seated,  they,  according  to  the  instructions  of  the  hermit, 
as  well  perhaps  as  from  predisposition,  met  all  his  proposals 
with  a  refusal.  Whereupon  he  said,  "  Though  in  many  points 
you  act  contrary  to  us  and  to  the  universal  church,  yet,  if  you 
will  agree  with  me  in  these  three, — to  celebrate  Easter  at  the 
proper  season ;  to  perform  baptism,  whereby  we  are  born 
again  to  God,  after  the  manner  of  the  holy  Roman  and  apo- 
stolic church  ;  and,  together  with  us,  to  preach  the  word  of 
God  to  the  Anglian  nation, — we  will  kindly  bear  with  you.^' 
They  answered,  that  they  would  do  none  of  those  things,  nor 
acknowledge  him  for  their  archbishop.  In  reply,  Augustine, 
in  a  threatening  tone,  is  said  to  have  predicted  to  them,  that, 
if  they  would  not  accept  peace  with  their  brothers,  they  should 
have  war  with  their  enemies  :  and  if  they  would  not  preach 
the  way  of  life  to  the  Angles,  they  should  suffer  vengeance 
at  their  hands.  The  fulfilling  of  the  prophecy,  or  what  was 
regarded  as  its  fulfilling,  will  be  seen  hereafter  ^ 

From  the  above  it  will,  perhaps,  appear  obvious  to  the  un- 
prejudiced reader,  that  the  arrogance  of  the  foreign  mission- 
ary on  the  one  side,  and,  on  the  other,  the  stubbornness  of 
the  British  ecclesiastics,  called  into  activity  by  that  arrogance, 
w^ere  the  chief  causes  why  a  conference,  held  for  so  holy  a 
purpose,  ended  in  the  evocation  of  feelings  the  reverse  of 
those  of  peace  and  good-will'to  men. 

With  more  satisfaction  we,  at  the  present  day,  regard  the 
*  This  important  narrative  is  wholly  taken  from  Beda,  ii.  2. — T. 


142  CONVERSION  OF  ESSEX. 

wisdom  and  liberality  with  which  Gregory  answers  the  ques- 
tion of  Augustine,  as  to  the  course  he  was  to  follow  with  re- 
gard to  the  diversity  prevailing  in  the  customs  of  the  Roman 
and  Gallican  churches.  "  It  is  my  Mdsh/'  writes  Gregory, 
"  that  you  sedulously  select  what  you  may  think  most  accept- 
able to  Almighty  God,  be  it  in  the  Roman,  or  in  the  Gallican, 
or  in  any  other  church ;  and  introduce  into  the  church  of  the 
Angles  that  which  you  shall  have  so  collected ;  for  things  are 
not  to  be  loved  for  the  sake  of  places,  but  places  for  the  sake 
of  good  things.  Choose,  therefore,  from  the  several  churches 
whatever  is  pious,  and  religious,  and  right,  and  these,  gathered 
as  it  were  into  one  whole,  instil,  as  observances,  into  the 
minds  of  the  Angles^" 

A  connexion  similar  to  that  which  had  caused  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity  into  Kent  facilitated  its  entrance  into 
Essex.  Ricole,  a  sister  of  ^thelberht,  was  the  mother  of 
Sasberht  (Saebriht),  king  of  that  small  but,  on  account  of  the 
cities  it  contained,  important  state  ^.  The  king  soon  attached 
himself  to  the  new  faith  of  his  uncle  and  Bretwalda,  and  his 
people,  following  the  example  of  their  prince,  yielded  to  the 
preaching  of  Mellitus,  to  whom,  through  the  influence  of 
JEthelberht,  a  church  in  London,  dedicated  to  St.  Paul,  was 
assigned  as  an  episcopal  see,  where  had  formerly  stood  a 
temple  of  Diana  ;  while  Justus  was  by  Augustine  consecrated 
to  the  see  of  Rochester,  in  which  city  a  church,  dedicated  to 
St.  Andrew  the  apostle,  was  founded  by  ^thelberht,  and,  as 
at  Canterbury,  endowed  with  lands  and  other  possessions^. 

It  was  the  happy  lot  of  Augustine  to  pass  to  the  higher 
reward  of  his  deeds  with  untroubled  looks  on  his  great  ac- 
quisition for  the  church,  which  gathered  strength  under  the 
powerful  sceptre  of  ^Ethelberht.  He  had  made  a  very  praise- 
worthy choice  of  a  successor  in  his  associate  Laurentius,  who, 
in  conjunction  with  Justus,  renewed  the  attempt  to  unite  the 

J  Beda,  i.  27.  '  Beda,  ii.  3.     Sax.  Chion.  a.  C04. 

3  A.D.  604.     Beda,  ii.  3. 


CONVERSION  OF  ESSEX.  143 

Britons  with  his  church,  and  even  took  similar  steps  among 
the  Scots  of  Ireland  ^ 

Mellitus  was  in  the  meanwhile  gone  to  Rome  on  business 
of  the  church  :  it  happened,  therefore,  that  Boniface  IV. 
counted  in  the  Synod  then  sitting^  one  Anglo-Saxon  bishop. 
In  Kent  the  wholesome  influence  of  the  Roman  ecclesiastics 
was  manifested  also  in  the  circumstance,  that  ^thelberht 
caused  to  be  recorded,  in  the  language  of  his  country,  the 
first  written  collection  among  the  Anglo-Saxons — perhaps 
among  all  the  Germanic  nations — of  the  ancient  laws  of  his 
people,  comprising  those  newly  introduced  by  the  Christian 
priests.  But  the  welfare  of  the  church  was  not  to  rest  on  the 
written  letter.  On  the  death  of  ^Ethelberht*^,  which  was  soon 
followed  by  that  of  Saeberht,  the  faith  had  been  established 
among  the  Anglo-Saxons  about  twenty-one  years,  when  it 
was  suddenly  brought  near  to  its  suppression ;  Eadbald,  the 
son  of  -^thelberht,  having  not  only  refused  to  listen  to  its 
doctrines,  but,  yielding  to  the  frenzy  of  the  most  passionate 
excitement,  had  not  hesitated  to  espouse  his  father's  widow. 
The  sons  of  Sreberht  had  in  like  manner  refused  to  receive 
baptism,  had  granted  to  their  subjects  permission  to  return  to 
the  worship  of  idols,  and  driven  Mellitus  from  the  kingdom, 
for  having  refused  to  give  them  the  bread  of  the  eucharist. 
Mellitus  and  Justus  fled  to  Gaul,  whither  Laurentius  was 
preparing  to  follow  them,  when  a  sudden  change  in  the  mind 
of  Eadbald,  occasioned  by  the  last  representations  of  the  arch- 
bishop, was  followed  by  the  suppression  of  idolatry  in  his 
dominions,  the  dismissal  of  his  step-mother,  and  the  resto- 
ration of  Christianity'^. 

'  A.D.  605.  Beda,  ii.  3,  4,  where  see  the  letter  of  Laurentius  to  the 
Scottish  bishops  and  abbots. — T. 

2  A.D.  610,  Feb.  27.  ^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  6l6. 

■•  The  device  bj'  which  these  desirable  events  were  brought  to  pass, 
though  unfit  to  be  recorded  on  the  pages  of  history  at  the  present  day, 
affords,  nevertheless,  too  striking  an  example  of  the  means,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  but  top  frequently  employed  in  propagating  the  new  faith  among 


144  R^DWALD  OF  EAST  ANGLIA. 

Not  so  soon  did  the  East  Saxons  become  sensible  of  their 
error,  though  the  three  sons  of  Sceberht  had  fallen  in  a  battle. 
MelUtus  succeeded  Laurentius  in  the  archiepiscopal  dignity, 
but  his  former  diocese  still  persisted  in  their  idolatry ^  It  was 
a  new  generation  only  that  followed  king  Sigeberht  the  Good 
and  the  majority  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  who  now  generally 
professed  the  doctrines  of  Christianity:  yet  even  then  the 
appearance  of  an  unusually  destructive  pestilence,  called  the 
yellow  plague,  prompted  the  East  Saxons  to  look  for  aid  in 
the  restoration  of  the  heathen  temples,  and  Sigehere  (Sige- 
heri),  one  of  their  two  kings,  had  relapsed  into  paganism ; 
but  the  example  given  by  the  pious  king  Sebbe  (Sebbi), 
together  •with  the  spiritual  exertions  of  bishop  Jaruman,  led 
to  the  final  destruction  of  the  old  national  idolatry  with  its 
temples,  and  to  the  permanent  establishment  of  the  new 
faiths 

While  on  a  visit  to  ^thelberht  of  Kent,  Raedwald,  king  of 
the  East  Angles,  had  also  declared  himself  a  convert  to  Chris- 
tianity, a  step  the  more  important,  as,  after  the  death  of 
^thelberht,  the  dignity  of  Bretwalda  had  passed  over  to  the 
Uffings.  Induced,  however,  by  the  importunity  of  his  wife 
and  friends,  Raedwald  soon  rejected  the  newly  acquired  con- 
cur simple  forefathers,  to  be  wholly  unnoticed.  We  are  told  by  Beda 
(ii.  6),  that  Laurentius,  on  the  eve  of  his  departure,  had  directed  that  his  bed 
should  be  placed  in  the  church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  In  the  dead  of 
the  night  St.  Peter  appeared  to  him,  and  scourging  him  asked,  why  he 
abandoned  the  flock  entrusted  to  his  care  ?  In  the  morning  he  presented 
himself  before  the  king,  and  showed  him  his  body  lacerated  with  the 
scourging,  who,  on  his  inquirj^  who  had  dared  to  inflict  such  stripes  on 
such  a  man,  received  for  answer,  that  he  had  been  so  wounded  and  tor- 
mented by  the  apostle  of  Christ,  for  the  sake  of  his  (Eadbald's)  salvation  ; 
who  thereupon,  anathematizing  his  old  idolatry,  dismissed  his  stepmother, 
adopted  the  Christian  faith,  and  received  baptism.  See  also  Sax.  Chron. 
a.  616.— T.  '  Beda,  ii.  G. 

-  Beda,  iii.  22,  30.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  653.  From  the  date  given  in  the 
margin  of  the  latter  of  these  chapters  of  Beda,  it  might  seem  that  the  reign 
of  Sighere  and  Sebbe  commenced  in  665  ;  but  in  Wulfhere's  charter  of  en- 
dowment to  Peterborough  abbey,  dated  664,  their  names  as  kings  appear 
among  the  signatures.     See  Sax.  Chron.  a.  657. 


^THELFRITH  OF  NORTHUMBRIA.  145 

viction,  but^  in  the  view  of  satisfying  both  parties,  caused  to 
be  erected  in  the  same  temple  an  altar  to  Christ  by  the  side 
of  that  devoted  to  the  rites  of  paganism  ^ 

His  neighbour  beyond  the  Humber,  ^thelfrith  (^Ethel- 
ferth),  the  son  of  ^Ethelric  and  grandson  of  Ida,  who  had 
forcibly  united  Deira,  the  kingdom  of  .^Ue  his  deceased 
father-in-law,  with  his  own  paternal  state,  Bernicia,  was  a  foe 
to  Christianity.  He  had  acquired  a  reputation  for  great 
valour  in  the  glorious  victory,  purchased  with  the  loss  of  his 
brother  Theodbald,  at  Daegsanstan,  or  Degsastan%  over  Aidan, 
the  son  of  Gabran,  king  of  the  Dalreods  or  Albanians,  the 
remembrance  of  v.'hich  long  deterred  the  latter  from  further 
contests  with  the  Angles  of  Northumbria.  His  wars  had 
hitherto  been  chiefly  with  the  Britons,  vast  numbers  of  whom 
he  had  exterminated,  or  rendered  tributary  to  his  sceptre ; 
and  the  fear  which  those  conquests  spread  among  his  neigh- 
bours occasioned  an  alliance,  till  then  unheard  of,  between 
Anglo-Saxon  and  British  princes.  Eadwine  (Eadwini),  the 
son  of  JEWe,  a  child  of  three  years,  had  it  appears,  on  the 
seizure  of  his  inheritance  by  ^thelfrith,  been  committed  for 
safety  to  the  care  of  Cadvan,  king  of  Gv/ynedd^,  and  there 
educated  under  the  British  clergy,  till  he  had  attained  the 
age  of  manhood.  Cadvan,  for  the  sake  of  his  ward,  having 
formed  an  alliance  with  Brocmail,  king  of  PoAvis,  the  patron 
of  the  poet  Taliesin,  hazarded  a  war  with  the  persecutor  of 
Eadwine,  which  ended  in  a  battle  fought  near  Chester  (Caer- 

^  Beda,  ii.  15. 

-  Beda,  i.  34.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  603.  Dalston  near  Carlisle,  according 
to  Gibson,  whose  supposition  is  favoured  by  the  various  reading,  Deglas- 
tan.  Dawstane  in  Liddesdale  has  also  been  conjectured  as  the  spot.  Tiger- 
nach  makes  no  mention  of  this  battle,  unless  he  alludes  to  it  a.  600,  "  Prre- 
lium  Saxonum  contra  ^danum,  ubi  cecidit  Eanfrac  (Eanfrith)  frater  Etal- 
fraich,  occisus  a  Maeluma,  filio  Baodani,  in  quo  victor  erat."  Annal.  Ulton. 
a.  599,  "  Bellum  Saxonum,  in  quo  victus  est  Aeda." 

^  Vaughan,  Diss,  on  Brit.  Chronol.  Langhorne,  Chron.  Angl.,  though 
in  other  respects  confuting  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  considers  this  tradition 
as  probable. 

VOL.  I.  L, 


146  EADWINE. 

legion,  Laegacester)  and  the  destruction  of  the  celebrated 
monastery  of  Bangor,  the  seat  of  Celtic  Christian  learning  K 
Previous  to  the  battle  ^thelfrith  espied  an  unarmed  body, 
standing  apart  in  a  place  of  apparent  security.  On  being  in- 
formed that  they  belonged  for  the  most  part  to  the  monastery 
of  Bangor,  and  had  with  others  assembled  on  that  spot  to 
pray,  under  the  protection  of  Brocmail,  he  exclaimed,  "  If 
they  cry  to  their  God  against  us,  and  load  us  with  impreca- 
tions, though  unarmed,  they  fight  against  us:"  ^Yhereupon 
he  ordered  them  to  be  attacked  and  put  to  the  sword.  Ead- 
wine  fled  before  his  brother-in-law  and  persecutor  to  Mercia, 
whence,  finding  no  security  there,  he  took  refuge  with  Raed- 
wald  of  East  Anglia ;  and  thus,  a  homeless  wanderer,  esta- 
blished, through  the  protection  which  he  there  sought  and 
obtained,  a  connexion  which  was  followed  by  a  result  far  more 
important  than  that  attending  his  previous  alliance  with  the 
Britons. 

To  the  first  and  second  application  of  ^thelfrith,  for  the 
death  or  delivery  of  the  fugitive,  though  accompanied  by 
tempting  pecuniary  offers,  the  Bretwalda  gave  no  ear;  but 
on  the  third  solicitation,  and  the  proffer  of  a  larger  sum,  and 
threatening  war  in  case  of  refusal,  the  faith  of  Rtedwald  gave 
way,  and  he  promised  compliance  with  the  wishes  of  the 
Northumbrian.  It  was  night,  and  Eadwine  was  preparing 
for  rest,  when  a  faithful  friend,  calling  him  from  his  chamber, 
infonned  him  of  Raedwald's  promise,  and  engaged  to  convey 
him  to  an  asylum,  where  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  should 
be  able  to  discover  him.  "  Thanks  for  your  good  will,"  said 
Eadwine,  "  but  I  cannot  yield  to  your  proposal,  and  be  the 
first  to  break  my  compact  with  a  king  who  has  done  rae  no 
injury,  nor  shown  any  ill-will  towards  me.     If  I  am  to  die, 

'  In  607  according  to  the  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  603.  says,  "  longo 
post  tempore  (vEthelfrido)  coUecto  exercitu,"  etc.  Annal.Camb.and  Tigern. 
613.  Beda,  ii.2,doesnot  give  theyear  of  this  event.  The  British  kings,  Seysil 
son  of  Conan,  Jacobus  son  of  Beli,  and  C'etul  are  named  among  the  slain. 


EADWINE.  147 

let  him  rather  than  a  less  noble  hand  deliver  me  to  death. 
Whither  can  I  flee,  who,  in  striving  to  escape  from  the  snares 
of  my  enemies,  have  so  long  been  a  wanderer  through  all  the 
provinces  of  Britain?"  His  friend  departed,  and  Eadwine 
was  left  alone  sitting  on  a  stone  before  the  palace,  sad  and  at 
a  loss  what  to  do,  or  whither  to  bend  his  steps. 

While  thus  sitting,  wrapt  in  agonizing  thoughts,  he  Mas 
startled  by  the  approach  of  a  stranger,  who,  after  greeting, 
asked  him,  why,  when  others  were  at  rest,  he  was  there  so 
sad  and  lonely  ?  "  Yet  think  not,"  continued  he,  "  that  the 
cause  of  your  affliction  and  your  vigil  is  unknown  to  me :  I 
know  who  you  are,  and  why  you  are  depressed,  and  the  im- 
pending evils  which  you  dread.  But  say,  what  reward  would 
you  give  to  any  one,  if  such  there  be,  who  should  free  you 
from  these  cares,  and  prevail  on  Rcedwald  neither  to  do  you 
aught  of  harm  himself,  nor  to  deliver  you  to  your  enemies  ?  " 
On  his  answering,  that  for  such  a  benefit  he  would  be  grate- 
ful to  the  utmost  of  his  power — "  But  what,  if  he  should  pro- 
mise that  you  shall  destroy  your  adversaries,  and  be  a  king 
more  jDOwerful  not  only  than  any  of  your  forefathers,  but 
than  any  who  has  ever  reigned  over  the  Angles  ?"  On  Ead- 
wine repeating  his  assurances  of  gratitude,  the  stranger,  a 
third  time,  asked,  "  If  he,  who  shall  have  truly  promised  such 
great  benefits,  should  impart  to  you  doctrines  of  life  and  sal- 
vation, better  and  more  efficacious  than  any  one  of  your  re- 
latives has  ever  heard,  would  you  obey  him,  and  listen  to  his 
admonitions?"  On  receiving  the  promise  of  Eadwine,  the 
stranger  laid  his  right  hand  on  the  prince's  head,  saying, 
"  When  this  sign  shall  be  repeated,  remember  this  hour  and 
this  discourse,  and  delay  not  to  fulfil  that  which  you  now 
promise."  Having  uttered  these  words,  it  is  said,  he  sud- 
denly disappeared,  that  he  might  be  known  to  be  no  man, 
but  a  spirit. 

The  royal  youth  remained :  his  mind,  though  gladdened 
by  the  consolation  he  had  i-eceived,  was  yet  not  free  from 

L  2 


148  EADWINE. 

anxiety,  when  his  before-mentioned  friend  returned  to  him 
with  a  joyful  countenance,  and  informed  him  that  he  might 
safely  retire  to  rest,  and  that  Raedwald  had  resolved  to  keep 
his  faith ;  for  that  on  communicating  to  the  queen  the  pro- 
mise he  had  made  to  iEthelfrith,  she  had  made  manifest  to 
him  how  ill  it  became  so  great  a  king  to  sell  his  best  friend 
in  his  distress  for  gold,  and  to  break  his  faith,  more  precious 
than  all  ornaments,  through  love  of  money  ^ 

The  Bretwalda  having  thus  resolved  on  the  juster  course, 
marched  with  a  powerful  well-appointed  army  against  the 
Northumbrian,  who  met  him  with  inferior  forces  in  a  battle 
fought  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  river  Idle  in  Nottingham- 
shire, on  the  border  of  Mercia.  Raedwald  remained  master 
of  the  field,  which  was  covered  with  the  bodies  of  the  slain, 
among  whom  was  ^thelfrith  himself,  who,  in  an  impetuous 
onset,  having  destroyed  one  of  the  three  divisions  into  which 
the  adverse  army  was  divided,  together  with  its  valiant  leader 
Raeginhere  (Raeginheri),  the  son  of  Raedwald,  being  over- 
powered by  numbers,  was  found  far  from  his  followers  amid 
the  slain  heaps  of  the  enemy  ^.  After  this  victory,  Avhich  was 
attended  with  most  important  results  for  Britain,  Eadwine 
took  possession  of  his  paternal  kingdom  as  well  as  of  the  va- 
cant throne  of  Bernicia.  One  of  his  earliest  deeds  seems  to 
have  been  the  conquest  of  the  little  British  territory  of  Elmet^, 
which  had  existed  as  an  independent  state  under  its  king 
Cerdic — a  name  susceptible  both  of  a  British  and  a  Saxon  in- 

*  Beda,  ii.  12.  Regarding  this  legend  of  the  child  .of  ^lle  as  too  beau- 
tiful and  graphic,  as  well  as  too  intimately  connected  with  the  account  of 
his  conversion,  to  be  omitted  or  even  abridged,  I  have,  at  the  risk  of  cen- 
sure from  the  severer  class  of  readers,  not  hesitated  to  give  it  entire  and 
almost  literally  from  the  work  of  the  '  Venerable  '  father  of  English  historj% 
■who,  for  his  love  of  the  legendary  and  fascinating  descriptive  powers,  may 
be  not  inaptly  called  the  Walter  Scott  of  the  eighth  century. — T. 

3  Beda,  ii.  12.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  6l7,     Fl.  Wigorn.    H.  Hunt.  a.  6l6. 

3  A  district  in  Yorkshire  about  Leeds.  Camden  conjectures  that  the 
mins  visible  at  Barwick  in  Elraet  indicate  the  site  of  the  palace  of  the 
Northumbrian  kings. 


EADWINE.  149 

terpretation — whom  he  expelled^  for  having,  under  the  guise 
of  hospitality,  received  and  afterwards  poisoned  Hereric,  the 
nephew  of  Eadwine,  who,  hke  his  uncle,  had  been  persecuted 
by^thelfrithi. 

The  states  of  kindred  origin  now  attached  themselves  to 
the  North  Angles,  and  the  first  Bretwaldaship  over  all  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  with  the  exception  of  Kent,  devolved  on  their 
mighty  and  widely  allied  king.  The  British  states,  and  even 
the  Isle  of  Man,  were  subject  to  him ;  also  the  island  of  Mona, 
which,  though  from  the  colonists  brought  thither  it  had  re- 
ceived the  name  of  Anglesey^,  afterwards  resumed  its  Celtic 
character.  Eadwine,  after  the  death  of  his  consort  Cwenburh, 
a  daughter  of  the  Mercian  king  Ceorl,  obtained  the  hand  of 
a  Christian  princess  of  the  family  of  the  /Escings,  the  former 
suzerains  of  his  country,  ^thelburh  or  Tate,  a  daughter  of 
-^thelberht  of  Kent.  This  marriage  had  been  permitted 
under  conditions  and  expectations  similar  to  those  attending 
that  of  the  Frankish  princess  Berhta  with  ^thelberht  him- 
self. The  bishop  Paulinus  accompanied  the  young  queen,  to 
preserve  her  in  the  Christian  faith  and  attend  to  the  duties 
of  divine  worship.  Shortly  after  letters,  accompanied  by  pre- 
cious gifts,  arrived  from  pope  Boniface^  "  to  Eadwine,  king 

^  Nennii  App.  "  Eaguin,  filius  AUi, occupavit  Elraet  et  expulit  Ger- 
tie, regem  illius  regionis."  Beda,  iv.  23.  "  Cum  Hereric  exularet  sub  rege 
Brittonum  Cerdice,  ubi  et  veneno  periit."  The  above  passages  will,  it  is 
hoped,  justify  the  view  I  have  taken  of  this  event,  which  receives  confirm- 
ation from  the  respect  shown  by  Eadwine  to  Hild,  the  daughter  of  He- 
reric, with  whom,  it  appears,  she  received  the  rites  of  baptism  :  "  Cum  quo 
(^duino),"  says  Beda,  ibid.,  "  ad  praedicationem  beatee  memorise  Paulini, 
primi  Nordanhymbrorura  episcopi,  fidem  et  sacramenta  Christi  suscepit." 
Hereric,  the  son  of  the  elder  deceased  son  of  .^Elle,  was  therefore  dead  be- 
fore the  death  of  Jilthelfrith  ;  whereby  it  appears  how  Eadwine,  Jille's 
second  son,  succeeded  Jj^thelfrith  without  opposition.  Cf.  also  Annal. 
Camb.  a.  616,  and  Fl.  Wigorn.  Geneal. 

2  Beda,  ii.  5,  9. 

^  As  Boniface  V,  died  Oct.  22,  a.  62.5,  his  letters  must  have  been  written 
in  that  year,  though  probably  not  received  till  the  spring  following ;  a  sup- 
position which  may  account  for  their  being  placed  by  Beda  after  events  of 
626. 


150  EADWINE. 

of  the  Angles,  and  yEthelburh,  his  consort/'  ^or  the  purpose 
of  effecting  the  conversion  of  the  former.     Eadwine  was  pro- 
bably neither  unprepared  nor  unwilling  to  receive  baptism, 
to  which  he  must  have  often  been  invited  in  his  earlier  years  : 
he,  nevertheless,  weighed  the  difficulties  and  the  danger  of 
such  a  step  with  regard  to  his  subjects.     Two  events,  which 
occurred  almost  at  the  same  moment,  appear  to  have  accele- 
rated his  conversion.     Cwichelm,  king  of  the  West  Saxons, 
anxious  to  free  himself  from  the  supremacy  of  Northumbria, 
had   recourse  to  the   arm  of  an   assassin.       His    emissary, 
Eomer,  reached  the  royal  residence  on  the  first  day  of  Easter, 
and,  while  delivering  a  feigned  message  from  Cwichelm,  sud- 
denly started  up,  and  drawing  from  under  his  garment  an 
envenomed  two-edged  dagger,  rushed  on  the  king,  when  an 
affectionate  thane  nanled  Lilla  threw  himself  between  them, 
and  at  the  price  of  his  own  life  saved  that  of  his  master.     So 
violent  was  the  stroke  that  Eadwine  was  wounded  through  the 
body  of  his  follower,  nor  did  the  assassin  fall  beneath  the 
swords  of  those  present  until  he  had  slain  Forthhere  (Forth- 
heri),  another  thane  of  Eadwine's.    On  the  same  night  ^thel- 
burh  was  delivered  of  a  daughter,  named  Eanflsed;   when 
Eadwine,  in  the  presence  of  Paulinus,  returning  thanks  to 
his  gods  for  the  gift,  the  bishop  returned  thanks  to  Christ, 
assuring  the  king  that  it  was  to  his  prayers  that  the  queen 
owed  her  safe  and  happy  delivery.     Moved  by  these  words, 
Eadwine  promised  to  renounce  his  idols  and  serve  Christ,  if 
he  would  grant  him  the  victory  over  that  king  who  had  em- 
ployed an  assassin  to  destroy  him,  and,  in  pledge  of  his  pro- 
mise, intrusted  his  daughter  to  Paulinus,  by  whom  she  was 
baptized  with  eleven  others  of  his  household.     Being  cured 
of  his  wound,  he  collected  an  army  and  marched  against  the 
West  Saxons,  who  were  defeated  with  great  loss,  five  kings 
being  mentioned  among  the  slain  \ 

1  Sax.  Chron.  a.  626.     Beda,  ii.  9. 


EADWINE.  151 

On  his  return,  though  he  abstained  from  the  worship  of  his 
gods,  he  was  yet  unwilUng,  without  due  reflection,  to  partake 
of  the  sacraments  of  the  Christian  faith  ;  but,  hstening  to  the 
discourses  of  PauHnus  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  his  priests  on 
the  other,  meditated  in  private  on  their  respective  arguments, 
M'hen  a  means  of  hastening  his  resolve  presented  itself  to 
PauHnus,  such  as  spiritual  superiority  has  seldom  scrupled 
to  apply  for  the  attainment  of  an  adequate  object. 

The  predictions  of  the  vision  were  now  realized,  but  the 
sign  had  not  been  repeated,  when  Paulinus,  as  Beda  conjec- 
tures, already  apprized  in  spirit  of  what  had  taken  place  ^, 
approaching  the  solitary  king,  while  wrapt  in  deep  meditation, 
laid  his  right  hand  on  his  head,  and  asked  him  whether  he 
acknowledged  that  sign  ?  Eadwine,  trembling,  was  about  to 
cast  himself  at  the  feet  of  Paulinus,  but  the  lattei',  raising  him 
up,  addressed  him  thus  :  "  By  the  grace  of  God  you  have 
escaped  from  the  hands  of  your  enemies ;  by  his  bounty,  you 
have  obtained  the  kingdom  which  you  desired:  be  mindful 
not  to  delay  the  promise  you  made,  to  receive  his  faith  and 
keep  his  commandments,  and,  by  promoting  his  will,  as  an- 
nounced by  me,  to  free  yourself  from  everlasting  punishment, 
and  become  a  partaker  of  the  heavenly  kingdom^." 

The  king  promised  to  receive  the  faith,  and,  with  the  view 
of  effecting  the  universal  adoption  of  Christianity,  called  a 
meeting  of  his  friends  and  witan.  On  Eadwine's  inquiring  of 
each  one  separately  his  opinion  of  the  new  doctrines,  Cffifi, 
the  high  priest^,  immediately  answered,  "Judge  you,  O  king, 
of  that  which  is  now  announced  to  us  ;  but  I  must  truly  con- 
fess to  you,  that  the  religion  which  we  have  hitherto  followed 
has  neither  power  nor  utility.     For  not  one  of  your  subjects 

'  Beda,  ii.  12.  See  p.  140  for  a  miracle  performed  by  Augustine  :  and 
for  one  performed  on  Laurentius,  see  p.  143,  note  ^. — T. 

"  A.D.  626.     Beda,  ii.  12. 

3  "  Primus  pontificum  "  (regis).  Beda,  ii.  13,  who  in  his  Anglian  or  Nor- 
thumbrian dialect,  writes  the  name  '  Coifi  ' :  one  MS.  of  iElfred's  version 
reads  '  Ceefi,'  and  '  Cefi,'  another  has  '  Cyfi.'     See  p.  72,  note  \ — T. 


152  EADWINE. 

has  more  diligently  attended  to  the  worship  of  the  gods  than 
I ;  and,  nevertheless,  there  are  many  who  have  received  from 
you  greater  benefits  and  greater  honours,  and  prosper  more 
in  all  their  undertakings :  whereas,  if  the  gods  were  worth 
anything,  they  would  rather  favour  me,  who  have  so  zealously 
served  them.  If  therefore,  on  examination,  the  new  doctrine 
shall  appear  to  you  better  and  more  efficacious,  let  us,  without 
further  delay,  hasten  to  adopt  it." 

One  of  the  ealdormen  approving  these  words,  added,  "  Such 
seems  to  me,  O  king,  the  present  life  of  man,  in  comparison 
of  the  time  which  is  hidden  from  us,  as  when  you  are  sitting 
in  your  hall  at  your  repast,  with  your  thanes  and  attendants, 
in  the  winter  season,  with  a  fire  lighted  in  the  middle,  the 
apartment  warm,  but  the  chilling  storms  of  rain  and  snow 
raging  everywhere  without,  a  sparrow  rapidly  flies  through, 
entering  at  one  door,  and  instantly  escaping  by  another. 
While  it  is  within  it  is  not  touched  by  the  winter's  storm, 
but,  after  having  passed  through  a  very  short  space  of 
serenity,  it  goes  forthwith  from  storm  to  storm,  and  vanishes 
from  your  sight.  So  also  seems  the  short  life  of  man  :  what 
follows  or  what  precedes  we  know  not :  if,  therefore,  this  new 
doctrine  brings  us  something  more  certain,  it  is  also  my 
opinion  that  it  should  be  adopted."  In  accordance  with  this 
were  the  sentiments  of  the  other  ealdormen  and  witan.  Ca^fi 
now  expressed  his  wish  to  hear  Paulinus  discourse  concerning 
God :  his  conversion  was  the  result,  and  Eadwine  himself, 
convinced  by  the  preaching  of  the  bishop,  renouncing  ido- 
latry, professed  himself  also  a  believer  in  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity'.  To  the  inquiry  of  Paulinus  :  Who  would  be 
the  first  to  profane  the  altars  and  temples  of  the  idols,  with 
their  enclosures^  ?  Caefi  answered,  "  I ;  for  who  is  fitter  than 


'  Beda,  ii.  14.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  627- 

2  The  '  septum  '  around  a  temple  was  the  '  frithgcard,'  or  asylum.  See 
Law  of  the  Northumbrian  Priests,  liv.  in  Anc.  LL.  and  Instt.,  and  Gloss. 
r.  FricJgeard. — T. 


EADWINE.  153 

I  am  to  destroy,  through  the  wisdom  given  me  by  God,  and 
as  an  example  to  all,  that  which  I  have  worshiped  in  my 
folly  ?  "  Whereupon  he  prayed  of  the  king  that  arms  and  a 
horse  might  be  given  to  him — it  being  forbidden  to  the  sacri- 
ficing priests  both  to  bear  arms  and  to  ride  except  on  a  mare 
— and,  girded  with  a  sword,  and  with  lance  in  hand,  having 
mounted  the  horse,  he  proceeded  to  execute  his  design.  The 
people  thought  him  mad,  but  he,  hastening  to  the  temple, 
instantly  profaned  it  by  casting  his  lance  against  it,  and  in 
his  exultation  commanded  his  associates  to  set  it  on  fire  with 
all  its  enclosures.  This  event  took  place  at  Godmundinga- 
ham,  now  Godmundham,  in  the  East  Riding  of  Yorkshire. 
Eadwine  was  baptized  at  York  on  the  following  Easter-day, 
in  a  church  built  of  wood,  and  dedicated  to  St.  Peter  the 
Apostle,  which  he  had  there  caused  to  be  erected,  but  which 
was  shortly  after  succeeded  by  a  larger  one  of  stone  on  the 
same  spot.  York  was  assigned  as  an  archiepiscopal  see  to 
Paulinus,  who  received  the  pall  from  pope  Honorius'. 

Paulinus  preached  also  on  the  other  side  of  the  Humber, 
and  converted  the  inhabitants  of  Lindisse,  a  territory  the 
name  of  which  is  preserved  in  that  of  Lindsey.  Its  chief, 
Blecca,  a  descendant  of  Woden,  and  his  household,  were  his 
first  converts^. 

The  peace  and  tranquillity  which  the  power  of  the  Bret- 
Avalda  procured  for  his  kingdom  must  have  been  very  favour- 
able to  the  spread  of  the  new  doctrine,  such  security  being 
said  to  have  prevailed  that,  according  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
proverb,  a  woman  with  her  new-born  babe  might  have  tra- 
velled from  sea  to  sea  without  sustaining  injury.  By  the  con- 
duits which  he  had  caused  to  be  constructed  on  the  high  roads, 
he  directed  brazen  cups  to  be  suspended,  which  no  hand 
touched  save  that  of  the  parched  wanderer.  Eadwine  loved 
the  display  of  authority  :  not  only  were  ensigns  borne  before 

1  A.D.  627.     Beda,  ii.  13,  14. 

^  Beda,  ii.  16.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  627.     Geneal.  ap.  Florentium. 


164  EADWINE. 

him  in  battle,  but  even  in  the  pubhc  ways  he  was  constantly 
preceded  by  the  Roman  tufa,  or  tuf  as  it  was  called  by  the 
Anglo-Saxons  ^ 

Eadwine  zealously  exerted  himself  for  the  propagation  of 
the  new  faith,  and  though  it  appears  that  he  raised  no  altar  in 
Bernicia^j  he  succeeded  in  the  thorough  conversion  of  Eorp- 
wald,  the  son  of  Raedwald,  king  of  the  East  Angles;  and 
though  the  murder  of  Eorpwald  by  a  pagan^  plunged  East 
Anglia  into  darkness  and  strife,  yet  Eadwine  lived  to  see  the 
return  and  establishment  of  Christianity  in  that  country  after 
a  lapse  of  three  years.  Sigeberht,  who  had  received  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity  while  in  Gaul,  whither  he  had  fled  from 
the  hostility  of  his  brother  Raedwald,  now  conjointly  with  his 
brother  Ecgric  took  possession  of  the  throne,  chiefly,  it  would 
seem,  for  the  sake  of  propagating  his  newly  adopted  faith. 
In  the  work  of  conversion  he  was  aided  by  Felix,  a  Burgun- 
dian  bishop,  sent  to  him  from  Kent  by  Honorius,  archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  under  whose  wise  guidance  it  prospered 
admirably.  Desirous  of  improving  the  minds  of  his  people, 
Sigeberht  founded  a  Latin  school  on  the  plan  of  those  he  had 
seen  in  Gaul,  in  which  laudable  undertaking  he  availed  him- 
self of  the  counsel  of  Felix,  who  supplied  fitting  persons  as 
teachers,  according  to  the  Kentish  practice"*.  On  the  foun- 
dation of  the  see  of  Domuc  (Dunwich),  Felix  was  appointed 
its  first  bishop^. 

^  Beda,  ii.  16. 

-  This  is  manifest  from  Beda,  iii.  2,  a.  635,  where,  speaking  of  Oswald's 
cross,  he  says,  "  Nullum,  ut  comperimus,  fidei  Christiana;  signum,  nulla 
ecclesia,  nullum  altare  in  tota  Berniciorum  gente  erectum  est,  priusquam 
hoc  sacrse  crucis  vexillum,"  etc.  ^  a.d.  627.     Beda,  ii.  15. 

^  Beda,  iii.  18.  "  Juxtamorem  Cantuariorum."  Malmes.  de  GestiaPont, 
lib.  ii.  "  Scholas  opportunis  locis  instituens,  barbariem  gentis  scnsim 
comitate  Latina  informabat."  The  above  passage  of  Beda  has  been  ad- 
duced in  the  dispute  between  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  to  prove  the  higher 
antiquity  of  the  latter.  See  Smith,  Append,  xiv.  ad  Bedam.  The  proof 
is,  however,  wanting  that  Cambridge,  formerly  Gran  tab  rycge,  belonged  to 
East  Anglia,  and  not,  as  is  generally  understood,  to  Mercia. 

5  Beda,  ii.  15. 


PENDA.  155 

Scarcely  had  these  events  taken  place  when  we  find  the 
king  of  the  East  Angles  resigning  his  crown,  and,  following 
the  old  Frankish  example,  giving  the  earliest  instance  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  royal  monk.  The  sceptre  now  devolved  on 
Ecgric,  who  was  already  a  sharer  in  the  government  of  this 
small  state.  So  deep-rooted  was  the  conviction  which  led  the 
East  Anglian  to  a  renunciation  of  earthly  sway,  that  not  even 
the  danger  of  his  native  land,  at  that  time  suffering  under  the 
cruel  ravages  of  Penda,  king  of  Mercia,  could  induce  him  to 
forsake  the  quiet  of  his  cloister.  When  forcibly  brought  forth 
by  his  subjects,  in  the  hope  that  the  sight  of  a  leader,  once 
honoured  for  his  valour,  might  cheer  and  stimulate  his  war- 
riors, he  stood  still  amid  the  raging  battle,  with  a  staff  in  his 
hand,  until  he  was  slain  together  with  his  brother  Ecgric. 
Christianity  was  not,  however,  again  driven  from  East  Anglia, 
Anna,  the  successor  of  the  slain  prince,  being  not  only  de- 
voted to  its  doctrines,  but,  at  the  instance  of  Fursaeus,  a  pious 
man  of  Scottish  race,  from  Ireland,  the  founder  of  several 
monasteries  ^ 

But  a  season  of  calamity  was  now  at  hand  for  Northumbria. 
Penda,  the  son  of  Wibba,  and  successor  of  Ceorl,  had  ren- 
dered Southumbria,  or  Mercia,  independent  of  Eadwine^ 
and,  in  alliance  with  the  powerful  British  prince  Caedwalla  of 
Gwynedd,  the  son  of  Cadvan,  made  war  on  Eadwine,  who, 
together  with  his  son  Osfrith,  was  slain  in  a  great  battle 
fought  at  Hajthfeld^.   Another  of  his  sons,  Eadfrith,  who  had 

^A.D.635.  Beda,  iii.  18, 19,VitaEthelreda;.  According  to  the  Chronicle 
and  Florence,  Eorpwald's  conversion  took  place  in  632,  the  preaching  of 
Felix  in  636,     I  follow  Beda. 

'  According  to  the  Chronicle,  Penda  had  been  king  of  Mercia  from  626  ; 
but  Beda,  ii.  22,  says  expressly,  that  he  was  of  royal  race  (de  regio  genere 
Merciorum),  and  reigned  twenty-two  years.  Therefore,  as  the  accounts 
concur  in  placing  his  death  in  655,  he  must  have  been  king  from  633  onlj% 
the  year  of  his  victory  over  Eadwine. 

=*  Beda,  ii.  20.  Sax.  Chron.  Oct.  14,  a.  633.  Fl.  Wigorn.  Oct.  12. 
Annal.  Ult.  and  Tigernach,  a.  631.  Camden  supposes  Hatfield,  in  the 
West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  to  have  been  the  spot. — T. 


156  PENDA. 

fled  to  his  relation  Penda  as  a  suppliant,  was  by  him  trea- 
cherously murdered.  Eadwine's  queen,  ^thelburh,  and  the 
archbishop  Paulinus  fled  to  Kent,  where  they  met  with  an 
honourable  reception  from  her  brother  Eadbald  and  the  arch- 
bishop Honorius,  who  appointed  Paulinus  to  the  see  of 
Rochester.  Wuscfrea,  another  son  of  Eadwine,  and  Yffe 
(Yffi),  son  of  Osfrith,  were  subsequently,  from  fear  of  her 
own  brother  Eadbald,  and  Oswald  of  Northumbria,  sent  by 
the  queen  to  the  Frankish  king  Dagobert,  through  the  medi- 
ation of  the  archbishop  Paulinus.  The  early  death  of  these 
children,  the  heirs  of  the  founder  of  Edinburgh  (Eadwines 
burh),  prevented  probably  an  early  example  of  the  Frankish 
influence  so  often  exercised  in  after-ages  on  the  fate  of  North 
Britain ;  but  a  sepulchre  within  the  church,  not  unusual  at 
that  time,  long  bore  witness  both  to  the  antiquity  of  this  con- 
nexion, and  to  the  asylum  aflforded  by  the  monarch  \ 

The  respect  paid  to  the  royal  races  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  is 
strikingly  proved  by  the  circumstance,  that  neither  Penda, 
who  retained  only  his  paternal  kingdom  of  Mercia,  nor  the 
king  of  Gwynedd  took  possession  of  the  conquered  state,  the 
northern  part  of  which,  Bernicia,  the  land  of  ^thelfrith,  de- 
volved on  his  son  Eanfrith,  who,  after  the  death  of  his  father, 
had  with  several  friends  wandered  to  the  Scots  or  Picts,  and 
adopted  Christianity,  according  to  the  doctrines  followed 
among  those  people.  The  southern  portion,  Deira,  -was  held 
by  Osric,  the  nearest  kinsman  of  Eadvvine,  who  had  been 
baptized  by  Paulinus.  Both  relapsed  into  the  errors  of  pagan- 
ism. Osric  was  slain  at  York,  in  an  attempt  to  surprise 
Cffidwalla,  who  had  shut  himself  up  in  that  city;  Eanfrith 
fell  by  the  same  hand,  being  treacherously  murdered  by  him 
when,  accompanied  by  twelve  followers  only,  he  came  to  sue 
for  peace.  Their  countries  were  ravaged  by  the  Britons  in 
the  most  cruel  manner.  The  names  of  these  apostate  princes 
were  erased  from  the  catalogue  of  Christian  kings,  and  the 

'  Beda,  ii.  14,  20. 


OSWALD.  157 

unhappy  year  of  their  reign  assigned  to  Oswald,  their  pious 
successor ^ 

But  the  apostasy  of  these  princes  and  the  sufferings  of  the 
Northumbrians  may  be  said  to  have  constituted  the  revolving 
point,  as  it  were,  not  only  of  the  immediate  fortunes  of  the 
North  Angles,  but  of  the  successful  struggle  of  Christianity 
against  paganism.  Oswald,  a  younger  son  of  iEthelfrith, 
bred  like  his  elder  brother  ainong  the  Scots,  placed  himself 
at  the  head  of  a  small  force,  and  at  Hefenfeld,  not  far  from 
the  Roman  wall,  near  Denisburn,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Hexham,  having  erected  a  cross,  the  first  sign  of  Christian 
devotion  in  Bernicia,  assembled  his  followers  before  it,  com- 
manded them  to  kneel,  and  having  sent  forth  a  fervent  prayer 
to  the  God  of  armies,  attacked  the  numerous  warriors  of 
Caedwalla,  who  lost  their  leader,  and — what  in  those  days  was 
the  usual  consequence  of  such  a  loss — betook  themselves  to 
flight^.  In  Caedwalla  expired  the  last  renowned  hero  of  old 
British  race :  in  fourteen  pitched  battles  and  sixty  encounters 
he  had  revived  and  confirmed  the  military  fame  of  his  coun- 
try, and  acquired  dominion  over  a  considerable  part  of  Lloegria 
(Lloegyr).  No  wonder  then  if  his  life  and  death,  though 
claiming  a  far  higher  degree  of  credibility  than  Arthur's, 
were  soon  surrounded  by  the  glittering  imagery  of  tradition^, 
and  that  we  are  now  unable  to  ascertain  the  truth,  either  in 
the  apotheosis  of  his  adoring  countrymen,  or  in  the  vindictive 
narrative  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 

History  informs  us  that  Oswald's  cross  decided  the  fate  of 
Britain  for  ever.  Oswald  obtained  the  sovereignty  of  Ber- 
nicia, and  also  of  Deira,  being  entitled  to  the  latter  country 

1  Beda,  iii.  2.  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  634.  Eanfrith  is  the  An- 
fraith,  whose  decapitation  is  mentioned  by  Tigeinach  a.  632. 

2  A.D.  635.  Beda,  iii.  2.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  634.  Nennius  (Appen.)  calls 
the  battle,  bellum  Catscaul.,  Annal.  Camb.  a.  631,  b.  Cantscaul  (Cted- 
wealla). 

^  Galf.  Monura.  lib.  xii.  Llywarch  Hen,  Elegies.  Cf.  Turner,  vol.  i. 
p.  366. 


158  OSWALD. 

by  his  maternal  descent,  his  mother  ^Acha/  the  sister  of 
Eadwine,  being  descended  from  JEAle  \  He  was  acknow- 
ledged as  Bretwalda,  the  sixth  who  held  that  dignity,  and  is 
said  to  have  reigned  over  the  four  tongues  of  Britain, — of  the 
Angles,  the  Britons,  the  Picts,  and  the  Scots.  Oswald  com- 
bined great  vigour  with  much  mildness  and  religious  enthu- 
siasm. By  him  Christianity  was  introduced  anew  into  his 
kingdom,  but  it  was  that  of  his  teachers,  the  Scots,  by  whom 
Aidan  was  sent  to  him  from  the  isle  of  St.  Columba  (Hii  or 
Icolmkill),  and  to  whom,  as  an  episcopal  seat,  he  granted  the 
isle  of  Lindisfarne,  now  Holy  Island,  the  hallowed  abode  of 
many  heroes  of  the  Christian  faith '^.  Severity  towards  him- 
self and  the  powerful,  humility  and  benevolence  towards  the 
poor  and  lowly,  activity  in  the  cause  of  religion,  zeal  for 
learning,  were  the  admirable  qualities  that  were  praised  in 
Aidan,  and  shed  the  purest  lustre  on  the  old  Scottish  church 
to  which  he  belonged ;  and  few  will  feel  disposed  to  doubt 
that  the  general  impression  which  the  lives  of  such  men  made 
on  the  minds  of  people  disgusted  with  paganism,  together 
with  the  internal  truth  of  the  Christian  doctrines,  has  ever, 
and  in  a  greater  degree  contributed  to  their  first  conversion 
than  even  the  most  convincing  and  solid  arguments.  How 
else  could  the  so-often  vainly  attempted  conversion  of  the 
Northumbrians  have  been  effected  by  Aidan,  who,  sprung  from 
a  hostile  race,  sent  from  a  hostile  school,  strove  to  propagate 
the  doctrines  of  the  defeated  Scots  and  Picts,  the  former  op- 
pressors of  the  Britons,  in  a  tongue  for  which  Oswald  him- 
self Avas  compelled  to  act  as  the  interpreter  ? 

Of  Aidan's  fitness  for  the  pious  work  committed  to  him,  a 
judgement  may  be  formed  from  the  following  anecdote,  re- 
lated by  Beda^.  At  the  solicitation  of  Oswald,  a  priest  had 
been  sent  by  the  Scots  to  preach  the  word  to  the  pagans  of 

*  Beda,  iii.  6. 

2  See  Beda's  prose  and  metrical  Lives  of  S,  Cuthberht. 

3  A.D.  634.     H.  E.,  iii.  5. 


CEOLWULF  OF  WESSEX.  169 

Northumbrian  who  proving  unqualified  for  the  task,  and  un-^ 
welcome  to  the  people,  through  the  austerity  of  his  character, 
returned  to  his  country,  -where,  in  an  assembly  of  his  brethren, 
he  declared  his  inability  to  effect  any  good  among  a  people 
so  imgovernable  and  barbarous.  On  hearing  this  declaration, 
Aidan,  who  was  present  at  the  meeting,  said  to  him,  "Brother, 
it  seems  to  me  that  you  have  been  harsher  than  was  fitting 
towards  such  uninstructed  hearers,  and  have  not,  in  con- 
formity with  apostolic  usage,  first  offered  the  milk  of  milder 
instruction,  until,  gradually  nourished  by  tlie  divine  word, 
they  might  become  capable  both  of  receiving  the  more  per- 
fect, and  of  executing  the  higher  precepts  of  God."  A  dis- 
cussion, to  which  these  words  gave  rise,  terminated  in  the 
unanimous  declaration,  that  Aidan  was  worthy  of  the  episco- 
pal dignity,  and  that  he  ought  to  be  sent  to  teach  the  igno- 
rant unbelievers. 

In  such,  and  in  every  other  manner  possible,  Oswald  pro- 
moted the  religion  of  the  cross  planted  by  him,  not  in  his 
own  kingdom  only,  but  in  the  states  encircling  his  British 
empire'.  In  this  he  followed  the  impressions  of  his  youth 
and  the  conviction  which  had  steeled  his  arm  to  victory.  He 
might  also  have  cherished  the  hope,  that  in  a  British  Cliristian 
church  the  surest  spiritual  support  would  be  found  to  consist 
in  the  union  of  all  the  tongues  of  Britain. 

Since  the  days  of  the  Bretvvalda  Ceawlin  the  kingdom  of 
Wessex  had  been  engaged  in  constant  warfare  with  its  British 
and  Saxon  neighbours.  Though  the  result  may  not  always 
have  been  unfavourable,  yet  the  state,  split  into  many  parts, 
bore  the  semblance  of  a  great  camp.  In  the  year  626  we 
find  mention  of  at  least  seven  kings  of  the  Gewissas'^.  Ceol- 
wulf  had  succeeded  his  brother  Ceolric^,  who  fis-htins;  against 

^  "  Oswald  totius  Britannise  imperator."    Cummini  Vita  Colurabse,  c:  26. 

-  Beda,  ii.  9.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  G'26. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  597,  where  and  by  Florence  he  is  called  Ceol. 


ICO  TEWDRIC  OF  MORGANWG. 

all,  proved  against  all  the  valour  of  the  bravest^,  though  of 
his  deeds  we  know  but  little.  Beda,  in  general  a  poor  source 
for  the  history  of  Wessex,  does  not  once  mention  his  name. 
The  record  of  an  obstinate  battle  with  the  then  still  appa- 
rently independent  people  of  Sussex,  in  which  he  had  the 
advantage,  has  alone  been  preserved  in  the  annals  of  his 
country^ ;  though  a  memorial  equally  favourable  to  the  war- 
rior has  been  transmitted  to  us  in  the  records  of  his  ene- 
mies, the  Britons.  Tewdric  or  Theodric,  the  valiant  king  of 
Morgan wg'^j  had  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  renounced 
the  world,  having  left  his  crown  to  his  son  Mouric,  and  amid 
the  sylvan  scenes  of  Dindyrn  (Tintern),  on  the  pleasant  wind- 
ing shores  of  the  Wye,  resigned  himself  to  the  enjoyment  of 
solitary  reflection,  punfied  from  all  earthly  contamination. 
Ceolwulf,  taking  advantage  of  the  reign  of  the  son,  marched 
across  the  Severn,  the  northern  boundary  of  Wessex,  as  far 
as  the  Wye.  The  cry  of  his  faithful  people  drew  the  aged 
hero  from  his  ten  years'  solitude,  and  his  forces  under  their 
old  leader  were  again  victorious  against  the  pagan  Saxons. 
The  dragon  of  Wessex  was  banished  to  the  southern  bank 
of  the  Severn ;  but  Tewdric  received  a  wound  which  clove 
his  skull,  and  was  buried  at  the  confluence  of  the  Wye  and 
the  Severn'*.  Over  his  grave  an  oratory  was  raised,  and  at 
a  later  period  a  church,  in  honour  of  the  royal  martyr,  on  the 
spot  aftenvards  called  Mathern^,  where  for  many  ages  his 
memory  was  celebrated  by  the  race  of  his  enemies  on  the  an- 

^  H.  Hunt.  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "  quippe  qui  nulli  unquam  ignaviae  locum 
dederit." 

2  Sax.  Chron.    Fl.  Wigorn.    H.  Hunt.  a.  607.  ^  See  p.  121. 

*  Calendar  3rd  Jan.  For  the  other  particulars  see  Cod.  MS.  Eccl.  Cath. 
Landav.  in  Monast.  Angl.  t.  vi.  p.  1222.  The  year  of  the  battle,  being  in 
the  time  of  bishop  Oudoceus,  the  second  successor  of  Dubritius  (ob.  612), 
to  whom  the  oratory  was  dedicated,  must  be  subsequent  to  610.  See  also 
Godwinus  de  Prsesul.  Angl.  edit.  I6l6,  p.  6l9.  Usher,  de  Primord.  p.  292. 
Langhorne,  p.  148. 

*  From  Merthyr  Tewdric.  He  was  accounted  a  martyr,  having  lost  his 
life  in  fighting  against  pagans. 


CYNEGILS  AND  CWICHELM.  161 

niversary  of  his  martyrdom.  His  remains  in  a  stone  coffin, 
exhibiting  the  cloven  skull,  discovered  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, bore  witness  to  the  valiant  heart  once  dwelling  in  the 
breast  of  the  noble  Tewdric  of  Morganwg. 

Cynegils,  a  son  of  Ceolric,  and  his  son  or  brother,  Cwichelm, 
succeeded  Ceolwulf  on  the  throne  of  Wessex^  It  was  in  the 
reign  of  these  princes  that  bishop  Birinus  landed  in  that  king- 
dom. By  the  advice  of  pope  Honorius,  this  missionaiy  had 
undertaken  to  penetrate  to  the  innermost  parts  of  the  country, 
for  the  purpose  of  propagating  the  Christian  faith;  but  finding 
himself  on  his  landing  surrounded  by  the  darkest  paganism, 
he  deemed  it  more  useful  to  remain  in  those  parts  than  to 
prosecute  his  original  design.  Cynegils,  convinced  by  his 
preaching,  was  baptized  at  Dorchester-,  being  received  from 
the  font  by  Oswald  of  Northumbria,  who  had  visited  him  for 
the  purpose  of  marrying  his  daughter.  In  the  following  year 
Cwichelm  also,  a  short  time  before  his  death,  professed  him- 
self a  convert  to  the  new  doctrine.  To  Birinus,  who  had  also 
baptized  Cuthred^,  the  son  of  Cwichelm,  Dorchester  was 
assigned  as  an  episcopal  see ;  and  though  Cenwealh,  the  son 
of  Cynegils,  after  his  father's  death  not  only  refused  baptism, 
but  strove  to  effect  in  Wessex  a  relapse  into  paganism,  similar 
to  that  which  had  taken  place  in  other  states,  yet  his  ex- 
pulsion, and  conversion,  which  followed  soon  after,  through 
converse  with  Anna,  the  pious  king  of  the  East  Angles,  and 
his  steady  adherence  to  the  Christian  faith  after  his  restora- 
tion, prove  that  his  conviction  was  sincerely  shared  by  his 
people  '*. 

To  the  Hfe  of  Oswald,  not  less  distinguished  for  its  activity 
than  its  spirit  of  fervent  Christian  beneficence,  but  a  short 
duration  was  decreed.  The  restless  foe  of  his  country,  Penda 
of  Mercia,  involved  him  in  a  war,  in  which  he  fell  a^a  place 

'    A.D.  611.  2    ^  o     g35_  3    ^  jj     g3g_ 

■*  Beda,  iii.  7.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  643, 
VOL.  I.  M 


162  OSWALD. 

called  Maserfeld  ^  His  last  words  when,  surrounded  with 
arms  and  enemies,  death  appeared  inevitable,  were  a  prayer 
for  the  souls  of  his  people. 

The  scornful  treatment  to  which  the  corpse  of  Oswald  was 
exposed,  bears  Mitness  alike  to  the  ferocity  of  the  pagan  con- 
querors and  to  the  fear  in  which  they  had  stood  of  the  Chris- 
tian Bretwalda.  Penda  ordered  the  head  and  arms  to  be 
severed  from  the  trunk  and  fixed  on  poles :  these  were  re- 
moved by  Oswiu  in  the  year  following,  who  caused  the  head 
to  be  buried  at  Lindisfarne,  the  arms  and  hands  at  Bam- 
borough,  the  royal  residence.  The  body  of  Oswald  was 
some  time  afterwards,  by  the  care  of  his  niece  Osthryth,  queen 
of  Mercia,  buried  at  Bardeney,  where  his  banner  of  purple 
and  gold  was  placed  over  his  sepulchre. 

His  amiable  character  had  obtained  for  Oswald,  even  among 
his  hereditary  foes,  the  Britons,  the  surname  of '  Lamngwin,' 
the  fair  or  free  of  hand.  His  Christian  m.erits  and  his  mar- 
tyrdom made  him  a  hero  of  the  Christian  world.  He  had 
attained  only  to  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  and  reigned  eight 
years,  exclusive  of  the  unhappy  year  assigned  by  an  innocent 
fiction  to  his  reign,  though  belonging  to  that  of  his  pre- 
decessors. 

Penda  withdrew  from  Northumbria  and  the  coast  to  his 
inland  kingdom,  after  having  glutted  his  vengeance  and  thirst 
for  destruction,  but  certainly  from  other  motives  than  those 
assigned  by  the  credulous  monks  of  those  times.  He  had 
penetrated  to  Bamborough,  which,  defended  by  its  position 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  C42.  Beda,  iii.  9,  "in  loco,  qui  lingua  Anglorum  nun- 
cupatur  Maserfelth."  There  is  a  place  called  Maseifield  near  Winwich  in 
Lancashire,  but  the  site  of  the  battle  seems  with  more  probability  to  have 
been  Oswestry  in  Shropshire.  See  Monast.  Angl.  and  Camden  Brit.  By 
the  Britons  this  battle  is  called  '  bellum  Cocboy  '  (or  Chochui).  See  Nen- 
nius  and  Annal.  Camb.  a.  644.,  where  it  is  said  that  Eoba  (Eowa),  the 
brrther  of  Penda,  also  fell.  Tigernach  places  the  battle  in  which  Oswald 
fell  in  639 ;  and  another  battle,  unknown  to  our  chronicles,  of  Oswiu 
against  the  Britons,  in  642.     See  Annal.  Ulton.  aa.  638,  641. 


OSWIU.  163 

on  a  rock  and  by  the  waters  of  the  ocean,  defied  his  efforts  to 
capture  it  either  by  assault  or  siege  :  he,  therefore,  resolved 
on  its  destruction  by  fire,  to  effect  which  he  ordered  a  heap 
to  be  raised  against  the  city,  formed  of  timbers,  thatch  and 
other  combustibles,  brought  from  the  ruins  of  the  neighbour- 
ing hamlets,  which  he  had  commanded  to  be  demolished  for 
the  purpose.  This,  when  the  wind  was  blowing  towards  the 
city,  he  caused  to  be  set  on  fire ;  but  at  that  instant  the  wind 
suddenly,  as  we  are  told,  at  the  prayer  of  Aidan,  changed  to 
the  opposite  direction,  driving  the  flames  on  the  Mercians, 
of  whom  some  were  injured  and  all  terrified  \  Possibly  the 
state  constitution  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  though  without  autho- 
rity to  prevent  one  kingdom  from  warring  against  another, 
did  not  permit  the  arbitrary  aggrandizement  or  incorporation 
of  the  greater  states,  unless  based  on  hereditary  right ;  as  in 
Germany,  Avhile  under  the  emperors,  we  find  the  principle 
valid,  that  two  dukedoms  might  not  be  united  in  one  hand. 

On  the  death  of  Oswald,  his  dominions  were  again  sepa- 
rated into  their  chief  constituent  parts.  His  brother  Oswiu 
succeeded  to  Bernicia  and  the  Bretwaldaship ;  and  two  years 
later,  Oswine  (Oswini),  son  of  Osric,  to  Deira.  Oswine  was 
distinguished  by  the  comeliness  of  his  person  and  the  amiable 
qualities  of  his  mind ;  he  was  munificent,  pious  and  humble : 
attracted  by  his  liberality,  the  noblest  men  from  the  provinces 
dedicated  themselves  to  his  service  :  but  the  virtues  of  Oswine 
availed  him  little  as  a  shield  against  aggression  on  the  part 
of  Oswiu.  On  the  eve  of  a  conflict  between  these  princes, 
Oswine,  perceiving  that  the  forces  of  his  adversary  were 
greatly  superior  to  his  own,  and  despairing  of  success,  dis- 
missed his  army  and  withdrew  for  concealment,  accompanied 
by  one  faithful  follower  named  Tondhere,  to  the  house  of  the 
ealdorman  Hunwald,  near  Gilling,  by  whom  he  was  betrayed 
to  Oswiu,  and,  together  Avith  his  attendant,  murdered  at  .that 
king's  command  by  his  officer  ^Ethelwine^.   Twelve  days  after 

'  Beda,  iii.  16.  -  a.d.  651.     Beda,  iii.  14. 

M  2 


164  PENDA. 

his  death  the  venerable  Aiclan  followed  his  royal  friend  to  the 
grave.  In  atonement  for  his  crime  Oswiu  founded  a  monas- 
tery at  Ongetlingum,  now  Gilling,  the  spot  where  it  had  been 
perpetrated,  near  Richmond  in  Yorkshire. 

Oswine  was  succeeded  in  a  part  of  Deira  by  ^Ethelwald,  a 
son  of  Oswald,  who  had  just  reached  the  age  of  majority'. 

The  chief  deed  of  Oswiu,  which  as  a  "warrior  covered  him 
with  glory,  and  had  the  greatest  influence  on  the  history  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  is  the  overthrow  of  Penda.  This  prince, 
w  hose  name  is  rendered  memorable  by  many  successful  en- 
terprises against  the  other  Germanic  states  in  Britain,  and 
on  whom  the  surname  of  the  Strenuous^  has  justly  been 
bestowed,  presents  a  striking  and  almost  inexplicable  phe- 
nomenon. Ruler  of  a  territory  surrounded  more  than  any 
of  the  other  states  by  a  numerous  hostile  British  population  ; 
a  state  which — whatever  sense  may  be  given  to  a  few  obscure 
and  doubtful  traditions — was  of  all  the  youngest ;  a  state 
formed  in  the  middle  of  the  country,  of  immigrants  and  after- 
comers,  who  found  the  maritime  parts  already  occupied; 
protected  by  marshes,  rivers,  mountains, — ruler  of  this  state, 
the  first  of  the  race  of  Woden  among  the  Teutonic  warriors 
dwelling  in  this  territory  ;  succeeding  to  power  at  the  age  of 
fifty  ^  yet  displaying  the  energ)^  of  youth  ;  the  last  unshaken 
and  powerful  adherent  of  paganism  among  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
— this  prince,  in  alliance  with,  if  not  in  the  pay  of,  a  British 
Christian  king,  had,  during  his  reign  of  thirty  years,  first 

'  St.  Adelbert,  a  pupil  of  St.  Willibrord,  who  preached  at  Kenneraaren, 
and  was  buried  at  Hollum,  afterwards  called  Egmond  (Annal.  Xanten.  aa. 
690,  694),  is  said  to  have  been  a  son  of  Oswald,  king  of  Deira. 

"  I  do  not  hesitate  restoring  this  surname  to  Penda,  which  has  been 
overlooked  by  modern  historians.  By  Hen.  Hunt,  he  is  repeatedly  called 
'  Penda  strenuus  *;  also  Beda  (ii.  20),  in  speaking  of  him,  says,  "auxilium 
prsebente  Penda  viro  strenuissimo." 

•'  Sax.  Chron.  a.  626.  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  Beda,  ii.  20  (who  pronounces 
him  "de  genere  regio  Merciorum"),  begins  his  reign  in  633,  after  the  death 
of  Eadwine.  It  may,  therefore,  not  be  purely  accidental  that  the  Chronicle 
in  aa.  628  and  633  does  not  dignify  him  with  the  title  of  king. 


PENDA.  165 

assailed  the  Bretwalda  of  Northumbrian  and  afterwards  re- 
peatedly the  other  states  of  his  countrymen,  with  great  suc- 
cess and  still  greater  cruelty,  yet,  notwithstanding  the  de- 
struction of  five  kings,  without  securing  to  himself  any  last- 
ing result.  Cynegils  of  Wessex  had  alone  met  him  Avith  any 
powerful  resistance  in  the  battle  at  Cirencester,  wh^re  both 
armies,  having  fought  obstinately  till  separated  by  the  dark- 
ness, were,  when  about  to  renew  the  contest  on  the  following 
morning,  so  disheartened  by  the  mutual  havoc,  that  terms  of 
reconciliation  were  easily  agreed  to^  After  the  above-men- 
tioned wars,  with  the  cause  of  which  we  are  unacquainted,  we 
find  Penda  engaged  in  an  expedition  against  Cenwealh,  the 
son  of  Cynegils,  for  the  purpose  of  avenging  his  sister,  whom 
Cenwealh  had  married  but  afterwards  repudiated^.  With  his 
usual  success,  he  defeated  Cenwealh  and  drove  him  from  his 
kingdom.  The  fugitive  found  an  asylum  and  protection  with 
Anna,  king  of  the  East  Angles,  and,  after  an  exile  of  three 
years,  was,  with  the  aid  of  his  nephew  Cuthred,  reinstated 
in  his  dominions. 

The  protection  afforded  to  Cenwealh  was  probably  the  pre- 
text— if  Penda  needed  a  pretext — of  a  war  between  the  Mer- 
cian and  the  king  of  East  Anglia,  in  which  the  latter  felP, 
being  the  third  Uffing  who  had  lost  his  life  in  contest  with 
Penda.  ^thelhere  (^thelheri),  the  brother  of  Anna,  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne,  whom  the  conqueror  compelled  to  ac- 
company him  in  a  campaign  against  the  Bretwalda  Oswiu. 
The  latter  had  striven  to  live  on  peaceable  and  even  friendly 
terms  with  the  formidable  Penda,  the  slayer  of  his  brother 
Oswald.  His  son  Ealhfrith  was  married  to  Cyneburh,  a 
daughter  of  Penda ;  his  daughter,  Ealhfla^d,  to  Peada  son  of 
Penda,  ealdorman  of  the  Middle  Angles,  who  before  this 
union  had,  with  all  his  thanes  and  followers,  been  baptized 
by  Finan  bishop  of  Lindisfarne,  the  successor  of  Aidan,  fi"om 

'  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  a.  628. 

*  Sax.  Chron.  a.  6-45.     Beda,  iii.  7.  ^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  654. 


166  PENDA. 

the  isle  of  Hil.  Oswiu  had  dehverecl  to  Peiida  Ecgfrith  (Ecg- 
ferth),  one  of  his  sons,  as  a  hostage,  and,  in  the  hope  of  check- 
ing the  repeated  and  intolerable  inroads  of  the  Mercians,  had 
promised  to  their  king  innumerable  royal  ornaments  and 
other  gifts :  notwithstanding  which  Penda,  with  his  allies, 
iEthelhere  of  East  Anglia,  ^Ethelwald  the  son  of  Oswald, 
and  Catgabail  king  of  Gwynedd,  marched  against  him  with 
the  avowed  purpose  of  exterminating  the  entire  nation.  His 
thirty  well-appointed  legions  under  experienced  leaders  w^ere 
arrayed  against  the  little  band  of  Oswiu,  who  felt  strength- 
ened by  their  faith  in  Christ.  "  If  the  heathen,"  cried  Oswiu, 
"  will  not  accept  our  gifts,  let  us  offer  them  to  him  who  will, 
to  the  Lord  our  God."  He  vowed  to  give  twelve  estates  in 
land  for  the  erection  of  cloisters,  also  to  dedicate  his  daughter 
-^Iflced,  a  child  of  twelve  months,  to  perpetual  virginity  and 
a  monastic  life,  if  he  proved  victorious.  On  the  banks  of  the 
Winwaed  Oswiu  and  his  son  Ealhfrith,  with  their  enthusiastic 
band,  begun  the  conflict.  On  their  side  fought  the  God  of 
battles,  the  remembrance  of  five  slaughtered  kings  and  count- 
less victims  of  foul  treachery;  but  treachery,  which  had 
hitherto  been  on  the  part  of  Penda,  now  turned  against  him  : 
^thelwald  ventured  not  to  fight  against  his  uncle  and  his 
country,  but,  withdrawing  to  a  place  of  security  before  the 
beginning  of  the  conflict,  awaited  its  result.  Penda  fell :  his 
death  was  preceded  by  that  of  ^thelhere  and  nearly  all  the 
thirty  auxiliary  chieftains ;  Catgabail  fled  under  the  veil  of 
night,  many  perished  by  the  sword,  but  many  more  in  their 
flight  were  drowned  in  the  Are,  which,  in  consequence  of  the 
heavy  rains,  had  overflowed  its  banks  ^  Oswiu  fulfilled  his 
vows :  his  victory  over  the  pagans  gave  to  the  church  six 
monasteries  in  Deira  and  six  in  Bernicia,  but  her  greatest 
gain  was  in  the  undisturbed  diffusion  of  Christianity.     In 

*  Nennius,  c.  66,  who  names  the  battle  in  which  Penda  fell,  '  campus 
Gai.'  The  Annal.  Camb.  place  it  in  656,  and  Penda's  death  in  the  year 
following  J  the  Annal.  Ulton.  in  649  ;  Tigernach  both  events  in  650. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  16/ 

Mercia  the  new  faith  was  now  firmly  estabhshed ;  for,  having 
budded  under  a  pagan  king  who,  at  least  in  his  latter  years, 
did  not  persecute,  but  was  content  with  despising  the  Chris- 
tians, it  soon  surmounted  the  dangers  of  a  violent  political 
change.  Peada,  to  whom  Oswiu  had  ceded  South  Mercia, 
was  in  the  Easter  following  murdered,  it  is  said  through  the 
treachery  of  his  wife.  Two  years  later  Oswiu,  who  at  the 
time  ruled  over  the  whole  of  Mercia  and  the  southern  pro- 
vinces, was  expelled  from  Mercia  by  the  revolt  of  three  eal- 
dormen,  Immin,  Eafha,  and  Eadberht,  when  Wulfhere  (Wulf- 
heri),  a  younger  son  of  Penda,  who  had  fled  on  the  death  of 
his  father,  and  been  long  kept  in  concealment,  ascended  the 
throne  of  his  ancestors  ^ 

Diuma,  a  Scot,  consecrated  by  Finan,  was  the  first  bishop 
of  the  Middle  Angles  and  Mercians ;  the  paucity  of  ecclesi- 
astics rendering  it  necessary  to  place  the  two  people  under 
the  spiritual  government  of  one  individual^.  Essex  also, 
whose  king  Sigeberht  had,  with  the  advice  of  his  counsellors, 
yielded  to  the  earnest  remonstrances  of  his  friend  Oswiu, 
whom  he  frequently  visited,  abjured  idolatry  and  returned  to 
the  faith  which  had  been  suppressed  in  the  country  since  the 
expulsion  of  Mellitus.  Cedd,  an  Englishman,  consecrated 
also  by  Finan,  was  appointed  by  Oswiu  bishop  of  the  East 
Saxons^.  Not  long  before,  Ithamar,  on  the  death  of  Paulinus, 
had  been  nominated  to  the  see  of  Rochester'*,  being  the  first 
Anglo-Saxon  raised  to  the  episcopal  dignity;  and  shortly  after 
Thomas,  from  the  province  of  the  Gyrwas,  received  the 
bishopric  of  the  East  Angles :  even  the  only  archiepiscopal 
dignity  was  possessed  by  an  Anglo-Saxon,  Deusdedit  of  Wes- 
sex.  Already  under  Honorius,  the  predecessor  of  Deusdedit, 
the  pope  had  remitted  to  the  archbishops  of  Canterbury  and 

1  Beda,  iii.  24.  -  Beda,  iii.  21.  ^  Bg^jg,,  iii.  21,  22. 

*  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  AVigorn.  a.  644.  Beda,  iii.  14.  "  Honorius  archi- 
episcopus  ordinavit  Ithamar,  oriundum  quidem  de  gente  Cantuariorum, 
sed  vita  et  eiuditione  antecessoribus  suis  eequandum." 


/ 


168  PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

York  the  journey  to  Rome  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the 
j)all,  and  transferred  to  the  survivor  of  either  the  consecration 
of  the  newly  chosen  archbishop  ;  thereby  acknowledging  the 
great  independence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  church :  but  as  the 
archbishopric  of  York,  since  the  flight  of  Paulinus,  had  not 
been  repossessed,  Deusdedit  received  his  consecration  at  the 
hands  of  his  countryman,  the  Kentish  bishop  Ithamar',  who 
was  himself  succeeded  by  Damianus,  a  South  Saxon^. 

The  need  of  a  bishop  familiar  with  the  language  of  the 
country  was  most  openly  declared  in  Wessex.  Cenwealh 
had,  after  his  restoration,  elevated  Agilbert,  a  Frank,  edu- 
cated in  Ireland,  to  the  bishopric  of  the  West  Saxons ;  but 
becoming  at  length  weary  of  a  foreign  tongue,  he  estabhshed 
a  new  bishop  at  Winchester,  in  the  person  of  Wine  (Wini), 
an  Anglo-Saxon^,  greatly  to  the  displeasure  of  Agilbert,  who 
returned  to  France,  where  he  was  raised  to  the  see  of  Paris. 
A  few  years  after  the  departure  of  Agilbert,  the  king  expelled 
Wine  from  his  see,  so  that  the  West  Saxons  were  for  a  con- 
siderable time  without  a  bishop.  Wine  betook  himself  to 
Wulfhere  of  Mercia,  of  whom  he  bought  the  bishopric  of 
London,  in  which  he  continued  till  his  death '^.  In  Mercia 
also  two  Scots  (the  before-mentioned  Diuma,  and  Ceollach, 
who  soon  returned  to  the  quiet  of  his  cloister  at  Hii)  were  suc- 
ceeded by  Trumhere  (Trumheri),  an  Anglo-Saxon  and  rela- 
tion of  king  Oswiu,  but  educated  among  the  Scots ^.  Though 
a  lack  of  foreign  ecclesiastics  may  be  assigned  as  the  cause  of 
these  appointments,  it  was  certainly  owing  to  the  frequent 
elevation  of  natives  to  the  highest  spiritual  dignities  that  the 
English  church  so  early  became  a  national  one,  that  liturgy, 
ritual,  prayers,  and  sermons  so  soon  resounded  in  the  Ger- 


1  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  653.  2  ^^   5^4      g^^^^  iij   20. 

^  Beda,  iii.  7.  "  Rex,  qui  Saxonum  tantum  linguam  noverat,  pertsesus 
barbarae  loquelee,  subintroduxit  in  provinciara  alium  suse  linguae  episcopum, 
vocabulo  Uini,  et  ipse  in  Gallia  crdinatum." 

■»  Beda,  iii.  7-  ^  Beda,  iii.  2].     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  659. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  I69 

manic  dialect  of  the  people  and  penetrated  to  their  hearts. 
The  retention  of  German  proper  names,  the  peculiarity  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  calendar  and  festivals,  the  slight  influence  of  the 
Roman  ecclesiastical  law,  the  cultivation  of  the  native  tongue 
by  the  ecclesiastics,  the  weakened  influence  of  Rome  on  the 
princes,  are  the  beneficial  fruits  accruing  to  the  church,  which 
thus  in  reality  became  enriched  by  its  early  wants. 

An  important  measure,  both  for  the  benefit  of  the  church 
and  the  closer  union  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  was  reserved  for 
king  Oswiu.  The  Anglo-Saxons,  according  as  they  had 
been  converted  by  Augustine  and  his  followers,  or  by  those 
of  Columba,  were  attached  to  the  Roman  catholic,  or  to  the 
British  church.  The  majority  of  the  ecclesiastics,  at  least  of 
the  more  distinguished,  belonged  to  the  latter ;  hence  arose 
a  difference  in  religious  views  and  worship  not  only  in  the 
several  kingdoms,  but  in  the  several  provinces,  which  threat- 
ened to  become  extremely  dangerous  to  the  new  faith.  We 
see  this  religious  disunion  introduced  through  marriages  even 
among  the  royal  families,  and  that  Oswiu  himself  celebrated 
the  Easter  festival,  according  to  the  Scottish  practice,  on  a 
different  day  from  that  observed  by  his  queen  Eanflaed,  a 
daughter  of  the  king  of  Kent^  Ealhfrith  also,  the  son  and 
co-regent  with  Oswiu,  was,  through  the  persuasion  of  his 
friend  Cenwealh,  favourable  to  the  Roman  church-.  Differ- 
ences of  this  kind,  though  affecting  externals  only,  greatly 
endangered   the    Christian   faith   among   a  people    scarcely 

^  The  Easter  festival  was  regulated  by  the  commencement  of  the  equi- 
noctial lunation,  which,  according  to  the  Roman  calculation,  might  begin 
as  early  as  the  fifth,  while  by  the  Alexandrian  it  could  not  begin  before 
the  eighth  of  March.  Another  point  of  controversy  was  the  tonsure  ! 
The  Romans,  in  defence  of  their  usage,  pleaded  the  example  of  St.  Peter, 
charging  their  adversaries  with  bearing  the  mark  of  Simon  Magus,  against 
which  dire  accusation  their  opponents  could  shield  themselves  only  under 
the  virtues  of  those  whose  example  they  followed.  See  Beda,  ii.  4,  iii,  3,  25, 
V.  21,  and  Smith's  App.  ix. — T. 

-  Eddii  Vita  S.  Wilfridi,  c.  vii. 


170  SYNOD  OF  WHITBY. 

weaned  from  the  worship  of  their  forefathers,  and  acquainted 
with  Christianity  only  in  the  closest  connexion  with  the  new 
external  observances.  Colman,  a  Scot,  the  third  bishop  of 
Lindisfarne  after  the  death  of  Finan,  zealously  strove  to  esta- 
blish the  principles  of  his  sect.  A  synod  was  called  at 
Streoneshealh  (Whitby)  ^,  in  which,  under  the  presidency  of 
Oswiu,  the  most  distinguished  ecclesiastics  of  each  church 
defended  their  respective  doctrines.  Among  the  partizans  of 
Rome  were  Agilbert,  bishop  of  Wessex,  and  Wilfrith  (Wil- 
ferth),  the  future  celebrated  bishop  of  York.  The  disputa- 
tion was  maintained  on  both  sides  with  learning  and  acute- 
ness,  and  the  Scottish  clergy  might  have  succeeded  in  setting 
for  ever  a  strong  barrier  against  the  catholic  pretensions  of 
the  Roman  church,  if  the  king,  wavering  under  the  weight  of 
so  many  conflicting  arguments,  had  not  remarked,  that  the 
Scots  appealed  to  St.  Columba,  but  the  catholics  to  the 
apostle  Peter;  for  Wilfrith  had  not  forgotten  to  adduce,  in 
support  of  the  Roman  tenets,  that  Peter  was  the  rock  on  which 
the  Lord  had  founded  his  church,  and  that  to  him  were  com- 
mitted the  keys  of  heaven.  "  Has  Columba  also  received  such 
power?"  demanded  the  king.  Colman  could  not  answer  in 
the  affirmative.  "  Do  you  both  agree  that  to  Peter  the  Lord 
has  given  the  keys  of  heaven  ?"  Both  affirmed  it.  "  Then," 
said  the  king,  "  I  will  not  oppose  the  heavenly  porter,  but, 
to  my  utmost  ability,  will  follow  all  his  commands  and  pre- 
cepts, lest  when  1  come  to  the  gates  of  heaven,  there  be  no 
one  to  open  to  me,  should  he,  who  is  shown  to  have  the  key 
in  his  custody,  turn  his  back  upon  me."  Those  sitting  in 
the  council  as  well  as  those  standing  around,  noble  and  vul- 
gar^, alike  anxious  for  their  eternal  salvation,  approved  of 

1  Beda,  iii.  25.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  664, 

2  Beda,  iii.  25.  "  Hasc  dicente  rege,  faverunt  adsidentes  quique  sive  ad- 
staiites,  majores  una  cum  mediocribus  ;  et  abdicata  minus  perfecta  institu- 
tione,  ad  ea  quje  meliora  cognoverant  sese  transferre  festinabant."  Tliis 
synod  is  also  mentioned  by  Liutprand,  Chron.  a.  664. 


ARCHBISHOP  THEODORE.  171 

this  determination,  and  were  thus,  in  the  usual  spirit  of  large 
assemblies,  and  without  further  investigation  of  the  argu- 
ments adduced,  impelled  to  a  decision  by  the  excited  feelings 
of  the  moment.  The  Scots  either  returned  to  their  friends, 
or  yielded  to  the  opinions  of  the  majority^,  and  thus,  by  the 
learning  of  their  school,  became  useful  to  the  Anglo-Saxons ; 
but,  together  with  these  apparently  trivial  externals,  the  great 
latent  influence  was  sacrificed,  which  their  church  would  pro- 
bably have  acquired  in  opposition  to  the  then  less  firmly 
established  one  of  Rome. 

Oswiu  himself  appears  to  have  been  impressed  with  the 
necessity  of  the  unity  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  church,  and  his 
character  of  Bretwalda — for  we  occasionally  find  him  influ- 
encing, in  a  manner  otherwise  inexplicable,  the  concerns  of 
the  church^ — justified  him  in,  and  prompted  him  to,  the  ex- 
ecution of  this  important  design.  When  the  archiepiscopal 
see  of  Canterbury  became  vacant  by  the  death  of  the  sixth 
archbishop,  Deusdedit^,  Oswiu  consulted  with  Ecgberht, 
king  of  Kent,  who  had  in  the  same  year  succeeded  his  father, 
Earconberht,  concerning  the  interests  of  the  national  church, 
and  concurred  with  him  in  recommending  the  presbyter 
Wigheard  as  primate  to  pope  Vitalian,  to  the  end  that  he 
might  consecrate  catholic  prelates  throughout  the  whole  coun- 
try'*. The  answers  of  Vitalian  and  the  presents  sent  to  Oswiu 
and  his  queen  bear  sufficient  testimony  to  the  gratitude  of 
the  Roman  bishop'^.  The  death  of  Wigheard,  who  fell  a  vic- 
tim to  the  pestilence  then  raging^,  soon  after  his  arrival  at 

'  Beda,  iii.  26. 

~  Beda,  iii.  /.  Thus,  conjointly  with  Cynegils,  Oswald  appears  as 
founder  of  the  see  of  Dorchester.  "  Donaverunt  ambo  reges  eidem  episcopo 
civitatem  quae  vocatur  Dorcic,  ad  faciendum  inibi  sedem  episcopalem." 
Wulfherc  also  sold,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  bishopric  of  London  to 
Wine.  3  gj^x.  Chron.  a.  664. 

*  Beda,  iii.  29.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  667-  ^  Beda,  iii,  29,  iv.  1. 

*  A.D.  664.  This  year  there  was  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun,  whicfi  was 
followed  by  the  yellow  plague,  which,  from  time  to  time,  desolated  Britain, 
particularly  Northumbria,  during  a  period  of  twenty  years.     Among  its 


172  ARCHBISHOP  THEODORE. 

Rome,  was  taken  advantage  of  by  the  pope  to  set  over  the 
Anglo-Saxon  bishops  a  primate  devoted  to  his  views,  vene- 
rable by  his  age  and  experience,  and  distinguished  by  his 
rare  knowledge  and  learning.  The  dignity  was,  therefore, 
offered  to  an  African  named  Hadrian,  a  monk  of  Niridano, 
near  Monte  Cassino  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  who,  de- 
clining the  honour  for  himself,  recommended  as  worthier  of 
it  the  monk  Theodore,  born  at  Tarsus  in  Cilicia,  a  man  emi- 
nently qualified  by  his  attainments.  The  recommendation 
was  accepted  by  the  pontiff,  on  condition  that  Hadrian  should 
accompany  the  new  primate  to  Britain.  From  Rome  the 
travellers  proceeded  to  Marseilles  by  sea,  and  from  thence  by 
way  of  Aries  to  Paris,  where  they  were  kindly  received  by 
Agilbert,  M'ith  whom  having  staid  some  time,  they  prosecuted 
their  journey,  and  landed  safely  in  Kent. 

Immediately  after  his  arrival,  Theodore,  accompanied  by 
Hadrian,  visited  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  states,  where,  by  incul- 
cating the  apparently  indifferent  doctrine  regarding  the  time 
of  celebrating  Easter,  he  effected  an  universal  acknowledge- 
ment of  the  Roman  catholic  church,  and  strove  to  obliterate 
all  further  and  even  every  existing  trace  of  the  earlier  in- 
fluence of  the  Scottish  clergy  on  the  choice  and  consecration 
of  bishops  in  his  province.  It  was  in  his  time  that  the  Roman 
or  Gregorian  chant,  which,  with  the  exception  of  the  Nor- 
thumbrian churches,  had  been  used  only  in  Kent^  became 

victims  were  Catgualet,  king  of  Gwynedd,  Earconberht  of  Kent,  J^^thel- 
wealh  of  Sussex,  Deusdedit,  archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  the  bishops  Wine  of 
London  and  Tuda  of  Lindisfarne;  Boisil,  abbot  of  Mailros,  and  Jithelburh, 
abbess  of  Barking.  In  Ireland,  it  is  said  that  two  thirds  of  the  inhabitants 
perished.  The  pestilence  of  which  Wigheard  died  at  Rome  was  probably 
the  same  disease.  Beda,  iii.  27,  iv.  i.  Usher,  Antiq.  pp.  948,  1164. — T. 
^  Beda,  iv.  2.  ["  Sed  et  sonos  cantandi  in  ecclesia,  quos  eatenus  in 
Cantia  tantum  noverant,  ab  hoc  tempore  per  oranes  Anglorum  ecclesias 
disc  ;re  coeperunt ;  primusque,  excepto  Jacobo,  de  quo  supra  diximus,  can- 
tandi magister  Nordanhymbrorum  ecclesiis  (Cf.  II.  E.  ii.  20)  J^lddi  cogno- 
mento  Stephanus  fuit,  invitatus  de  Cantia  a  reverentissimo  viro  Uilfrido, 
qui  primus  inter  episcopos,  qui  de  Anglorum  gente  essent,  catholicum 


WILFRITH.  173 

general  throughout  the  kingdom ;  and  while  he  thus  united 
and  strengthened  the  Anglo-Saxon  church^,  and  connected  it 
with  that  of  the  continent,  he  exerted  himself,  by  the  com- 
munication of  his  own  higher  acquirements,  to  place  the 
clergy  of  this  country  on  a  level  with  that  of  the  rest  of  the 
Christian  Morld.  We  learn  also  from  Beda that  to  Theodore 
and  Hadrian  the  country  was  indebted  for  the  knowledge  of 
prosody,  astronomy,  ecclesiastical  arithmetic,  and  also  for 
men  who  were  as  familiar  with  Greek  and  Latin  as  with  their 
mother-tongue^. 

Theodore  found  a  most  ardent  and  able  adherent  in  that 
devoted  champion  of  the  Roman  church,  Wilfi'ith,  bishop  of 
York,  a  man  eminently  distinguished  for  Christian  zeal,  rare 
knowledge  and  vigorous  powers  of  mind,  whose  eventful  life 
attracts  our  attention  even  for  its  own  sake,  and  imperatively 
demands  it  through  its  connexion  with  important  events  in 
the  history  of  the  country,  at  that  time  so  closely  interwoven 
with  that  of  the  church. 

Wilfrith,  though  not  of  noble  birth  ^,  was  endowed  with  all 
those  natural  advantages,  the  influence  of  which  over  rugged 
uncivilized  people  appears  almost  fabulous.  In  his  thirteenth 
year,  the  period  at  which  an  Anglo-Saxon  youth  was  con- 
sidered of  age,  he  resolved  to  leave  his  parents  and  renounce 
the  world.  Equipped  suitably  to  his  station,  he  was  sent  to 
the  court  of  Oswiu,  and,  through  the  influence  of  the  queen 

vivendi  morem  ecclesiis  Anglorum  tradere  didicit."  To  this  -^Eddi  we  owe 
the  valuable  Vita  Wilfridi,  printed  in  Gale's  collection,  t.  i.,  from  whom, 
from  Beda,  a  metrical  life  by  Fridegod,  Eadraer  (ap.  Mabillon,  Ssec.  iii. 
p.  1)  and  W.  Malm.  (De  Gest.  Pont.  lib.  iii.).  Smith  (App.  ad  Bed.  xix.) 
has  compiled  a  very  useful  chronological  view  of  the  life  of  Wilfrith.  [For 
an  account  of  the  introduction  of  the  Gregorian  chant  into  England,  see 
Smith's  Appendix,  No.  xii. — T.] 

'  Beda,  iv.  2.  "  Isque  primus  erat  in  archiepiscopis,  cui  omnis  Anglorum 
ecclesia  manus  dare  consentiret."  '  H.  E.  iv.  2. 

-  Malmesb.  de  Gestis  Pont.  lib.  iii.  "  Non  infimis  parentibus  'apud 
Northanimbros  natus,  si  quid  natalibus  defuit  gratise,  generositate  morum 
explevit."— T. 


174  WILFRITH. 

Eanfloed,  was  received  into  the  monastery  of  Lindisfarne  by 
the  chamberlain  Cudda,  who  had  exchanged  earthly  joys  and 
sorrows  for  the  retirement  and  observances  of  a  cloister. 
Here  he  was  as  remarkable  for  humility  as  for  mental  endow- 
ments. Besides  other  books  he  had  read  the  entire  psalter, 
according  to  the  emendation  of  St.  Jerome,  as  in  use  among 
the  Scots.  His  anxious  desire  to  behold  and  pray  in  the 
church  of  the  apostle  Peter  must  have  been  the  more  grateful 
to  the  queen  and  her  Roman  catholic  friends  from  the  novelty 
and  singularity  of  such  a  wish  among  his  countrymen.  In 
furtherance  of  his  object  she  sent  him  to  her  brother  Earcon- 
berht,  king  of  Kent,  where  he  made  himself  familiar  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  Roman  church,  including  the  psalms  accord- 
ing to  the  fifth  edition.  He  was  attached,  as  travelling  com- 
panion, to  Benedict,  surnaraed  Biscop  *,  a  distinguished  man, 
who  at  a  later  period  exerted  himself  so  beneficially  in  the 
cause  of  the  church,  and  in  the  civilization  and  instruction  of 
the  Northumbrians.  Benedict  died  abbot  of  the  monastery 
founded  by  him  at  Wearmouth,  an  establishment  not  less  famed 
for  arts  and  scientific  treasures,  than  ennobled  through  its  cele- 
brated priest,  the  Venerable  Beda^.     On  Wilfrith's  arrival  at 

'  Eddius  (c.  iii.)  calls  him  Biscop  Baducing,  no  doubt  from  the  name  of 
his  father. 

-  It  will  be  allowed  in  the  history  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  where  allusions 
so  often  occur  indicative  of  a  higher  degree  of  culture  among  them  than 
has  generally  been  supposed  to  exist,  to  call  attention  to  the  account, 
hitherto  unnoticed  in  our  histories  of  art,  of  the  pictures  which  Benedict, 
jn  the  year  678,  brought  from  Rome  to  Wearmouth,  whicli  is,  moreover, 
exparticularly  interesting  as  showing  not  only  how  much  must  have  been 
executed,  or  at  least  collected  at  Rome,  but  that  the  subjects  chosen  for 
representation  were  the  same  as  those  on  which  artists  have  been  chiefly 
engaged  from  that  time  almost  to  the  present.  [The  entire  passages  are 
so  curious  that  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  give  them  at  length. 
"  Picturas  imaginum  sanctarum,  quas  ad  ornandum  ccclesiam  beati  Petri 
Apostoli,  quam  construxerat,  detulit  ;  imaginem,  videlicet,  beatre  Dei  gene- 
trie's  semperque  virginis  Marias,  simul  et  duodecim  apostolorum,  quibus 
mediam  ejusdem  ecclesire  testudinem,  ducto  a  pariete  ad  parietem  tabulate, 
prsecingeret ;  imagines  evangelicae  historic,  quibus  australem  ecclesite  pari- 
etem decoraret ;  imagines  visionum  Apocalypsis  beati  Johannis,  quibus  sep- 


WILFRITH.  175 

Lyons,  Dalfinus,  the  archbishop,  was  so  struck  by  his  judicious 
discourse,  comely  countenance,  and  mature  understanding, 
that  he  retained  him  long  with  him,  offered  to  adopt  him  for 
his  son,  to  give  him  the  hand  of  his  brother's  daughter,  and 
to  procure  for  him  the  government  of  a  part  of  Gaul. 

But  Wilfrith  hastened  to  Rome,  acquired  there  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  four  gospels,  also  the  Roman  computation 
of  Easter,  which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  afterwards  so 
triumphantly  employed ;  and  at  the  same  time  made  himself 
familiar  with  many  rules  of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  and  what- 
ever else  Avas  proper  for  a  minister  of  the  Roman  church.  On 
his  return  he  passed  three  years  at  Lyons  with  his  friend 
Dalfinus,  and  extended  his  knowledge  by  attending  the  most 
learned  teachers.  He  now  declared  himself  wholly  devoted 
to  the  church  of  Rome,  and  received  from  Dalfinus  the  ton- 
sure of  St.  Peter,  consisting  of  a  circle  of  hair  in  imitation  of 
the  crown  of  thorns,  while  the  Scots  shaved  the  entire  front, 
leaving  the  hair  only  on  the  hinder  part  of  the  head.  Here 
he  nearly  shared  the  fate  of  his  unfortunate  friend,  the  arch- 
bishop, in  the  persecution  raised  against  him  by  the  queen 
Baldhild,  the  widow  of  Clovis  the  Second',  and  the  mayor  of 

tentrionalem  seque  parietem  ornaret,  quatenus  intrantes  ecclesiam  omnes, 
etiam  literarum  ignari,  quaquaversum  intenderent,  vel  semper  amabilem 
Christi  sanctorumque  ejus,  quamvis  in  imagine,  contemplarentur  aspectum  ; 
vel  Dominicie  incarnationis  gratiara  vigilantiore  mente  recolerent ;  vel  ex- 
tremi  discrimen  examinis,  quasi  coram  oculis  liabentes,  districtius  se  ipsi 

examinare  meminissent Dominicte  historias  picturas,  quibus  totara 

beatse  Dei  genetricis,  quam  in  monasterio  raajore  fecerat,  ecclesiam  in  gyro 
coronaret,  adtulit ;  imagines  quoque  ad  ornandum  monasteriutn  ecclesiam- 
que  beati  Pauli  Apostoli,  de  concordia  Veteris  et  Novi  Testamenti,  summa 
ratione  compositas,  exhibuit :  verbi  gratia,  Isaac  ligna,  quibus  immolaretur, 
portantem  ;  et  Dominum  crucem,  in  qua  pateretur,  seque  portantem, 
proxima  super  invicem  regione,  pictura  conjunxit.  Item  serpenti  in  eremo 
a  Moyse  exaltato,  Filium  hominis  in  cruce  exaltatum  comparavit." — T.] 
One  of  these  pictures,  though  not  specially  mentioned,  yet  perhaps 
comprised  among  the  '  imagines  evangelica;  historic,'  Beda  seems  to  have 
had  in  his  eye  when  describing  the  three  holy  kings.  Cf.  Bed^  Vita  S. 
Bened. 

'  Baldhild  is  said  to  have  been  an  Anglo-Saxon  slave.  Act.  Sane,  Mabill. 
Seec.  ii.  p,  ^JTJ  sq.     Script.  Rer.  Fr.  t,  ii.  p.  449. 


170  THE  ARTS  IN  ENGLAND. 

the  palace,  Ebruin  ;  but  the  comely  young  stranger,  through 
the  extraordinary  compassion  of  his  persecutors,  was  saved 
from  the  death  of  a  martyr.  He  now  hastened  back  to  his 
country,  where  he  was  honourably  received  by  king  Ealhfrith ', 
consecrated  abbot  of  the  monastery  of  Ripon,  and  regarded  as 
a  prophet  by  high  and  low.  After  the  disputation  with  bishop 
Colman  at  Whitby,  Oswiu  and  his  son  with  their  witan  chose 
the  abbot  Wilfrith  for  bishop  of  York,  who  passed  over  to 
Paris  to  be  consecrated  by  Agilbert.  On  his  return  to  North- 
umbria  he  was  driven  by  a  storm  on  the  coast  among  the 
pagan  South  Saxons,  who  proceeded  vigorously  to  exercise 
the  right  of  wreck  on  the  strangers.  The  chief  priest  of  the 
idolaters  stood  on  an  eminence,  for  the  purpose  of  depri^ang 
them  of  power  by  his  maledictions  and  magic,  M'hen  one  of 
their  number,  with  David's  courage  and  luck,  hurled  a  stone 
at  him  from  a  sling  which  struck  him  to  the  brain.  At  the 
fall  of  their  priest  the  fury  of  the  people  was  excited  against 
the  little  band,  w^ho  succeeded,  however,  after  a  conflict  four 
times  renewed,  in  re-embarking  with  the  return  of  the  tide, 
and  reached  Sandwich  in  safety. 

So  arbitrary  at  that  time  was  the  spirit  in  which  affairs  of 
the  highest  moment  were  conducted,  so  wavering  the  mind 
of  Oswiu,  of  so  little  worth  the  royal  word,  that  the  king, 
during  Wilfrith's  absence,  influenced  by  the  Scottish  party, 
had  consented  to  the  election  of  the  presbyter  Ceadda  to  the 
see  of  York.  Wilfrith  retired  submissively  to  his  cloister  at 
Ripon,  where  he  introduced  the  Roman  ritual  and  the  rule  of 
St.  Benedict,  occasionally  performing  episcopal  duties,  at  the 
desire  of  the  kings  Wulfhere  of  Mercia  and  Ecgberht  of 
Kent.  Archbishop  Theodore,  however,  during  his  visitation 
of  Bernicia  and  Deira,  effected  his  restoration  to  his  see, 
while  that  of  Lichfield  was  by  Wulfhere,  at  the  instance  of 
Wilfrith,  bestowed  on  Ceadda. 

With  other  arts  and  knowledge  architecture  also  came  in 
the  suite  of  the  Roman  church.     The  Scottish  clergy,  from 

»  See  p.  169. 


THE  ARTS  IN  ENGLAND.  177 

the  preference  perhaps  of  the  northern  nations  for  that 
material,  had  built  their  churches  of  wood,  thatching  them 
with  reeds,  an  example  of  which  existed  in  the  new  cathedral 
at  Lindisfarne.  It  was  at  a  later  period  only  that  reeds  were 
exchanged  for  sheets  of  lead,  with  which  the  walls  also  were 
sometimes  covered.  Wilfrith  sent  for  masons  from  Kent, 
and  the  abbot  Benedict  for  workmen  from  Gaul.  The  stone 
basilica  erected  by  Paulinus  at  York,  which  had  fallen  into 
a  disgraceful  state  of  dilapidation,  was  restored  by  "Wilfrith, 
the  roof  covered  with  lead,  the  windows  filled  with  glass,  till 
then  unknown  among  his  countrymen  ^  At  Ripon  he  caused 
a  new  basilica  of  polished  stone  to  be  erected,  supported  by 
pillars,  with  a  portico.  The  consecration — at  which  the  kings 
Ecgfrith  and  ^Ifwine  were  present — was  concluded  by  a 
feasting  reminding  us  of  pagan  times,  which  lasted  during 
three  days  and  nights'^.  The  four  gospels  written  with  golden 
letters  on  purple  vellum,  adorned  with  paintings,  in  a  case  of 
pure  gold  set  with  precious  stones,  enables  us  to  judge  both 
of  the  wealth  and  munificence  of  the  patrons  of  Wilfrith.  An 
edifice  still  more  remarkable  was  erected  by  the  bishop  at 
Hexham,  which,  it  is  said,  had  not  its  like  on  this  side  of  the 
Alps^.  Benedict's  structure  too  at  Wearmouth  was  the  work 
of  masters  from  Gaul,  after  the  Roman  model.  Thus  we 
perceive,  in  the  instance  of  the  most  memorable  buildings  of 
which  mention  is  found  in  the  histoiy  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 

'  Eddius,  cc.  xvi.,  xvii,    Beda,  Vita  Beaedicti.  "Benedictus Gallias 

petens  caementarios,  qui  lapideam  sibi  ecclesiam  juxta  Romanorum  morein 
facerent,  postulavit,  accepit,  attulit.  Misit  legataries  Galliam,  qui  vitri 
factores,  artifices  videlicet  Brittaniis  eatenus  incognitos,  ad  cancellandas 
ecclesise  porticuumque  et  coenaculorum  ejus  fenestras  adducerent."  [For 
much  curious  information  on  this  subject,  see  Dissertation  '  On  the  Intro- 
duction of  Learning  into  England,'  in  Warton's  H.  E.  P.  vol.  i. — T.] 

-  Eddius,  c.  xvii. 

^  Eddius,  c.  xxii.  "  Domus,  cujus  profunditatem  in  terra  cum  domibus 
mirifice  politis  lapidibus  fundatam,  et  super  terram  multiplicera  domum, 
columnis  variis  et  porticibus  raultis  suffultam,  mirabilique  longitudine  et 
altitudine  murorum  ornatam,  et  variis  linearum  anfractibus  viarum,  ali- 
quando  sursum,  aliquando  deorsum,  per  cochleas  circumductam." 

VOL.  I.  N 


178  ECGFRITH  OF  NORTHUMBRIA. 

how  their  architecture  sprang  from  that  of  ancient  Rome, 
however  it  may  have  been  modified  in  England  to  suit  a 
difference  of  circumstances  and  chmate. 

Oswiu  had  greatly  enlarged  his  dominions  by  victories 
over  the  Picts,  and  held  his  state  in  obedience  and  tran- 
quillity till  his  deaths  His  eldest  son  Ealhfrith  had  died 
before  him,  and  his  kingdom,  composed  of  so  many  discor- 
dant parts,  fell  to  his  younger  sons  Ecgfrith  and  -^Ifwine. 
Despising  their  youth,  the  Picts,  under  their  king  Birdei, 
lost  no  time  in  attempting  to  regain  their  independence ;  but 
the  Northumbrian  princes,  under  the  direction  of  the  valiant 
Bernhaeth,  were  enabled  for  a  considerable  time  to  hold  them 
in  subjection.  A  more  dangerous  enemy  threatened  them  in 
Mercia,  whose  king,  Wulfhere,  seems  to  have  been  regarded 
as  Bretwalda.  This  prince  strove  to  form  an  alliance  with 
the  southern  states  against  Northumbria,  and  to  render  that 
kingdom  tributary :  so  unsuccessful,  however,  was  the  plan, 
that  Wulfhere,  being  himself  overcome  by  the  Northum- 
brians, saw  his  own  state  divided  and  made  tributary,  and 
the  territory  of  Lindisse  annexed  to  Northumbrian.  Wulfhere 
did  not  long  survive  this  reverse.  He  was  the  first  prince 
who,  after  some  struggles  with  Wessex,  preserved  Mercia  in 
a  long  state  of  tranquillity  and  reputation  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  kingdoms  :  his  exertions  for  the  spread  of  Christianity, 
to  wiiich  he  had  converted  yEthelwealh^,  king  of  Sussex ;  his 
endeavour,  in  conjunction  with  AVilfrith,  by  the  ministry  of 
the  priest  Eoppa,  to  convert  the  inhabitants  of  the  Isle  of 

1  Beda,  iv.  5.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  670. 

'  Palgrave,  vol.  ii.  p.  cccxi,  places  this  event  about  the  year  678,  ap- 
parently because  Beda,  iv.  1  2,  says,  "  quam  (provinciam)  nuperrime  rex 
Ecgfrid superato  in  bello  et  fugato  Vulfhere,  obtinuerat."  But  Wulf- 
here died  in  675  (see  Sax.  Chron.),  and  his  successor  J^thelred  ravaged 
Kent  in  676.  Beda,  iv.  12.  ^dde  also  (c.  xx.  sq.)  places  this  victory  "in 
pr'mis  annis  Ecgfridi  regis,"  before  Wulfhere's,  and  several  years  before 
Dagobert's  death  (678).     The  Chronol.  in  Wanley  and  Petrie  gives  the 

date  67-1. 
'  The  Sax.  Chron.  a.  661  erroneously  calls  this  prince  .^thehvald. 


ECGFRITH  OF  NORTHUMBRIA.  179 

Wight  ^;  his  friendship  for  Wilfrith  and  other  Christian 
teachers,  show  that  he  was  susceptible  of  higher  instruction, 
and  understood  the  true  poUcy  of  his  time.  Of  his  last  act, 
which  reminds  us  strongly  of  his  father  Penda,  we  cannot 
judge  with  confidence,  our  knowledge  of  it  being  derived 
solely  from  Northumbrian  sources. 

With  the  increasing  power  of  Northumbria  the  authority 
of  the  bishop  of  York  was  in  a  like  degree  extended.  Clerical 
influence  became  exceedingly  powerful  over  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  and  among  the  newly  converted  people  we  soon 
discover  the  same  erroneous  notions  as  those  which  in  that 
age  were  so  prevalent  on  the  continent,  ^thelthryth,  the 
daughter  of  Anna  king  of  the  East  Angles,  had  been  first 
married  to  Tunberht,  prince  or  ealdorman  of  the  South  Gyr- 
was,  after  whose  premature  death  she  was  demanded  by 
Oswiu  for  his  son  Ecgfrith,  then  a  youth  of  fourteen  years 
only.  This  princess,  desirous  of  imitating  what  in  those 
times  was  regarded  as  the  acme  of  female  perfection,  had 
made  and  kept  a  vow  of  perpetual  virginity  2.  In  the  view 
of  turning  her  from  her  resolve,  Ecgfrith  demanded  the  me- 
diation of  Wilfrith,  promising  him  lands  and  money  in  the 
event  of  his  success.  That  Wilfrith's  influence  was  unavail- 
ing, or  exerted  in  a  way  contrary  to  the  king's  expectation, 
may  be  concluded  from  the  circumstance  that,  after  being  for 
twelve  years  the  wife  of  Ecgfrith,  ^Ethelthryth  became  a  nun 
in  the  monastery  of  Coldingham.  From  this  event  the  ill- 
will  of  Ecgfrith  towards  Wilfrith  is  said  to  have  taken  its 
origin. 

After  his  separation  from  ^thelthryth,  Ecgfrith  espoused 
Eormenburh,  sister  of  the  wife  of  Centwine,  king  of  Wessex^, 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  661.    ['Where  it  is  at  the  same  time  stated  that  he  had 
previously  laid  it  waste. — T.] 

"  Beda,  iv.  19,  ejd.  Chron.  a.  688.     W.  Malm.  lib.  iv.  and  her  Life  by- 
Thomas  of  Ely,  ap.  Mabillon,  Sffic.  ii.  [yEthelthrj-th  died  abbess  of  Ely.— T.] 

^  Eddius,  c.  xxxix. 

N  2 


1S3  ECGFRITH  OF  NORTHUMBRIA. 

a  princess  -whose  violence  of  disposition  seems  to  have  widened 
the  breach  between  her  consort  and  the  prelate,  and  hastened 
the  outbreak  of  the  dissensions  among  the  higher  clergy,  and 
the  incipient  jealousy  of  the  secular  towards  the  ecclesiastical 
power.  Though  Wilfrith  had  not  recovered  for  his  see  the 
old  archiepiscopal  title,  yet  the  primate  of  Canterbury  might 
hardly  expect  that  the  northern  prelate  would  not  seek  to  re- 
gain the  ancient  rights  of  his  vast  province  ;  he  consequently 
delayed  not  to  represent  to  the  kings  Ecgfrith  and  J])lfwine 
the  danger  to  which  the  riches  and  authority  of  the  bishop  of 
York  might  expose  him.  The  kings  and  the  archbishop 
agreed  therefore  to  divide  the  northern  bishopric  into  two 
dioceses;  one  at  York  for  Deira,  and  one  at  Hexham  or 
Lindisfarne  for  Bernicla.  Though  the  violence  of  this  pro- 
ceeding may  not  meet  with  approval,  the  partition  of  the 
bishopric  seems  justified  by  the  example  afforded  by  Wilfrith 
himself,  with  whose  co-operation  the  kingdom  of  Mercia, 
containing  one  bishopric  of  equal  extent  with  itself,  was 
shortly  after  separated  between  two,  and  afterwards  among 
three  prelates^.  East  Anglia  was  also  in  the  time  of  Theo- 
dore divided  into  two  bishoprics. 

The  personal  consideration  enjoyed  by  Wilfrith  was  powder- 
less  in  effecting  any  change  in  this  decision  :  on  the  contrary, 
his  opponents  were  so  exasperated,  that,  on  his  leaving  En- 
gland^, attended  by  a  company  of  ecclesiastics,  the  king  of 
Neustria  and  his  powerful  mayor  of  the  palace,  Ebruin,  were 
prevailed  on  to  cause  him  to  be  waylaid  on  his  journey  to- 
wards Rome ;  a  request  which  implies  a  closer  connexion  be- 
tween the  two  courts  than  the  obscurity  in  which  those  times 
are  shrouded  enables  us  otherwise  to  recognise ;  though  the 

^  Beda,  iv,  12.  -  Malmesb.  de  Gestis  Pontif.  lib.  iv.  p.  288. 

^  Wilfritli's  flight  must,  as  by  Fl.  Wigorn.,  be  placed  in  677,  as  in  the 
following  spring  he  had  an  interview  with  Dagobert  who  was  murdered  in 
678.  The  date  678  given  in  Beda,  iv.  12,  and  in  the  Chronicle,  may  have 
reference  to  the  consecration  of  his  successors.  [Some  MSS.  read  septimo 
for  octavo.     See  Stevenson's  note,  p.  275  of  his  edit. — T.] 


ANGLO-SAXON  FOUNDATIONS  ABROAD.  181 

readiness  of  the  Neustrians  to  persecute  the  exile  may  have 
been  a  consequence  of  the  circumstance,  that  Wilfrith,  at  the 
sohcitation  of  the  friends  of  the  Austrasian  king,  Dagobert 
(Dffigberht)  the  Second,  who,  after  a  long  exile,  had  dis- 
covered that  prince  in  Ireland,  had,  supported  by  the  arms 
of  his  partizans,  effected  his  return  to  his  realm,  and  pre- 
sented him  with  costly  gifts.  A  storm,  which  drove  his  vessel 
to  the  coast  of  Friesland,  saved  Wilfrith ;  but  a  delusive 
similarity  of  name  threw  the  bishop  of  Lichfield,  Wulfrith, 
also  an  exile,  into  the  hands  of  the  waylayers.  The  landing 
of  Wilfrith  in  Friesland  was  productive  of  the  most  important 
consequences,  both  for  the  inhabitants  of  that  country,  and 
afterwards  for  a  great  part  of  the  north  of  Europe.  Wilfrith 
found  an  hospitable  reception  with  the  king  Aldgisl,  as  well 
as  protection  against  the  machinations  of  Ebruin,  who  even 
there  ceased  not  to  persecute  him.  Called  on  through  a 
notion  of  the  people,  who  ascribed  to  his  presence  the  abun- 
dant fishing  season  and  the  rich  harvest  of  that  year,  he 
preached  to  them  the  doctrine  of  Christ  in  the  intelligible 
dialect  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  baptized  nearly  all  the 
princes,  with  many  thousands  of  the  peopled 

It  was  thus  decreed  to  Wilfrith  to  be  the  first  of  the 
numerous  Anglo-Saxon  missionaries  and  ecclesiastics  to 
whom  the  countries  on  the  Baltic  and  German  Ocean,  also 
many  provinces  to  the  south,  are  indebted  for  their  conversion 
to  Christianity  and  the  elements  of  civilization  intimately 
connected  therewith.  His  immediate  followers  were  his  pu- 
pil Willebrord,  afterwards,  under  the  name  of  Clement,  first 
bishop  of  the  Frisians ;  Winfrith  or  Boniface,  the  apostle  of 
the  Thuringians,  archbishop  of  Mentz ;  Leofwine,  the  suc- 
cessful converter  of  the  Saxons ;  Willehad  of  Northumbria, 
the  friend  of  Alcwine  (Ealhwine)  and  first  bishop  of  Bremen; 
Willebald,  first  bishop  of  Eichstadt,  and  his  brother  Wuni- 
bald.     We  also  find  in  Germany  many  devout  and  zealous 

'  Eddius,  c.  xxvi. — xxviii. 


182  SCOTTISH  FOUNDATIONS  ABROAD. 

Anglo-Saxon  ladies,  as  Leobgyth,  who  had  learned  the  art 
of  poetry  from  the  abbess  Eadburh ;  Thecla,  abbess  of  the 
cloister  at  Kitzingen,  and  others.  In  consequence  of  the  con- 
nexion between  Denmark  and  England,  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  distinguished  men  followed  in  the  same  course,  whose 
influence  on  the  civilization  of  the  North  has  been  generally 
disregarded,  and  certainly  never  sufficiently  appreciated. 
Those  remaining  behind  were  cheered  and  confirmed  in  the 
faith  by  the  example  and  teaching  of  Aldhelm,  first  abbot  of 
Malmesbury  (Maeldulfsburh),  and  afterwards  bishop  of  Shire- 
burn,  who  first  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  made  the  whole 
heritage  of  Roman  learning  his  own,  and  gained  the  still 
greater  glory  of  being  one  of  the  earliest  and  best  poets  in 
his  own  Germanic  mother-tongue  ^ 

Let  us  not,  however,  exalt  the  merits  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  without  acknowledging  those  of  their  teachers,  the 
Scots,  especially  as  both  worked  sometimes  in  common  in 
the  same  field,  and  the  former  are  often  comprised  under  the 
name  of  the  latter.  As  applicable  to  both,  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  their  emigrations  had  not  always  the  work  of 
conversion  for  immediate  object,  but  that,  in  consequence  of 
the  lack,  during  several  centuries,  of  regular  monastic  orders, 
those  desirous  of  devoting  themselves  to  a  severe  and  con- 
templative course  of  life,  either  alone  or  with  a  few  kindred 
spirits,  were  induced  to  leave  their  home  and  betake  them- 
selves to  some  lonely  cell,  or  hallowed  spot^,  a  practice  long 
retained  among  the  Scots.  At  a  time  when  the  Anglo-Saxons 
had  scarcely  begun  to  spread  a  new  paganism  in  Britain, 

^  Of  Aldhelm  we  have  the  following  testimony  :  "  Aldhelmus  nativse 
linguse  non  negligebat  carmina,  adeo  ut,  teste  libro  Elfredi  (manuali  libro 
sive  handboc)  nulla  aetate  par  ei  fuerit  quisquam  poesim  Anglicam  posse 
facere."  W.Malm.  lib.  v.  ap.  Savile  and  Gale;  and  Wharton,  Augl.  Sac. 
t.  ii.  p.  1.  Aldhelm  died  May  25,  a.  709.  An  edition  of  Cjedmon's  Scrip- 
tural Paraphrase  with  an  English  version,  by  the  translator  of  the  present 
worK,  was  published  in  1832,  at  the  expense  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries. 
Ca;dmon  died  in  680. 

2  Osberni  Vita  S.  Dunstani,  lib.  i.  c.  i. 


SCOTTISH  FOUNDATIONS  ABROAD.  183 

Friclolin,  a  native  of  Ireland,  had  already  founded  a  convent 
at  Seckingen,  an  island  in  the  Rhine ',  and  dedicated  a  church 
to  St.  Hilarius,  the  possessions  of  which  have  given  name  to 
the  canton  of  Glarus"^:  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh 
century,  Columbanus,  the  friend  of  St.  Columba,  with  his 
pupil  Gallus,  travelled  to  those  parts,  where  the  name  of  the 
latter  is  preserved  in  that  of  the  canton  of  St.  Gall,  and 
where  his  monastery  may  be  regarded  as  the  choicest  store- 
house of  the  learning  and  poetry  of  the  middle  age.  From 
Columbanus  the  cloister  of  Luxeuil,  also  that  of  Bobbio  and 
others  derive  their  origin.  At  a  later  period^  Kilian  a  Scot, 
with  his  companions  Coloman  and  Tottman,  founded  a 
monastery  at  Wiirzburg,  the  library  of  which  preserves  the 
proof  of  its  descent  in  precious  monuments  in  the  Irish  lan- 
guage. Virgilius,  a  Scot,  contemporary  with  Boniface,  was 
bishop  of  Salzburg.  The  convent  at  Peronne  seems  also  to 
be  among  the  oldest  foundations  of  the  Scots'*.  Gertrude, 
abbess  of  Nivelles,  a  daughter  of  Pepin,  a  daughter  also  of  the 
mayor  of  the  palace,  Grimwald,  caused  many  learned  Scots 
to  settle  in  France.  Ultanus  was  the  founder  of  the  abbey  of 
St.  Quentin'^.  The  convent  of  St.  Martin  at  Cologne^",  of  St. 
James  at  Ratisbon,  of  St.  Mary  at  Vienna,  ai'e  only  some  among 
the  many  Scottish  foundations  to  which  Germany,  as  well  as 
other  countries,  is  indebted  for  the  establishment  and  spread 
of  Christian  doctrines,  the  preservation  of  learning,  and  the 
beneficent  applications  of  worldly  goods".     The  possession 

^  A.D.  490.  2  j_  V.  Miiller's  Geschichte  der  Schweizer,  Bd.  i.  c.  9. 

3  A.D.  680. 

*  Annales  Mettenses,  a.  69O.  Beda,  iii.  19^  and  Smith's  note  ;  also 
Gall.  Christ,  t.  ix.  1035,  and  Mabill.  Annal.  Ord.  S.  Bened.  xiv.  1,  2. 

'  See  charter  in  SS.  Rer.  Francic.  t.  ix.  p.  735. 

^  In  the  Monum.  Hist.  Germ.  t.  ii.  p.  215.  Pertzhas,  for  the  first  time, 
printed  a  chronicle  of  this  monastery,  from  a.  756  to  1021. 

^  Cf.  Murray,  Comment.  '  De  Britannia  et  Hibernia,  sec.  vi.-x.'  '  Lite- 
rarum  Domicilio,'  in  Nov.  Comment.  Soc.  Gottingens.  t.  ii.  For  Scots  in 
Iceland  and  other  parts  of  the  North,  cf.  Dicuilus  de  Mensura  Orbis,  ap. 
Langebek,  SS.  Rer.  Dan.  t.  ii.  p.  31,  and  Adam.  Bremen. 


184  WILFRITH. 

of  rich  benefices  often  excited  the  national  jealousy  against 
the  Scots,  who,  however,  were  always  able  to  recover  their 
lost  rights  ^  Of  the  ancient  connexion  between  the  Scottish 
cloisters  and  the  mother  country,  which  was  never  broken, 
and  had  often  proved  of  mutual  benefit,  both  in  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  respects^,  traces  exist  even  at  the  present 
day. 

As  Germany  was  especially  indebted  to  British  ecclesiastics, 
whether  of  kindred  or  of  Celtic  race,  both  for  its  Christianity 
and  its  early  mental  formation,  it  may  reasonably  be  inferred 
that  many  historic  traditions  passed  over  from  the  old  coun- 
try to  the  new  acquisition  of  the  Saxons.  We  will  here 
merely  allude  to  the  before-mentioned  saga  of  the  landing 
of  the  Saxons  in  Hadeln ;  though  the  old  Danish  history  is 
also  interwoven  with  traditions  of  England.  With  the  wri- 
tings of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the  oldest  written  chronicles  also 
passed  over  to  Germany,  and  in  the  earliest  annals  of  German 
cloisters  are  to  be  found  some  chronological  notices  of  which 
all  traces  are  lost  in  England.  To  these  strangers  may  also 
be  ascribed  the  circumstance,  that  in  the  oldest  small  chro- 
nicles, in  M'hich  almost  every  word  must  shed  some  vielcome 
light  on  dark  antiquity,  are  often  contained,  instead  of  Ger- 
man names  and  narratives,  the  unintelligible  and  indifferent 
names  of  British  ecclesiastics :  still  to  these  individuals  is 
owing  the  introduction  of  Beda's  chronology  into  Germany 
at  that  early  stage  of  learning^. 

In  the  following  year  Wilfrith  continued  his  journey  to- 
wards Rome,  after  having  declined  the  bishopric  of  Strasburg, 
offered  to  him  by  his  royal  friend  Dagobert.     Bertari,  king 

'  As  early  as  the  year  846  the  French  bishops  recommended  to  Charles 
the  Bald  that  the  HospitaUa  Scotorum  might  be  kept  according  to  the  in- 
tentions of  their  pious  founders.  Pertz,  t.iii.  p.  390.  It  is  in  later  times 
only  that  we  find  them  stigmatized  and  prosecuted  as  pseudo-bishops  and 
vagal-onds.  Hludovici  Imper.  Capit.  Addit.  iii.  37. 

^  See  hereafter,  a.  929. 

^  See  Literary  Introduction. 


WILFRITH.  185 

of  the  Longobards^,  a  friend  and  relative  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
rulers,  received  the  exile  with  respect,  rejecting  with  disdain 
the  demand  of  his  enemies  to  detain  him.  The  protection  of 
the  pope  had  not  yet  been  claimed  by  Anglo-Saxon  church- 
men ;  we  may,  therefore,  considering  the  connexion  still  sub- 
sisting with  the  old  British  clergy,  as  well  as  the  short  time 
that  Northumbria  had  belonged  to  the  catholic  church,  re- 
gard it  only  as  a  very  bold  experiment,  when  pope  Agatho, 
with  the  synod  assembled  at  Rome,  commanded,  under  threats 
of  all  spiritual  punishments,  the  restoration  of  Wilfrith  to  his 
former  Saxon  bishopric^.  But  the  thunders  of  the  Vatican 
proved  as  powerless  as  had  been  for  many  centuries  the  de- 
crees of  the  Capitol.  Ecgfrith  not  only  held  in  contempt  the 
command  of  the  pope,  but  caused  its  object  on  his  return  to 
linger  nine  months  in  prison,  from  which  he  was  released 
only  by  bold  artifice  and  the  representations  of  his  adherents. 
He  was,  however,  compelled  to  leave  the  dominions  of  Ecg- 
frith, who,  moreover,  effected  his  expulsion  from  Mercia, 
whose  king,  ^thelred,  had  married  Osthryth,  a  sister  of  the 
Northumbrian ;  as  also  from  Wessex,  where  a  sister  of  queen 
Eormenburh  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  consort  of  the  king 
Centwine.  As  an  asylum  beyond  the  influence  of  Ecgfrith, 
the  remote  territory  of  the  South  Saxons  alone  presented 
itself  to  the  fearless  energetic  man,  to  the  shore  of  which  he 

'  The  passage  of  Eddius  (c.  xxviii.),  "  pervenerunt  ad  Berchterum 
regem  Campanise,"  has  been  often  misunderstood.  The  words  which  he 
attributes  to  that  prince  about  his  flight  to  the  king  of  the  Huns  agree 
fully  with  what  Paul  Warnefrid  relates  concerning  Bertari,  who  had  him- 
self been  desirous  of  seeking  aid  in  England,  and  whose  son  Cunibert  was 
married  to  an  Anglo-Saxon  lady  named  Hermelind.  See  hereafter  under 
Ceadwealla  of  Wessex,  and  Paul.  Diac.  v.  32,  3/. 

'  Beda,  v.  19.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  679-  In  his  petition  to  the  pope,  Wil- 
frith styles  himself  '  episcopus  Saxoni^.'  See  Eddius,  c.  xxix.  In  like  man- 
ner Hwsetberht,  in  his  letter  to  Gregory, — "  Hwsetberchtus  abbas  coenobii 
beatissimi  apostolorum  principis  Petri  in  Saxonia."  Beda,  Vita  Hwiet- 
berchti.  How  readily  Rome  received  this  appeal,  from  which  a  faint  dawn 
of  future  authority  over  all  the  British  islands  seemed  to  arise,  appears 
from  the  acts  of  this  synod.     Cf.  Alberici  Chron.  a.  680. 


]86  WILFRITH. 

had  formerly  been  driven  under  such  inauspicious  circum- 
stances, and  where  the  people,  notwithstanding  the  earlier 
attempt  to  convert  them,  had  either  persisted  in,  or  fallen 
back  to,  paganism. 

The  king  of  Sussex,  ^Ethelwealh,  as  well  as  his  queen, 
Eabe^,  of  the  family  of  the  petty  kings  of  the  Hwiccas,  had 
been  baptized.  Thus  to  the  homeless  exile,  whom  the  secular 
power  would  not,  and  the  highest  spiritual  power  could  not 
protect,  was  the  work  committed,  to  bring  within  the  pale  of 
Christendom  the  last  heathen  people  of  his  native  land.  Here 
too  were  the  efforts  of  Wilfrith  successful,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  bishopric  in  Sussex  was  the  early  consequence. 
Selsea  was  assigned  to  him  as  an  episcopal  see,  together  with 
sufficient  lands  and  revenues,  which  was  subsequently  trans- 
fen'cd  to  Chichester. 

Even  here  the  most  important  events  of  Britain  are  gathered 
round  the  person  of  Wilfrith.  Ceadwealla,  son  of  Cenbyrht^ 
of  the  race  of  Ceawlin  of  Wessex,  had  lived  an  exile  in  the 
wilds  of  Chiltene  and  Andredesweald :  he  visited  the  bishop, 
who  received  the  noble  youth  M'ith  kindness;  though  yet 
unconverted,  treated  him  as  his  son,  and  was  greatly  helpful 
to  him  in  the  acquisition  of  his  kingdom'^.  Previously  to  this 
event,  Ceadwealla  (under  what  pretext,  or  how  Wilfrith*s 
conduct  on  the  occasion  is  to  be  explained,  we  are  ignorant) 
had  conquered  Sussex, — in  defence  of  which  ^thelwealh 
had  fallen, — but  had  again  lost  it.  Wilfrith  now  received  the 
bishopric  of  Wessex  from  CeadM'ealla,  who,  though  still  un- 
baptized,  was  zealous  for  the  advancement  of  Christian  insti- 
tutions. Having  reconquered  Sussex,  the  Isle  of  Wight, — 
the  conversion  of  which  Avas  also  the  work  of  Wilfrith, — and 

*  Eabe  had  already  been  baptized  in  her  own  country  :  "  Eaba  in  sua, 
id  est,  Huicciorum  provincia,  fuerit  baptizata;  erat  autem  filia  Eanfridi, 
fratris  Eanheri,  qui  ambo  cum  suo  populo  Christian!  fuere."  Beda,  iv.  13. 
— T. 

2  Ob.  a.  661.  ^  Eddius,  c.  xli.     H.  Hunt.  a.  686. 


WILFRITH.  187 

finally  Kent,  where  an  appalling  event  had  taken  place,  to  be 
detailed  hereafter,  and  which  probably  accelerated  the  execu- 
tion of  his  design,  Ceadwealla  resolved  not  only  to  adopt  the 
faith  professed  by  the  majority  of  his  subjects,  but  to  give  an 
example  hardly  occurring  a  second  time  in  the  whole  course 
of  history, — that  of  a  youthful  vigorous  prince  renouncing  his 
sceptre,  to  sever  himself  from  paganism  by  baptism  at  the 
hands  of  the  sovereign  pontiff,  in  the  church  of  St.  Peter,  and 
in  monastic  solitude  to  await  in  serious  meditation  the  day  of 
admission  to  a  better  life. 

Wilfrith  had  in  the  meanwhile  become  reconciled  with  the 
repentant  archbishop  Theodore,  not  long  before  the  death  of 
the  latter  in  690,  and,  through  his  mediation,  also  with  ^th  el- 
red  of  Mercia,  who  bestowed  on  him  the  see  of  Lichfield*, 
— the  fourth  that  had  fallen  to  him — in  his  kingdom,  and, 
after  the  death  of  Ecgfrith,  effected  his  reconciliation  with 
Aldfrith^,  his  successor,     Ecgfrith,  after  an  unjust  and  cruel 

^  Malmesb.  de  Gest.  Pontif.  lib.  iii. 

"  Aldfrith,  who,  according  to  Sim.  Dunelm.,  in  the  year  685,  May  20, 
succeeded  Ecgfrith,  has  by  most  English  historians  (with  the  exception  of 
Carte,  Lingard  and  Palgrave)  been  regarded  as  the  same  son  of  Oswiu  who 
ruled  jointly,  and  thirty  years  previously  commanded  with  his  father  in  the 
decisive  battle  against  Penda  on  the  Winwsed  ;  but  it  is  to  be  remarked 
that  Beda,  whenever  he  mentions  the  eldest  son,  calls  him  Alchfrid  (in 
Alfred's  version,  Ealhfrith),  without  the  slightest  allusion  to  illegitimacy. 
See  H.  E.  iii.  14,  21,  24,  etc.  Vita  S.  Benedicti,  p.  293.  The  later  king 
he  always  calls  Aldfrid  (in  Alfred's  version,  Ealdfrith),  H.  E.  iv.  26,  v.  19, 
21,  24.  Vita  S.  Ceolfridi,  Vita  S.  Cuthb.  Ep.  ad  Ecgb.  p.  309  ed.  Smith, 
ed.  Stev.  p.  219.  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  685  and  705.  Alcuinus,  de  Pontif. 
Eccles.  Ebor.  a.  843.  Adamnani  Vita  S.  Columbse,  ii.  46.  Even  in  the 
incorrect  printed  text  of  JEdde  we  find  the  distinction  of  the  names,  c.  viii. 
56.  But  we  nowhere  find  that  the  peaceful  Irish  student,  the  inexorable 
opponent  of  Wilfrith,  of  whom  he  had  been  the  early  friend  and  scholar, 
and  the  valiant  conqueror  of  Penda,  the  rebellious  son  of  Oswiu,  were  one 
and  the  same  individual.  Malmesbury  indeed  informs  us  that  Aldfrith 
was  the  elder  brother  ("  Is  quia  nothus  erat,  factione  optimatum,  quamvis 
senior,  regno  indignus  sestimatus,  in  Hiberniam,  seu  vi  seu  indignatione, 
secesserat ;  ibi  et  odio  germani  tutus,  et  magno  otio  Uteris  imbutus,  omni 
philosophia  composuerat  animum,"  lib.  i.),  a  fact  which,  if  well  founded, 
proves  nothing  against  Beda's  testimony.     Alchfrid  was  in  653  married  to 


188  WILFRITH. 

war  on  Ireland,  the  conduct  of  which  he  had  committed  to 
Beorht^,  and  after  the  conquest  of  Cumberland,  where  he  had 
bestowed  Carlisle  and  the  land  of  Cartmel  on  the  church  of 
Lindisfarne,  was  slain  in  an  invasion  of  the  Pictish  territory, 
at  Nechtansmere  (Drumnechtan).  Aldfrith  was  an  illegiti- 
mate son  of  Oswiu,  who  having  passed  some  time  in  Ire- 
land^, devoted  to  study,  and  being  very  eminent  at  the  time 
for  his  attainments,  had  by  his  brother  been  destined  to  a 
bishopric. 

But  for  Wilfrith  there  was  no  tranquillity.  Though  he  had 
declined  the  succession  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Canter- 
bury offered  to  him  by  Theodore,  and  had  even  aided  Berht- 
wald  in  obtaining  that  dignity,  the  latter,  nevertheless,  five 
years  afterwards,  during  which  time  Wilfrith  had  recovered 
possession  of  the  see  of  York  and  his  other  benefices,  placed 
himself,  with  king  Aldfrith,  at  the  head  of  a  synod,  at  which 
most  of  the  British  bishops  wei'e  present,  who  in  that  spirit 
of  independence  of  the  papal  chair  which  had  been  main- 
tained for  the  last  twenty-two  years,  demanded  of  Wilfrith, 
in  the  first  place,  an  acknowledgment  of  the  statutes  and  or- 
dinances of  archbishop  Theodore,  and,  on  his  refusal,  resolved 
to  deprive  him  of  his  benefices,  excepting  only  the  monastery 
of  Ripon  which  he  had  founded^. 

a  daughter  of  Penda.  Beda,  iii.  21.  Aldfrid  in  705  left  a  successor  eight 
years  of  age.  The  similitude  of  names  needs  excite  no  doubt.  Aldfrid 
(Ealdfrith)  is  well  associated  with  Alchfrid  (Ealhfrith)  and  Ecgfrid  (Ecg- 
frith)  to  suit  the  Anglo-Saxon  usage.  Thus  Penda's  son  was  named  Peada ; 
two  brothers,  Cedd  and  Ceadda.  Oswiu's  daughter,  married  in  653  to 
Peada,  was  named  Alchfled  (Ealhflffid),  and  one  born  the  year  following, 
jElflsed.  Beda,  iii.  21,  24.  Tigernach,  a.  704,  calls  him  Altfrith  mac  Ossu. 
O'Connor  (MSS.  Stowens.  t.  i.)  refers  to  a  poem  by  him. 

^  Beda,  iv.  26.  Tigernach,  a.  685.  "  Saxones  campum  (Bregrae)  vastant, 
et  ecclesias  plurimas  in  mense  Junii." 

"  Beda,  Vita  S.  Cuthb.  c.  xxiv.  "  In  insulis  Scottorum  ob  studiura 
literarum  exulabat — in  regionibus  Scottorum  lectioni  operam  dabat,  ipse 
ob  amorem  sapientise  spontaneum  passus  exsilium."  Also,  Vita  Cuthb. 
Anon.  §  28.  "  Qui  (Alfridus)  tunc  erat  in  insula  quam  Hy  nominaiit." — T. 

•^  Eddius,  c.  xlv. 


WILFRITH.  189 

Wilfrithj  far  from  tamely  submitting  to  his  disgrace  and  to 
the  diminution  of  the  papal  authority,  again  undertook,  though 
in  his  seventieth  year,  the  perilous  journey  to  Rome,  where, 
however,  the  English  clergy,  in  the  character  of  accusers, 
strove  to  anticipate  him.  Though  their  efforts  against  Wil- 
frith  were  fruitless,  yet  the  honourable  exculpatory  decision 
and  mediation  of  the  pope,  John  the  Sixth,  availed  him  little 
on  his  return  to  his  native  country.  The  archbishop  received 
him  with  apparent  kindness,  but  Aldfrith,  on  w^hom  even 
Wilfrith's  friend  and  biographer  bestows  the  surname  of '  the 
Wisest,'  was  too  deeply  imbued  with  the  tenets  of  the  old 
British  church  to  allow  the  decrees  made  by  his  predecessors 
and  himself,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  witan  and  clergy,  to 
be  annulled  by  a  sheet  of  parchment  from  the  chair  at  Rome^ 
The  death  of  Aldfrith,  and  the  declaration  of  his  sister,  the 
abbess  iElflaed  and  other  adherents  of  Wilfrith,  that  the  king 
in  his  last  hours  had  desired  the  restoration  of  peace,  but 
more  effectually,  perhaps,  the  death  of  Bosa,  bishop  of  York, 
accomplished  at  length  an  accommodation,  in  the  synod  on  the 
Nith^,  which,  as  far  as  Wilfi'ith's  pretensions  were  concerned, 
can  be  looked  on  only  as  a  disregard  of  the  papal  authority. 
He  did  not  even  recover  the  bishopric  of  York,  which  was 
given  to  John  bishop  of  Hexham,  a  man  highly  venerated  for 
his  many  virtues ;  while  the  vacant  see  of  Hexham,  together 
with  the  monastery  of  Ripon,  was  assigned  to  Wilfrith.  After 
a  few  years  passed  in  almsgiving  and  the  improvement  of 
church  discipline,  Wilfrith  died  in  his  seventy-sixth  year,  a 
man  whose  fortunes,  and  activity  in  the  European  relations 
of  England,  were  long  without  a  parallel^. 

Wilfrith  by  his  own  power  accomplished  what  Augustine, 
animated  by  the  spirit  of  Gregory  the  Great,  had  begun. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  states  were  converted  not  only  to  Christi- 
anity, but  to  Catholicism.     For  secular  learning  they  were 

^  Eddius,  c.  Ivi.  ^  a.d.  705. 

^  Eddius,  c.  Ixii.     Beda,  v.  19.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  709. 


190  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

chiefly  indebted  to  the  Scots  and  Britons,  for  their  accession 
to  the  European  system  of  faith  to  these  two  men ;  for  how- 
ever successful  Augustine  may  appear  in  his  first  spiritual 
acquisitions  for  the  church  of  Rome,  the  course  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  history,  nevertheless,  shows  that,  although  the  Roman 
ecclesiastical  system  was  acknowledged,  the  influence  of  Rome 
^(  was  exceedingly  weak,  and  that  the  Anglo-Saxons,  even  after 
they  were  no  longer  anti-catholic,  continued  always  anti-pa- 
pistical. Wilfrith's  history  itself  proves  indeed  how  little 
even  this  zealous  partizan  of  the  popes  could  effect ;  hence  it 
is  the  more  desirable  to  take  a  view  of  the  internal  relations 
of  religion  in  England. 

We  notice,  in  the  first  place,  in  every  kingdom,  a  bishop, 
who,  travelling  about  with  his  coadjutors,  propagated  both 
doctrine  and  discipline.  This  kind  of  church  regimen  was 
well  calculated  to  succeed  that  of  the  pagan  priesthood.  The 
bishops,  when  chosen  by  the  clergy,  always  required  the  con- 
firmation of  the  prince,  but,  in  most  instances,  they  were  no- 
minated by  him.  In  later  times  it  is  observable  that  the 
royal  chaplains  always  obtained  the  episcopal  dignities.  Over 
these  bishops,  he  who  resided  at  Canterbury,  the  capital  of 
the  Bretwalda  ^thelberht,  was  set  as  archbishop,  in  like 
manner  as  the  bishop  of  Rome  had  originally  assumed  the 
supremacy  over  the  Roman  provinces.  The  archbishopric  of 
York,  established  by  Gregory  the  Great,  which  might  act  as 
a  check  to  a  primacy  of  the  Kentish  archbishop  dangerous  to 
the  papal  authority,  ceased  to  exist  after  the  flight  of  Paulinus, 
and  was  not  re-established  till  a  century  afterwards,  when 
Ecgberht,  the  brother  of  king  Eadberht,  after  many  repre- 
sentations to  the  papal  chair,  received  the  palP.  A  third 
archiepiscopal  see  was  established  for  the  country  between 

1  Sax.  Chron.  a.  735.  Appendix  ad  Beda;  H.  E.  Beda,  Epist.  ad  Ecg- 
berht. Malmesb.  de  Gestis  Pont.  lib.  iii.  Wilfrith  never  bore  the  archi- 
episcopal title.  Neither  Beda  nor  ^dde  allege  anything  to  justify  the  sup- 
position, but  the  contraiy. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTIONS.  191 

the  Thames  and  the  Humber  by  the  powerful  OfFa  of  Mercia, 
— who  held  the  dignity  necessary  for  the  honour  of  his  king- 
dom— with  the  consent  of  pope  Hadrian,  to  \vhom  this  aug- 
mentation of  his  slight  influence  over  the  Anglo-Saxon  clergy 
might  have  been  welcomed  The  old  state  of  things  was_, 
however,  shortly  after  restored. 

Almost  contemporaneously  with  the  bishoprics,  some  mo- 
nasteries were  founded  by  the  bounty  of  the  kings  and  their 
relatives,  which  served  as  residences  to  numerous  monks. 
Many  of  these  cloisters  in  the  north  of  England  were  de- 
stroyed by  the  Danes,  the  very  sites  of  which  are  not  now 
known  with  certainty.  The  superintendence  over  clergy  and 
laity  in  the  larger  states  soon  required  more  than  the  single 
bishop  of  the  territory,  whose  influence  might,  moreover,  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Wilfrith,  excite  the  jealousy  of 
the  king.  In  the  choice  of  episcopal  sees  and  monasteries, 
especial  regard  was  had  to  the  security  of  the  new  establish- 
ment ;  hence  the  fortified  residence  of  the  king,  or  a  spot  par- 
ticularly defended  by  nature,  like  the  isle  of  Lindisfarne,  was 
selected.  So  completely  had  Christianity  perished  in  Ger- 
manic Britain  after  the  departure  of  the  Romans,  or  so  little 
was  it  acknowledged  by  the  Saxons,  that  no  religious  foun- 
dation of  Roman  times  was  preserved  or  could  be  restored, 
and  only  some  old  Roman  buildings  and  walls  were  used  as 
churches.  A  small,  probably  old  British,  church  was  disco- 
vered in  a  wild  thorny  spot,  which  gave  rise  to  the  founda- 
tion of  the  abbey  of  Evesham^.  If  the  abbey  of  Glastonbury 
or  Ynisvitrain,  which  appealed  to  charters  of  donation  from 
the  ancient  kings  of  Damnonia,  seems  to  form  an  exception 
to  the  above  statement,  the  circumstance  must  not  be  over- 

1  Sax.  Chron.     FI.  Wigorn.  a.  785.     W.  Malm. 

-  Malmesb.  de  Gestis  Pontif.  lib.  iv.  ["constat  eum  (Ecgwinum)  locum 
ilium,  quo  nunc  coenobium  visitur,  peculiariter  amasse,  incultum  antea  et 
spinetis  horridum,  sed  ecclesiolam  ab  antique  habentem,  ex  opere  forsitan 
Brittannorum."  The  spurious  charters  of  Coenried  and  Ecgwine  relating 
to  this  foundation  are  in  Kemble's  Codex  Dipl.  t.  i.  p.  68  sqq. — T.] 


192  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

looked,  that  this  cloister,  in  the  isle  of  Avallon,  where  the 
corpse  of  Arthur  rested^  remained  long  in  the  hands  of  the 
Britons  ^ 

A  glance  at  the  Anglo-Saxon  bishoprics,  together  with  a 
brief  notice  of  the  most  eminent  monasteries,  w  ill  render  the 
geographical  idea  of  the  several  kingdoms  more  familiar :  this 
knowledge  is,  moreover,  indispensable  with  reference  even  to 
the  political  history  of  a  country  in  which  bishops  and  pre- 
lates shared  the  privileges  and  duties  of  secular  nobles. 

The  little  kingdom  of  Kent  contained,  besides  the  archi- 
episcopal  see,  the  bishopric  of  Rochester,  founded  by  Augus- 
tine. In  Essex  the  only  bishop  was  at  London,  whose  dio- 
cese comprised  the  present  counties  of  Essex  and  Middlesex 
with  the  half  of  Hertfordshire^. 

In  East  Anglia  dwelt  the  bishop  of  Domuc  (Dunwich)^, 
though,  as  early  as  the  time  of  archbishop  Theodore,  advan- 
tage was  taken  of  the  death  of  bishop  Bisi  to  erect  a  separate 
see  for  the  North-folc  at  Elmham,  which,  in  the  time  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  was  transferred  to  Thetford,  and 
under  William  Rufus,  to  Norwich*. 

In  Wessex  the  first  episcopal  see  was  at  Dorcic  (Dorches- 
ter), from  which,  as  has  been  already  mentioned,  a  bishopric 
at  Winchester  was  afterwards  detached.  The  former  retained 
Hampshire  and  Surrey.  A  third  at  Shireburn — famed  for 
its  first  possessor,  Aldhelm,  as  also  for  a  later  one,  Asser,  the 
friend  of  Alfred, — was,  under  the  Conqueror,  in  conformity 
to  the  canonical  prescript  for  the  transfer  of  episcopal  sees 

^  Maimesb.  de  Antiq.  Eccl.  Glaston.  ap.  Gale,  t.  i.  p.  308.  The  Dom- 
nonian  charter  is,  however,  dated  as  late  as  601,  consequently  after  the 
arrival  of  Augustine,  and  his  conference  with  the  British  bishops.  [See 
also  the  charter  of  Henry  II.  printed  by  Hearne  from  the  chartulary  of 
Glastonbury,  and  Hemingi  Cartularium,  app.  603.]  This  is  one  of  the 
few  cloisters  of  which  the  charters  granted  by  the  early  Anglo-Saxon  kings 
have  not  entirely  perished.     See  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i. 

-  A.D.604.  Beda,  ii.  3.  Fl.  Wigorn.  Maimesb.  de  Gestis  Pontif.  lib.  iii. 
R.  Higden,  Polychron.  ap.  Gale,  t.  i.  p.  204  sq. 

^  A.D.  G31.     Beda,  ii.  15.  *  Maimesb.  de  Gestis,  ii. 


BISHOPRICS.  193 

from  small  places  to  large  towns,  removed  to  Old  Sarum,  and 
afterwards  to  Salisbury,  though  not  till  the  following  bishop- 
rics had  been  taken  from  it,  viz.  Wells,  afterwards  Bath ; 
Ramesbury,  subsequently  reunited  to  Sarum;  Crediton,  after- 
wards transferred  to  Exeter,  wdth  which  that  of  St.  Petroc 
or  St.  Germain's  (Cornwall)  w^as  subsequently  united.  In 
Sussex  was  the  bishopric  of  Selsea,  afterwards  transferred  to 
Chichester. 

In  Mercia,  from  the  original  diocese  of  Lichfield  (which 
comprised  also  the  territory'-  of  the  Lindisfaras)  were  detached 
by  Theodore  the  sees  of  Worcester,  Leicester,  Lindesey  (at 
Sidnacester)  and  Hereford.  At  the  same  time  the  see  of 
Dorchester  appears  to  have  belonged  to  the  state  of  Mercia  \ 

The  diocese  of  York  comprised  originally  the  whole  of 
Northumbria,  including  the  south  of  Scotland.  Under  Os- 
wald, the  see  of  Lindisfarne  or  Holy  Island — the  lona  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons — was  founded,  containing  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion the  kingdom  of  Bernicia,  until  the  establishment  by 
Theodore  of  another  see  at  Hexham^.  On  the  ruin  of  Lin- 
disfarne by  the  Danes,  the  see  was  transferred  to  Chester-le- 
Street,  and  finally  to  Durham.  That  portion  of  the  diocese 
which  was  in  the  present  Scotland,  fell  in  the  reign  of  Mal- 
colm Canmore  to  the  see  of  St.  Andrew's. 

The  conquests  of  the  Northumbrian  princes  were  followed 
by  an  extension  of  the  diocese  of  York.  Hwutern  (Candida 
Casa),now  Whitherne  in  Galloway, where  Nynias  had  formerly 
erected  a  church  of  bright  white  stone  for  the  southern  Picts, 
had,  in  Beda's  time,  its  first  Anglo-Saxon  bishop,  Pecthelm, 
supposing  that  the  authority  of  Trumwine — who  was  sent 
from  Northumbria  to  the  Picts  in  the  year  681,  but  expelled 
after  the  defeat  of  Ecgfrith, — vt^as  limited  to  the  northern 
portion  of  the  Pictish  territory^.  It  appears  that  this  bishop- 
ric was  for  some  time  dissolved,  and  that  its  inhabitants  were 

'  Malraesb.  de  Gestis.     Higden,  Polychron.  p.  206. 

'  Beda,  iv.  12.  ^  Beda,  iv.  12,  v.  23. 

VOL.  I.  O 


194  BISHOPRICS. 

under  the  charge  of  the  bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man^;  though, 
on  the  restoration  of  the  see  of  Hwitern,  the  archbishops  of 
York  made  good  their  authority  over  it.  At  a  later  period 
this  district,  as  well  as  the  whole  of  Strathclyde,  belonged  to 
the  diocese  of  Glasgow. 

The  clergy  of  Wales  refused  subjection  to  Augustine ;  and 
although  isolated  instances  may  be  cited  to  show  the  subjec- 
tion of  a  Welsh  bishop  to  the  see  of  Canterbury,  it  is  never- 
theless certain  that  no  acknowledgment  of  the  English  pri- 
mate on  the  part  of  the  Welsh  took  place,  previously  to  the 
conquest  of  the  country  by  the  English  under  the  Norman 
dynasty.  Of  the  four  dioceses,  St.  David's  (Menevia),  Llan- 
daff,  Bangor  and  St.  Asaph  (Llan  Elwy),  the  first  possessed 
the  archiepiscopal  title,  which  at  a  former  period  had  been 
held  by  the  church  of  Caerleon^. 

Cumberland,  as  an  independent  state,  had  without  doubt 
its  own  bishop  at  an  early  period,  though  he  probably  did 
not  reside  at  Carlisle,  which  city  king  Ecgfrith  bestowed  on 
St.  Cuthberht  as  an  endowment  of  the  see  of  Lindisfarne. 
The  foundation  of  the  bishopric  of  Carlisle  is  the  work  of 
Henry  the  First. 

The  dioceses  of  the  present  England  are,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  changes  made  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation 
under  Henry  the  Eighth, — when  Gloucester,  Bristol,  Oxford 
and  Peterborough  were  erected  into  bishoprics, — identical 
with  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  as  above  described.  The 
voice  of  the  bishops  in  the  Upper  House  is  derived  from  the 
rights  of  their  predecessors  in  the  Witena-gemot.  The  vast 
differences  in  their  revenues  may  be  immediately  traced  to 
the  disproportion  of  the  states  founded  by  the  Jutes,  Angles, 

^  This  see,  which  for  a  time  had  been  transferred  to  lona,  was,  during 
the  sway  of  the  Northmen,  under  the  archbishop  of  Trondhjem.  See 
documents  in  Thorkelin,  '  Diploraata  Arna-Magnseana.' 

"  Giraldi  Camb.  Itiner.  lib.  i.  c.  4,  lib.  ii.  c.  1,  ejd.  Descriptio  Cambrise, 
c.  iv.  Particularly  his  '  Distinctiones  VII.  de  Jure  et  Statu  Menevensis 
EcclesijB.* 


MONASTERIES  AND  CHURCHES.  195 

and  Saxons.  Even  the  Bretwaldaship  of  ^thelberht,  with 
the  functions  of  which  our  acquaintance  is  so  imperfect,  is  to 
be  recognised  in  the  several  dioceses  comprised  in  the  pro- 
vince of  the  Metropohtan  and  Primate  of  all  England.  The 
province  of  the  Primate  of  England,  containing  two  dioceses 
only,  preserves  the  memory  of  the  conquests  of  Eadwine  and 
Oswiu,  as  well  as  of  the  firmness  and  vigour  of  Wilfrith. 

A  cloister  with  a  church  was  the  first  requisite  of  the  newly 
introduced  faith ;  a  place  of  meeting  and  shelter  for  the  mis- 
sionaries, teachers  and  disciples,  as  well  as  others  devoted  to 
piety.  The  number  of  these  increased  rapidly  in  the  larger 
states ;  and  in  their  rich  endowments,  as  well  as  in  the  nu- 
merous ecclesiastics  of  the  noblest  and  even  of  royal  families, 
we  have  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  great  influence  soon 
possessed  by  abbots  and  abbesses.  Sigeberht  of  Essex  has 
been  already  mentioned,  as  well  as  the  holy  queen  ^thel- 
thryth,  whose  sister  Sexburh  was  her  successor  at  Ely.  ^bbe, 
a  sister  of  Oswiu,  was  abbess  of  Coldingham  (Coludesburh) 
on  the  coast  of  Berwickshire.  Hild,  a  grandniece  of  Ead- 
wine, enjoyed  a  similar  dignity  at  Hartlepool  (Heorutu)  in 
Durham,  and  subsequently  at  Whitby  (Streoneshealh)  in 
Yorkshire ;  in  the  latter  she  was  succeeded  by  her  niece  -^1- 
flaed,  a  daughter  of  Oswiu.  Previously  to  the  foundation  of 
these  monasteries,  the  need  of  them  among  the  Anglo-Saxons 
was  so  great,  that  they  frequently  sent  their  children  to 
Frankish  cloisters  for  education  and  consecration  to  a  re- 
ligious life.  Small  cloisters  arose  from  the  pious  exertions  of 
individuals,  as  in  Northumbria,  from  an  oratory  which  Wil- 
gis,  the  father  of  Willebrord  the  apostle  of  Friesland,  had 
founded  and  dedicated  to  St.  Andrew,  and  subsequently  en- 
larged, in  the  cells  of  which  Alcwine,  the  celebrated  bio- 
grapher of  Willebrord,  passed  his  youths 

But  abuses  of  almost  every  kind  were  not  wanting.    Wjne, 

^  Alcuini  Vita  Willebroidi,  lib.  i.  c.  1. 

o  2 


196  MONASTERIES  AND  CHURCHES. 

one  of  the  first  bishops  of  London,  bought,  as  we  have  seen, 
his  see  of  Wulf  here,  king  of  Mercia.  Many  ecclesiastics  were 
so  ignorant  of  the  language  of  the  church,  that  Beda  trans- 
lated for  their  use  the  Creed  and  Paternoster  from  the  Latin 
into  their  mother-tongue.  A  vice  peculiar  to  the  time  con- 
sisted in  the  facility  with  which  laymen  of  rank,  ealdoraien, 
and  other  officials  of  the  king  were  permitted  to  found  mo- 
nasteries for  themselves  and  wives.  The  land,  free  from  all 
secular  service,  was,  under  this  pretext,  obtained  by  money 
from  the  kings,  and  secured  to  the  purchasers  and  their  heirs 
by  royal  charter,  confirmed  by  the  bishops,  abbots,  and  other 
dignitaries.  In  these  foundations,  the  layman  assuming  the 
abbot's  staff,  devoted  to  worldly  indulgences,  free  from  all 
burthens,  surrounded  by  profligate  monks,  whose  vices  had 
caused  their  expulsion  from  other  monasteries,  or  by  his  own 
former  followers,  shaven  in  the  guise  of  monks,  lived  with- 
out rule  or  discipline,  to  the  detriment  and  scandal  of  the 
country  ^ 

The  small  number  of  parish  churches  was  very  favourable 
to  the  erection  of  numerous  monasteries.  A  knowledge  of 
their  foundations  and  of  the  parochial  divisions,  when  attain- 
able, enables  us  to  form  some  idea  of  the  population  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  commonalty,  and  of  its  increase  in  times 
when  other  sources  of  information  are  looked  for  in  vain. 
But  even  in  England  records  of  the  origin  of  the  earliest 
parish  churches  are  wanting.  They  seem  to  have  been  first 
erected  in  the  south  under  archbishop  Theodore,  and,  about 
half  a  century  later,  that  is,  before  and  during  the  time  of 
Ecgberht,  archbishop  of  York,  in  the  northern  parts  of  En- 
gland. St.  Cuthberht,  abbot  of  Melrose^,  wandered  from 
place  to  place,  to  confirm  and  animate  believers  by  his  preach- 
ing ;  yet,  when  Beda  subjoins  to  this  narrative  that  such  was 
the  custom  of  the  clergy  at  that  time^,  it  would  follow  that 

1  Bedce  Epist.  ad  Ecgb.  p.  310  sq.  edit.  Smith.  ^  Ob.  a.  G87. 

3  Beda,  iv.  27.     Epist.  ad  Ecgb.  p.  306. 


CLERGY.  igr 

in  his  own  days  the  case  was  otherwise  in  those  northern 
countries  ;  at  the  same  time  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
dioceses  or  districts  there,  as  in  other  countries,  were,  at  the 
beginning,  too  extensive.  We  find  however  in  Holstein, 
very  shortly  after  its  conversion  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Wille- 
had,  the  foundation  of  four  churches  for  baptism,  from  the 
districts  of  which  the  later  parochial  division  was  established'. 
Similar  churches  those  also  appear  to  have  been  which,  be- 
fore the  time  of  Theodore,  were  founded  by  Cedd,  bishop  of 
Essex,  at  Ythancester  and  Tilaburg  (Tilbury)^.  In  the  later 
Anglo-Saxon  laws,  provisions  are  not  wanting  for  the  regula- 
tion of  the  parochial  system^.  That  the  laity  were  soon  aware 
of  their  rights  in  the  administration  of  church  property,  may 
be  inferred  both  from  a  similar  state  of  things  in  the  Christian 
North,  and  from  the  community  of  all  Anglo-Saxon  property : 
if  proof  from  the  earliest  times  is  wanting  for  England,  we 
may  perhaps  assume  that  the  clergy  at  a  later  period  did 
not  concede  ampler  rights  to  the  laity  than  those  which  they 
had  formerly  possessed'*. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  clergy  were,  however,  by  no  means  so 
free  and  influential  as  their  brethren  in  most  of  the  continen- 
tal states  ;  for  though  ecclesiastics  sometimes  gained  power 
over  individual  kings,  such  cases  were  of  rare  occurrence  and 
without  lasting  consequences.  That  close  connexion  between 
the  Anglo-Saxon  states  and  Rome  did  not  exist,  whereby  the 
latter  could  extend  powerful  aid  to  its  servants.  The  arch- 
bishop of  Mentz,  Boniface,  himself  an  Anglo-Saxon,  de- 
clares, in  his  letter  to  Cuthberht,  archbishop  of  Canterbury^, 
that  no  cloisters  were  in  such  a  state  of  slavery  as  those  of 

^  Remberti  Vita  S.  Anscharii,  c.  xix. 

^  Beda,  iii.  22.    "Cedd fecit  per  loca  ecclesias,   presbyteros  et 

diaconos  ordinavit,  qui  se  inverbo  fidei  et  ministerio  baptizandi  adjuvarent 
(circa  a.  655)." 

•''  Laws  of  Edgar  L  i.  2.     Eccles.  Laws  of  Cnut,  iii. 

*  For  a  later  period  see  '  Cone.  Exancest.'  a.  1287- 

°  Wilkins,  Cone.  t.  i.  p.  93. 


198  CLERGY. 

the  Anglo-Saxons, — a  declaration  confirmed  by  the  language 
of  their  charters  of  donation,  whereby  they  were  bound  to 
pay  not  only  the  '  trinoda  necessitas,'  the  '  brycg-bot,'  '  burh- 
bot,^  and  *fyrd,'  or  contribution  for  keeping  in  repair  the 
bridges  and  fortresses,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  military 
levy,  but  were  sometimes  also  taxable  like  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity, and  bound  to  harbour  and  entertain  in  their  monas- 
teries the  king's  huntsmen  and  followers  ^ 

Hence  the  more  remarkable  will  appear,  a  celebrated  do- 
nation made  by  ^thelwulf,  king  of  Wessex,  to  the  clergy  of 
his  states,  after  his  return  from  Rome,  which  some  older  En- 
glish historians,  as  Ingulf,  William  of  Malmesbury  and  other 
monks,  together  with  Selden,  have  been  inclined  to  regard  a§ 
the  origin  of  tithes  ;  an  untenable  interpretation,  partly  re- 
futed by  the  very  uncertain  tenor  of  apparently  fictitious 
charters^,  and  partly  by  the  much  earlier  introduction  of 
tithes,  by  the  assignment  to  the  church  of  older  imposts  be- 
longing to  the  king  and  other  lords  of  the  soiP. 

According  to  a  recent  interpretation,  JEthelwulf  bestowed 
one  tenth  part  of  the  land  in  his  kingdom  of  Wessex  and  its 
dependencies,  Kent  and  Sussex,  upon  the  servants  of  the 
altar,  or  for  the  sustenance  of  the  indigent,  exonerated  from 
every  territorial  tax  and  duty'^.  But  here  two  donations  are 
blended  together  ;  by  the  one,  sometimes  called  the  Testament 
of  ^^thelwulf,  the  obligation  is  imposed  on  every  ten  farmers 
or  farms  in  his  hereditary  states^  to  provide  one  poor  person 

'  See  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  156,  and  the  documents  there  referred  to.  The 
last-mentioned  burthen  was  often  imposed  on  the  cloisters  of  the  continent, 
though  they  were  relieved  from  it  by  the  Carlovingian  legislation. 

^  A.D.  854,  855.  Wilkins,  Cone.  t.  i.  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  ii.  pp.  50  sq. 
W.  Malm.  hb.  ii. 

^  Excerptiones  Ecgberti,  iv.,  v.,  xxiv.  See  also  Phillips,  Angelsachsische 
Rechtsgeschichte,  §  70 ;  with  whom,  however,  we  cannot  agree  in  ascri- 
binr,  on  the  weak  authority  of  Broraton,  either  the  introduction  of  tithes 
to  Offa  of  Mercia,  or  the  confirmation  of  them  to  ^thelwulf. 

*  So  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  158. 

°  Asscr,  a.  855,  and  ejd.  Annales  :  "  Per  oninem  haercditariam  ten  am 


CLERGY.  199 

with  meat,  drink  and  clothing,  and  is  remarkable  as  the 
beginning  of  secular  provision  for  the  poor.  The  other  docu- 
ment, with  which  we  are  here  more  particularly  concerned, 
directs,  (according  to  the  oldest  copies  of  the  Latin  text,  made 
probably  from  an  Anglo-Saxon  original,  as  well  as  according 
to  the  interpretation  of  the  oldest  and  nearly  contemporaneous 
author,)  that  king  ^Ethelwulf,  with  the  advice  of  his  bishops 
and  ealdormen,  resolved  to  exonerate,  for  monks,  nuns  and 
laj'men  possessing  hereditary  land,  every  tenth  mansus  of 
their  property,  or,  of  smaller  possessions,  the  tenth  part,  from 
the  before-mentioned  three  obligations,  usually  considered  as 
irredeemable,  and  from  all  other  burthens ;  for  which  grace 
certain  masses  and  prayers  were  to  be  said  for  the  souls  of 
the  king  and  of  the  consenting  prelates  and  ealdormen'. 

suam in  decern  manentibus."     W.  Malm.  lib.  ii.  "in  omni  suae 

haereditatis  decima  hida  pauperem  vestiri  et  cibari  prsecepit."  Sim.  Dunelm. 
a.  855  :  "in  decern  mansis."  Matt.  Westm.  a.  857:  "in  decern  hydis 
vel  mansionibus." 

'  Asser,  the  friend  of  Jilthelwulf's  son  Alfred,  is  the  oldest  testimony 
we  have  relative  to  this  grant :  "  Eodem  anno  (855)  ^thelwulfus  decimam 
totius  regni  sui  partem  ab  omni  regali  servitio  et  tribute  liberavit."  So 
Asseri  Annal.,  Fl.  Wigorn.,  Ingulph.,  W.  Malm.  ;  though  the  last-men- 
tioned has  falsely  interpreted  it,  he  nevertheless  gives  the  words  so  that 
no  doubt  can  arise  as  to  their  essential  meaning.  "  AfBrmavi  ut  aliquam 
portionem  terrarum  hsereditariam  antea  possidentibus  omnibus  gradibus, 
sive  famulis  et  famulabus  Dei,  Deo  servientibus,  sive  laicis  (miseris,  addit 
Ing.),  semper  decimam  mansionera  ubi  minimum  sit,  tamen  (tum,  Ing.) 
partem  decimam  (omnium  bonorura,  addit  Ing.)  in  libertatem  perpetuam 
perdonari  (donari  sanctse  ecclesiaj,  Ing.)  dijudicavi,  ut  sit  tuta  atque  munita 

ab  omnibus  secularibus  servitutibus,  necnon  regalibus  tributis,  etc quo 

eorum  servitutem  in  aliqua  parte  levigamus."  The  last  words  seem  fully 
to  confirm  my  interpretation.  Spelman,  Cone.  p.  348  (Wilk.  t.  i.  p.  183) 
has  the  same  text  as  Malmesbury.  Turner  is  undecided,  and  misunder- 
stands the  word  '  minimum,'  which  does  not  here  signify  the  least  or  the 
smallest,  but  ver'y  little,  but  a  little,  less  than  ten  mansi.  The  widely  diifer- 
ent  text  of  the  document  in  Matthew  of  Westminster  might  be  passed  with- 
out notice,  had  it  not  been  the  cause  of  the  errors  committed  by  the  latest 

writers  of  historj'.     Instead  of  "portionem servitutibus,"  he  gives 

"  portionem  terrse  mese  Deo,  et  B.  Marias,  et  omnibus  Sanctis,  jure"  per- 
petuo  possidendam  concedam,  decimam  scilicet  partem  terras  mess,  ut  sit 
tuta  muneribus,  et  libera  ab  omnibus  servitiis,"  etc. 


200  CLERGY. 

The  Roman  ecclesiastical  canons  took  root  but  slowly,  and 
never  so  deeply  among  the  Germanic  nations  as  among  the 
J  Romanized  people  of  the  continent ;  the  former  not  being, 
like  the  latter,  familiar  with  the  Roman  law,  the  fountain  of 
the  canon  law.  We  must  not  suffer  ourselves  to  be  misled 
by  the  letters  of  Gregory  to  Augustine,  dictated,  as  it  were, 
by  a  conqueror  in  the  flush  of  victory,  who  expected  to  orga- 
nize the  whole  country  on  the  capture  of  the  first  fortress. 
Let  it  be  remembered  how  Kent  itself  wavered  in  its  new 
faith,  how  unfavourable  to  the  papal  authority  the  circum- 
stances were  under  which  the  Christian  religion  was  gradually 
propagated.  A  few  priests  only  passed  over  fi-om  Rome  to 
England ;  the  majority  were  Anglo-Saxons,  acquainted  only 
with  their  mother-tongue  and  the  law  of  their  country. 
Even  if  not  wanting  in  zeal  for  the  interest  of  the  church, 
still  they  were  less  attached  than  their  continental  brethren 
to  the  bishop  of  Rome,  who  soon  became  sensible  that,  at  a 
great  distance,  even  spiritual  weapons  lose  their  force.  To 
bishop  Wilfrith,  neither  his  profound  knowledge  of  the  canon 
law  ^,  nor  the  sentence  of  the  pope  in  his  favour,  proved  of  any 
use  M'ith  the  English  synod.  To  the  slight  regard  paid  to 
the  papal  canons,  the  great  number  of  Anglo-Saxon  eccle- 
siastical laws,  often  issued  by  the  king,  seem  to  owe  their 
existence :  hence  the  church  law  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  was, 
f  more  than  that  of  any  other  Christian  state,  a  national  law. 
It  was  only  for  matters  of  a  purely  spiritual  nature  that  the 
synod  was  composed  wholly  of  ecclesiastics".  The  consent  of 
the  king  appears  to  have  preceded  the  appointing  and  sum- 
moning of  a  synod ;  and  it  was  by  his  approbation,  and  by 
admission  among  his  laws,  that  its  decrees  became  binding  on 
the  laity.  Whatever  at  the  same  time  concerned  the  rights 
of  the  laity  was  treated  in  the  general  witena-gemot  with  the 
piirticipation  of  the  clergy.     Their  own  jurisdiction  was  con- 

^  Eddius,  c.  xlii.  "  In  omni  sapientia  et  in  judiciis  Romanorum  erudi- 
tissimura."  -  Cf.  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  176. 


CLERGY.  201 

ceded  to  the  clergy  in  cases  only  affecting  themselves  ;  every 
extension  of  it  was  strictly  guarded  against.  Mention  has 
already  been  made  of  the  tonsure  and  other  points,  in  which 
the  Anglo-Saxons  did  not  follow  the  Roman  practice  until  at 
a  later  period.  The  long  narrow  habit  was  first  assumed  by 
the  Anglo-Saxons  in  Rome,  wdien  pope  John  the  Seventh 
seized  the  occasion  to  introduce  the  use  both  of  that  and  the 
mitre  among  the  clergy  in  England,  according  to  the  custom 
of  the  Roman  church  ^  The  celibacy  of  the  clergy  was  not 
so  soon  established  among  the  Anglo-Saxons^,  and  only  the  ^ 
prohibition  of  a  second  maii'iage,  and  severe  penalties  for  acts 
of  immorality,  were  observed  among  them.  The  Germanic 
descent  of  the  clerg}'-  manifested  itself  also  in  the  prohibitions 
occasioned  by  their  propensity  to  drunkenness^.  To  confine 
the  marriages  of  the  laity  within  the  degrees  prescribed  by 
the  church  of  Rome,  among  a  people  so^impatient  of  restraint, 
was  impossible;  and  the  pope  soon  found  it  necessary  to 
modify  for  the  people  of  England  the  restrictions  regarding 
marriage'*. 

The  knowledge  of  Roman  law  possessed  by  individual 
Anglo-Saxons  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  necessity  they  were 
under  of  learning  the  canon  law,  which  is  modified  and 
defined  by  the  Roman.  Frequent  appeals  to  the  papal  court 
stimulated  also  many  ecclesiastics  to  a  pro  founder  study  of  the 
same  in  Rome  itself,  as  England  then  possessed  no  schools 
appropriated  to  that  object.  What  such  men  as  Theodore 
of  Tarsus  and  other  foreign  or  Kentish  ecclesiastics  may  have 
accomplished  in  this  respect  we  are  without  the  means  of 

1  See  the  pope's  letter  in  Baluzii  Miscell.  t.  v.  p.  478. 

-  Even  a  son  of  St.  Wilfrith  is  mentioned.  Edd.  c.  Ivii.  "  Sanctus  pon- 
tifex  noster  de  exilio  cum  filio  suo  proprio  veniens." 

3  Theod.  Poenitent.  xxvi.  2,4,  3,  13.  Ecgb.  Penitent,  iv.  33,  34,  35.  Edg. 
Can.  Ivii.,  Iviii.  in  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes.  Cf.  also  the  systematic 
view  of  Anglo-Saxon  ecclesiastical  law  in  Phillips. 

■*  See  Boniface's  letter  to  yEthelbald  in  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.,  and  excerpt 
from  Gregorii  Epist.  ad  Augustinum  in  Decret.  p.  ii.  causa  35,  qu.  2.  c.  20. 


202  VERSIONS  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

ascertaining,  though  among  the  various  branches  of  know- 
ledge possessed  by  Beda  himself,  no  trace  is  discernible  of 
his  acquaintance  with  the  Roman  law ;  the  more  remarkable, 
therefore,  appears  the  knowledge  of  it  manifested  by  Aldhelm, 
not  only  in  occasional  expressions,  but  also  in  a  special  com- 
position \ 

To  the  distance  from  Rome,  and  their  slender  dependence 
on  the  papal  chair,  the  people  of  England  are  apparently  in- 
debted for  the  advantage  of  having  retained  their  mother- 
tongue  as  the  language  of  the  church,  which  was  never  en- 
tirely banished  by  the  priests  from  their  most  sacred  services. 
Their  careless  sensual  course  of  life,  and  perhaps  the  preju- 
dice which  prevented  them  from  learning  even  so  much  Latin 
as  was  requisite  to  enable  them  to  repeat  the  Paternoster  and 
Creed  in  that  language  %  have  proved  more  conducive  to  the 
highest  interests  of  the  country  than  the  dark  subtilty  of  the 
learned  Romanized  monk,  pondering  over  authorities.  Even 
the  mass  itself  was  not  read  entirely  in  the  Latin  tongue. 
The  wedding  form  was,  no  doubt,  in  Anglo-Saxon ;  and  its 
hearty  sound  and  simple  sterling  substance  are  preserved  in 
the  English  ritual  to  the  present  day^.  The  numerous  ver- 
sions^ and  paraphrases  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  made 
those  books  known  to  the  laity  and  more  familiar  to  the  clergy. 
That  these  were  in  general  circulation  in  Beda's  time,  may 
perhaps  be  inferred  from  his  omission  of  all  mention  of  them, 
though  the  learned  and  celebrated  Anglo-Saxon  poet,  Aldhelm, 

1  This  fragment  was  to  have  been  printed  undei-  the  direction  of  C.  P. 
Cooper,  Esq.,  among  the  publications  of  the  late  Record  Commission. 
Respecting  Aldhelm  see  also  Beda,  v.  18.  W.  Malm.  Gesta  Reg.  Angl. 
lib.  i.,  and  De  Gcstis  Pont.  Angl.  lib.  v.  ap.  Gale :  his  letters  are  printed 
in  Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra,  and  his  Latin  poetry  in  Canisii  Lectt.  Antiq. 

"  Cone.  Clovesh.  a.  742,  art.  x.  ap.  Wilkins,  t.  i.  p.  96. 

^  Palgrave,  vol.  ii.  p.  cxxxvi. 

•*  The  Anglo-Saxon  Gospels  w^ere  first  printed  under  the  auspices  of 
archbp.  Parker  in  1571-  The  second  edition  is  that  of  Marshall  in  1663. 
The  third  and  last  (probably  yElfric's  version)  is  by  the  translator  of  the 
present  volume,  in  small  8vo,  1842. — T. 


CHURCH  MUSIC.  203 

had  already  translated  the  psalms,  and  Ecgberht;,  bishop  of 
Lindisfarne,  the  four  gospels.  Beda  is  also  said  to  have  trans- 
lated both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  into  his  mother- 
tongue  ',  an  assertion  which,  like  a  similar  one  regarding  king 
^Elfred,  must  be  limited  to  the  gospel  of  St.  John'^,  and,  in 
the  case  of  Alfred,  to  some  fragments  of  the  psalms^.  An 
abridged  version  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  of  some  other  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  by  yElfric  in  the  end  of  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, is  still  extant.  The  vast  collection  of  Anglo-Saxon 
homilies,  still  preserved  in  manuscript,  once  enlarged  and 
ennobled  the  language  and  the  feelings  of  Christianity'* ;  and 
the  ear  which  continued  deaf  to  the  mother-tongue  was,  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  church,  yet  more  sensibly  addressed,  and  in  a 
way  to  agitate  or  gently  move  the  heart.  Large  organs  are 
described  and  spoken  of  as  donations  to  the  church  in  the  ^ 
beginning  of  the  eighth  century^.     The  mention  of  this  in- 

^  Aldred's  Northumbrian  gloss  to  the  four  gospels  in  the  St.  Cuthberht's 
book  (MS.  Cott.  Nero  D.  IV.)  seems  not  to  be  earlier  than  the  middle  of 
the  tenth  century.  See  Mr.  Stevenson's  paper  in  the  '  Graphic  Illustrator,' 
p.  355,  and  Sir  F.  Madden's  letter  to  Sir  H.  Ellis  in  '  Letters  of  Eminent 
Literary  Men,'  printed  for  the  Camden  Society. — T. 

2  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  3  jb.  Ub.  ii. 

■*  These  venerable  monuments  of  our  early  church  are  now  in  course  of 
publication  by  the  ^Ifric  Society,  with  a  modern  English  version  by  the 
translator  of  the  present  work.  A  MS.  discovered  at  Vercelli  by  Professor 
Blume  contains  not  only  homilies,  but  the  valuable  metrical  pieces,  printed 
for  the  late  Record  Commission  by  the  present  translator,  but  not  pub- 
lished, though  now  given  to  the  world,  with  a  translation  by  J.  M.  Kemble, 
Esq.,  for  the  ^Ifric  Society.  The  homilies  contained  in  the  Vercelli  MS. 
are  all  to  be  found  in  the  various  public  libraries  of  England.  An  Anglo- 
Saxon  version  of  the  Psalms,  possibly  Aldhelm's,  transcribed  by  the  pre- 
sent translator  from  a  MS.  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris,  has  been  pub- 
lished at  the  expense  of  the  University  of  Oxford. — T. 

'  Aidhelmus  de  Laude  Virgin,  ap.  Canisium,  t.  i.  p.  715. 

"  Maxima  millenis  auscultare  organa  flabris 
Mulceat  auditum  ventosis  follibus  iste, 
Quamlibet  auratis  fulgescant  caetera  capsis." — 

W.  Malm.   De   Gestis   Pont.   Angl.  lib.  v.  ap.  Gale:    "Organa,    ubi    per 
aereas  fistulas  musicis  mensuris  elaboratas,  dudum  conccptas  foUis  vomit 


204  SAXON  SCHOOL  AT  ROiME. 

strnment  at  Mahnesbury  affords  ground  for  the  conjecture, 
that  it  might  have  been  introduced  by  the  musical  Welsh. 
Church  music  was  first  brought  into  Kent  by  the  Roman 
clergy,  and  from  thence  into  the  northern  parts,  where  it 
underwent  improvement.  This  was  an  object  of  such  inter- 
est, that  the  arrival  of  a  Roman  singing-master^  is  mentioned 
by  contemporary  authors  as  a  matter  of  almost  equal  impor- 
tance with  a  new  victory  gained  by  the  catholic  faith  over 
the  pagans  or  the  Scots  ^. 

A  glance  at  the  religious  feelings  of  the  people  will  suffice 
to  show  us  a  striking  propensity  among  them  to  pilgrimages^  j 
and  we  may  discern  under  the  pilgrim's  gown  not  only  a 
longing  after  the  beams  of  a  warmer  sun,  but  also  the  here- 
ditary craving  for  restless  wandering.  The  testimonies  relati\'e 
to  such  wanderers,  more  especially  the  numerous  females,  are 
highly  unfavourable'*.  The  Anglo-Saxon  kings  established  in 
many  places  hospitals  for  the  entertainment  of  pilgrims,  the 
most  celebrated  of  which  was  in  Rome,  under  the  denomi- 
nation of  the  '  Schola  Saxonum,'  called  at  a  later  period, 
'  Hospitale  di  S.  Spirito  in  Vico  di  Sassia.'     A  writer  of  no 

anxius  auras."  Of  Dunstan  also  it  is  said  that  he  played  the  organ 
("modificans  organa").  See  Osbern,  Vita  S.  Dunstani,  ap.  Wharton, 
Angl.  Sac.  t.  ii.  p.  93. 

'  Beda,  H.  E.  ii.  20,  iv.  2.     Vita  S.  Boned,  a.  678. 

^  With  the  exception  of  the  Te  Deum  the  Scots  had  none  of  the  usual 
Ambrosian  and  Gregorian  hj-mns,  as  appears  from  the  antiphoner  of 
Bangor  composed  in  the  seventh  century,  now  in  the  Ambrosian  library, 
but  formerly  belonging  to  the  monastery  of  Bobbio.  See  Muratori  Anect. 
t.  iv.  These  Latin  hymns  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  have  long  lain  un- 
heard, and  v?ere  forgotten,  until  again  brought  to  light  by  the  praiseworthy 
researches  of  modern  literati.  It  is  remarkable  that  some  of  the  hymns  of 
the  Scot  Sedulius  have,  in  a  German  version,  been  preserved  in  the  Pro- 
testant church.     Cf.  Rambach,  Christl.  Anthol.  i.  85,  110. 

^  Beda,  V.  7-  "  Peregrinari quod  his  temporibus  plures  de  gente 

Anglorum,  nobiles,  ignobiles,  laici,  clerici,  viri  ac  feminse,  certatim  facere 
coi.suerunt." 

■*  See  Boniface's  letter  to  ^thelbald.  To  bishop  Cuthberht  he  writes  : 
"  Paucse  sunt  civitates  in  Longobardia  vel  in  Francia  aut  in  Gallia,  in  qua 
non  sit  adultera  vel  meretrix  eeneris  Anslorum." 


SAXON  SCHOOL  AT  ROME.  205 

great  authority  ascribes  the  founding  of  this  estabhshment  to 
Ine,  king  of  Wessex^,  ^ho,  after  his  abdication,  ended  his 
days  at  Rome^.  The  object  of  this  foundation,  which  com- 
prised a  church  dedicated  to  St.  Mary,  and  a  cemetery  for  the 
Enghsh,  was  not  only  to  provide  for  needy  West  Saxons  and 
other  Enghsh  at  Rome,  but  for  the  instruction  of  young 
Anglo-Saxons  in  the  catholic  faith,  who  were  exposed  to  the 
danger  of  so  many  heresies  in  their  native  country.  For  its 
support  Ine  is  said  to  have  laid,  under  the  name  of  Rom-feoh 
or  Rome-scot,  a  tax  of  a  penny  on  every  house  in  his  king- 
dom, the  amount  of  which  was  sent  to  the  pope  for  that  pur- 
pose. At  a  later  period  the  St.  Peter's  penny  was  a  subject 
of  repeated  complaints,  after  its  original  intention  had  been 
lost  sight  of.  William  of  Malmesbury  knew  nothing  certain 
relative  to  the  foundation  of  this  institution  at  Rome,  and 
merely  mentions,  without  any  allusion  to  Rom-feoh,  that 
tradition  ascribed  it  to  OfFa,  king  of  Mercia.  A  life  of  OfFa, 
the  fidelity  of  which  has  perhaps  been  too  greatly  under- 
rated, reconciles  both  these  accounts,  by  stating  that  OfFa, 
about  the  year  790,  richly  endowed  the  Saxon  school  already 
existing  at  Rome,  and  for  that  purpose  introduced  the  per- 
petual burthen  of  Peter's  pence '^.     According  to  a  probably 

*  Matt.  Westmon.  a.  727.  His  account  is  rendered  rather  incredible 
by  his  ascribing  to  the  same  prince  (Ine  abdicated  in  726)  the  imposition 
of  Rom-feoh  or  St.  Peter's  pence.  Spelman  (Cone.  t.  i.  p.  290)  endea- 
vours, from  a  manuscript  at  Chichester,  to  prove  that  the  Schola  Saxonum 
•was  founded  as  early  as  714,  while  the  passage  refers  to  Offa  of  JNIercia, 
from  the  date  of  whose  death,  dccxciv.,  the  last  c  seems  to  have  been 
omitted.     Cf.  also  J.  Ross  Antiquarii  AVarw.  Hist.  Reg.  Angl.  p.  72. 

-  Sax.  Chron.  a.  728.     Tlie  year  of  Ine's  death  is  unknown. 

^  This  life  is  ascribed  to  Matt.  Paris,  and  is  to  be  found,  with  the  Vitse 

XXIII.  S.  Albani  Abbatum,  in  Watts's  edit.  p.  29  :   "Rex scholam 

Anglorum,  quse  tunc  Romjc  floruit,  ingressus,  dedit  ibi  ex  regali  munifi- 
centia,  ad  sustentationem  gentis  regni  sui  illuc  venientis,  singulos  argenteos 
de  familiis  singulis,  omnibus  in  posterum  diebus,  singulis  annis.  Et  tunc 
tali  largitate  obtinuit,  ut  de  regno  Anglise  nuUus  publice  poenitens,  pro  ex- 

ecutione  sibi  injunctte  poenitentiee,  subiret  exilium p.  31,  annuum 

reditum  contulit  ad  sustentationem  scholee  memoratae,  propter  Anglorum 


206  SAXON  SCHOOL  AT  ROME. 

contemporaneous  account,  it  appears  that  in  the  year  816  the 
school  of  the  Angles  at  Rome  was  burnt  \  Mention  is  made 
of  its  inmates  at  the  commencement  of  that  century  as  form- 
ing part  of  the  procession  which  met  pope  Leo  the  Third  on 
his  return  from  his  visit  to  Charles  the  Great ^.  It  was  again 
destroyed  by  fire  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Leo  the 
Fourth^,  when  it  lay  for  some  years  in  ruins,  till  king  ^Ethel- 
wulf,  during  his  stay  at  Rome'*,  caused  it  to  be  rebuilt.  The 
rebuilding  of  this  structure  has  given  occasion  to  the  ascri- 
bing to  that  king  the  introduction  of  Rome-scot,  or  rather 
the  transfer  of  the  same  to  the  papal  chair  ^.  Pope  Marinus 
relieved  the  school  of  the  Angles  from  all  taxes  and  burthens, 
at  the  request  of  king  Jjllfred^',  who  showed  his  gratitude  to 
that  pontiff.  Of  this  privilege  king  Cnut,  during  his  stay  at 
Rome,  obtained  a  new  confirmation  from  pope  John^,  and  in 
return  caused  Rome-scot  for  the  pope  to  be  collected  with 
greater  strictness^. 

However  interesting  the  Saxon  school  may  appear  to  us, 

rudium  et  illuc  peregrinantium  eruditionem."     This  passage  is  extracted 

in  Matt.  Westmon.  a.  794.    Vitse  Abbat.  S.  Albani,  c.  i.  "  OfFa Romse 

scliolam  peregrinorum  pie  constituit,  ut  ibidem  peregrini,  qui  ad  Roraanam 
ecclesiam  et  curiam  confluxerant,  ex  diversis  mundi  partibus  barbari,  vel 
votivse  orationis  gratia  vel  expediendorum  negotiorum  necessitate,  linguas, 
quas  non  noverant,  addiscerent :  quas  schola,  propter  peregrinorum  con- 
fluxum  ibidem  solatia  suscipientium,  versa  est  in  xenodochium,  quod  Sancti 
Spiritus  dicitur."  •  Sax.  Chron,  h.  a. 

'  "Pastorem siraul  etiam  cunctae  scholee  peregrinorum,  videlicet 

Francorum,   Frisonum,    Saxonum,  atque   Longobardorura suscepe- 

runt."  Anastasius,  ap.  Muratori  Script,  iii.  p.  198. 

^  So  Anastasius,  lib.  i.  p.  233.  "  B.  Pontificii  sui  exordio  Saxonum 
vicum  validus  ignis  invasit,"  etc.  **  Sax.  Chron.  a.  855. 

*  W.  Malm.  hb.  ii.  "  -lEthehvulfus  Romam  abiit,  ibique  tributum,  quod 

Anglia  hodieque  pensitat,  sancto  Petro  obtulit scholam  Anglorura, 

quse,  ut  fertur,  ab  OfFa,  rege  Merciorum,  primitus  instituta,  proximo  anno 
conflagraverat,  reparavit  egregie." 

"  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  885  and  890.  Matt.  Westmon.  a.  889.  Sim.  Dunelm. 
a.  834,  ap.  Twysden,  pp.  130,  148  and  355. 

"^  Rad.  Dicet.  Abbrev.  a.  1031. 

^  Eccl.  Laws  of  Cnut,  ix.  Law  of  North.  Priests,  Ivii.  Also  Laws  of 
iEthelred  passim. 


SUPERSTITIONS.  207 

especially  with  regard  to  the  St.  Peter's  penny,  we  must 
nevertheless  be  careful  not  to  ascribe  to  it  an  immediate  in- 
fluence in  respect  to  the  legal  instruction  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
clergy.  In  its  early  time  it  could  not  have  had  such  a  pre- 
dominant object,  although  it  might  occasionally  have  con- 
tributed to  it ;  in  later  times  it  was  transformed  into  the 
hospital  nominally  still  in  existence :  yet  how  important 
would  its  old  archives  be,  for  the  moral  and  ecclesiastical 
history  of  England,  should  some  fortunate  explorer  one  day 
discover  them'* ! 

Among  the  chief  objects  of  attraction  to  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
both  at  home  and  in  their  pilgrimages,  were  relics.  In  find- 
ing this  superstition  so  extremely  prevalent  among  them,  we 
are  almost  led  to  the  supposition  that  it  did  not  originate  in 
the  catholic  faith,  but  was  rather,  if  not  entirely  produced,  at 
least  greatly  promoted,  by  the  belief  of  the  Germanic  nations, 
w^ho  solemnly  buried  the  bones  of  the  dead  in  barrows,  threw 
up  vast  mounds  over  them,  raised  monuments  of  rude  work- 
manship^, and  thought  to  conquer  in  battle  with  the  aid  of 
the  corpses  of  their  dead  chieftains.  The  judicial  superstition, 
brought  to  Britain  by  the  Saxons,  that  the  lifeless  body  of  a 
murdered  person  would  begin  to  bleed  on  the  approach  of  the 
murderer,  also  supposes  the  presence  of  supernatural  powers 
in  the  corpse^. 

No    Germanic   people   preserved  so   many  memorials  of 
paganism  as  the  Anglo-Saxons.   Their  days  of  the  week  have 
to  the  present  time  retained  their  heathen  names ;  even  that  of  4 
Woden  (Wednesday)  is  still  unconsciously  so  called  in  both 

^  The  conversion  of  the  school  into  an  hospital  is  ascribed  to  Innocent 
III.  See  also  Spelmanni  Vita  yElfredi,  p.  7.  note  ".  Fea,  Description  de 
Rome,  t.  iii.  Some  documents  relating  to  prebends,  claimed  by  the 
hospital  of  S.  Spiritus  in  Saxia  de  Urbe,  from  1284  to  1291,  are  to  be 
found  in  Rymer,  t.  i.  pp.  648,  740,  752. 

-   So  the  Jutes  for  Horsa.   Beda,  i.  15. 

^  Edg.  Can.  Ixv.  ^Ifr.  Can.  xxxv.  For  Germany  see  my  tract,  '  Ueber 
altere  Geschichte  und  Rechte  des  Landes  Hadeln,'  p.  59. 


208  SUPERSTITIONS. 

worlds,  and  by  more  tongues  than  when  he  was  the  chief  object 
of  rehgious  veneration.  In  the  north  of  England  and  the 
Germanic  parts  of  Scotland  the  Yule  feast  (geohol,  geol)  has 
never  been  supplanted  by  the  name  of  Christmas.  That  these 
denominations,  throughout  ages,  were  not  a  senseless  echo  of 
superannuated  customs,  is  evident  from  the  Anglo-Saxon 
laws  of  later  times,  which  strictly  forbid  the  worship  of 
heathen  gods,  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  fire,  rivers,  water-wells, 
stones,  or  forest-trees  ^  It  is,  however,  probable  that  some 
of  this  heathenism  may  have  been  awakened  by  contact  with 
the  pagan  Northmen.  A  part  of  the  old  theology  lost  its 
pernicious  power  when,  reduced  to  history,  it  became  sub- 
servient to  the  purposes  of  epic  poetry,  as  instances  of  which 
may  be  cited  the  genealogies  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings  and 
the  poem  of  Beowulf.  Of  many  superstitions,  which  long 
maintained  their  ground,  relative  to  the  power  of  magic,  to 
amulets,  magical  medicaments,  as  well  as  to  the  innocent 
belief,  so  intimately  connected  with  poetry,  in  elves  and 
swarms  of  benevolent,  or  at  least  harmless  unearthly,  though 
sublunary  spirits,  it  is  often  difficult  to  point  out  the  historic 
elements  from  which  they  have  sprung,  as  precisely  in  the 
northern  parts  of  England,  where  they  were  longest  preserved, 
the  intermixture  of  the  Britons  with  the  Germans  was  the 
most  intimate. 

The  adoption  of  Christianity  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
attended  with  any  sudden  and  important  consequences  with 
regard  to  the  political  relations  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  is 
chiefly  indebted  to  this  circumstance  for  its  final  settlement. 
It  also  veiy  soon  promoted  the  general  and  literary  instruc- 
tion of  the  nation,  brought  it  into  connexion  with  Roman 
Europe, — operating  thereby  with  increased  power  on  the 
prospects  of  the  country, — and,  by  strengthening  the  state 
by  principles  and  sjjiritual  means,  prevented  the  threatened 
dismemberment  of  the  land  among  mihtary  chieftains,  striving 

'  Sec.  Laws  of  Cnut,  v. 


VENERABLE  BEDA.  209 

for  Independence.  These  causes  soon  contributed  to  aug- 
ment the  power  of  the  larger  kingdoms ;  and  the  history  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  during  a  long  period,  is  to  be  sought 
chiefly  in  that  of  Northumbria,  of  Mercia,  and  of  Wessex, 
which  subsequently  comprised  that  of  all  England.  These 
three  states  were  those  which,  inured  to  arms,  had  in  earlier 
times  maintained  themselves,  and  extended  their  dominions 
by  many  victories  over  the  Welsh,  the  kingdoms  of  Strath- 
clyde  and  Cumbria,  and  those  of  the  Picts  and  Scots. 

After  Ecgfrith's  death,  in  the  battle  of  Nechtansraere  against 
the  Picts  ^,  the  boundaries  of  Northumbria  became  much 
contracted.  His  successor,  Aldfrith,  acquired  the  epithet  of 
*The  wisest,^  or  'The  most  learned.'  He  had  been  well 
instructed  in  the  theology  and  dialectics  of  the  Irish  school, 
which  was  one  day  to  send  forth  a  Johannes  Scotus,  or  Eri- 
gena,  the  founder  of  the  scholastic  philosophy.  But  other 
intellectual  pursuits  were  not  less  welcome  to  Aldfrith,  as  is 
proved  by  the  friendly  reception  given  by  him  to  the  Gallic 
bishop  Arculf,  who  had  been  driven  by  a  storm  on  the  west- 
ern coast  of  Britain,  on  his  return  fi'om  his  travels  in  the 
East,  to  which  we  cannot  allude  without  at  the  same  time 
mentioning  the  account  of  his  journey  recorded  by  Adamnan, 
abbot  of  lona,  from  the  mouth  of  Arculf  himself,  as  well  as 
an  extract  from  it  by  Beda,  which  became  the  foundation  of 
the  numerous  guides  to  the  Land  of  Promise,  so  character- 
istic of  the  knowledge  and  sentiments  of  the  middle  age. 

But  no  one  imparts  to  the  age  of  the  '  Wisest  king '  greater 
brilliancy  than  the  man  just  named,  whom  the  epithet  of 
'  The  Venerable '  adorns,  whose  knowledge  was  profound  and 
almost  universal.  Born  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Wearmouth, 
he  enjoyed  in  that  abbey  the  instructions  of  Benedict,  its  first 
abbot,  of  whom  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  make  ho- 
nourable mention,  as  well  as  those  of  his  successor,  Ceolfrithj 

1  See  p.  188. 
VOL.  I.  P 


210  THE  MONK  ECGBERHT. 

equally  distinguished  for  his  zeal  in  the  promotion  of  learn- 
ing.   In  the  neighbouring  cloister  of  Jarrow  Beda  passed  his 
life  in  exercises  of  piety  and  in  varied  study^  and  gave  life  and 
form  to  almost  all  the  knowledge  Avhich  the  age  could  offer 
him.     If,  on  a  consideration  of  his  works,  it  must  appear 
manifest  that  that  age  possessed  more  means  of  knowledge, 
both  in  manuscripts  and  learned  ecclesiastics,  than  we  are 
M'ont  to  ascribe  to  it ;  and  even  if  we  must  recognise  in  Beda 
the  high  culture  of  the  Roman  church,  rather  than  Anglo- 
Saxon  nationality,  yet  the  acknowledgment  which  his  merits 
found  in  Rome  during  his  life,  and,  shortly  after  his  death, 
wherever  learning  could  penetrate,  proves  that  in  him  we 
justly  venerate  a  wonder  of  the  time.     His  numerous  theo- 
logical writings,  his  illustrations  of  the  books  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  have  throughout  many  ages,  until  the  total 
revolution  in  that   branch  of  learning,  found  readers   and 
transcribers  in  every  cloister  of  Europe.     His  knowledge  of 
Greek,  of  medicine,  of  astronomy,  of  prosody,  he  made  sub- 
servient to  the  instruction  of  his  contemporaries ;  his  work 
*  De  sex  hujus  seculi  aetatibus,'  though  less  used  than  it  de- 
serves to  be,  is  the  basis  of  most  of  the  universal  chronicles 
of  the  middle  age.      But  his  greatest  merit,  which  will  pre- 
serve his  name  through  all  future  generations,  consists  in  his 
historic  works,  as  far  as  they  concern  his  own  native  land. 
If  a  second  man  like  himself  had  arisen  in  his  days,  who  with 
the  same  clear,  circumspect  glance,  the  same  honest  and  pious 
purpose,  had  recorded  the  secular  transactions  of  his  fore- 
fathers, as  Beda  has  transmitted  to  us  those  chiefly  of  the 
church,  then  would  the  history  of  England  have  been  to 
posterity  almost  like  revelation  for  Germanic  antiquity. 

Among  the  learned  contemporaries  and  countrymen  of 
king  Aldfrith,  the  monk  Ecgberht  claims  especial  notice. 
Like  him  instructed  during  a  long  abode  in  Ireland,  he  em- 
ployed the  facility  and  knowledge  there  acquired  in  the  con- 
version of  the  monks  of  lona  j  but  he  is  more  particularly  in- 


NORTHUMBRIA.  211 

teresting  to  the  Germans  through  his  early  wish  to  undertake 
personally  their  conversion,  and,  on  renouncing  his  design 
for  himself,  for  having  sent  Willebrord  and  his  companions 
to  the  Frisians,  thereby  stimulating  the  two  Ewalds,  the 
White  and  the  Black,  so  distinguished  from  the  colour  of 
their  hair,  to  a  like  attempt  among  the  Old-Saxons,  but 
which  was  frustrated  by  their  murder  ^ 

With  the  death  of  Aldfrith^  the  star  of  Northumbria  began 
to  set.  Eadwulf,  regarding  whose  pretensions  we  are  not  in- 
formed, although  the  general  acknowledgment,  and  the  readi- 
ness of  Wilfrith  to  receive  him  amicably,  allow  us  to  suppose 
their  existence,  assumed  the  sovereignty,  which  he  was  un- 
able to  maintain  longer  than  two  months^.  Through  the 
influence  of  Berhtfrith,  the  most  powerful  ealdorman  of  the 
country,  Osred,  the  son  of  Aldfrith,  a  child  of  eight  years,  was 
raised  to  the  throne,  and  by  him  protected  against  disturbers 
within,  and,  by  a  brilliant  victory,  against  the  Picts  and  Scots 
from  withouf*.  While  the  will  of  the  royal  infant  was  appa- 
rently obeyed,  and  all  legitimate  forms  were  observed,  the 
greatest  licentiousness  burst  out  among  the  nobles,  to  which 
the  clergy  would  have  shown  no  indulgence,  but  for  the  part 
taken  in  it  by  themselves  ^  The  government,  during  the 
long  minority  of  Osred,  was  conducted  by  his  mother  Cuth- 
burh^,  sister  of  Ine  king  of  Wessex,  whose  failings  were  for- 


'  Beda,  v.  10.  At  Merseburg  their  memory  is  celebrated  on  Oct.  2 
(Zeitschrift  fiir  Archivkunde,  i.  123).  According  to  Beda  and  the  Calendar 
the  day  of  their  martyrdom  is,  "quinto  nonarum  Octobrium  "  (Oct.  3), 
a,  695. 

2  Sax.  Chron.  a.  705.  ^  Eddius,  c.  57. 

■*  This  victory  was  gained  between  Hsefe  and  Csre  (Caraw,  Tindale 
hundred  in  Northumberland) .  Tigernach,  a.  7 1 1 ,  also  mentions  it :  "  Strages 
Pictorum  in  campo  Manand  a  Saxonis,  ubi  Fingaine  mac  Deleroith  imma- 
tura  morte  jacuit." 

*  Bedffi  Epist.  ad  Ecgbertum. 

^  I  assume  this  guardianship  (although  it  seems  at  variance  with  the 
Chronicle  which  (a.  718)  says,  that  Cuthburh  was  separated  from' Ald- 
ferth  during  his  life)  from  the  fragment  No.  71  among  the  letters  of  Boni- 

p2 


212  NORTIIUMBRIA. 

gotten  in  the  subsequent  foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Win- 
burne.  Osred  followed  not  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father, 
but,  sunk  in  debaucheries,  which  spared  not  even  the  sanctity 
of  the  cloister,  he  was  slain  in  his  nineteenth  year,  in  an  am- 
bush laid  for  him  by  his  kinsmen  on  the  southern  border  by 
the  sea^ 

The  successors  of  Osred  were — 1.  Cenred,  descended  from 
Occa,  an  illegitimate  son  of  Ida;  2.  Osric,  the  son  of  Ealh- 
frith;  and  3.  Ceolwulf,  the  brother  of  Cenred.  The  two  years' 
reign  of  the  first-mentioned  prince,  as  well  as  that  of  the  se- 
cond of  eleven  years,  are  of  no  importance.  The  tranquillity 
of  the  country  during  the  first  years  of  Ceolwulf  was  disturbed 
by  violent  internal  dissensions.  The  king  himself  was  seized 
by  his  enemies,  confined  in  a  cloister,  and  had  already  re- 
ceived the  tonsure,  when  his  friends  reseated  him  on  the 
throne  2.  Though  able  to  preserve  peace  on  the  frontiers  of 
his  kingdom,  he  could  not  stifle  discord  within :  of  his  love 
for  piety  and  learning,  we  have  the  most  honourable  testi- 
mony of  the  Venerable  Beda,  who  dedicated  to  him  his  eccle- 
siastical history  of  the  Angles.     During  the  reign  of  Ceol- 

face,  where,  speaking  of  a  vision,  it  is  said,  "  Aspexit in  poenalibus 

puteis  Cuthbergam  simulque  Wialan  quondam  reginali  potestate  fruentes, 
demersas  usque  ad  ascellas,  i.  e.  Cuthbergam  capite  tonus  humeroque  prss- 
clarara,  caeteris  merabris  maculis  conspersam  ;  alteriusque,  i.  e.  Wialan, 
supra  caput  flararaara  extendere,  totamque  animam  simul  cremari  intue- 
batur,"  Queen  Wiala  is  unknown  to  me.  This  purgatory  must  have 
been  devised  after  the  death  of  Boniface,  not  earlier,  as  it  makes  mention 
of  "  JEthilbealdus,  quondam  regalis  tyrannus." 

'  Beda,  v.  22.  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  Matt.  Westmon.,  a.  717,  says  of  him, 
"belli  infortunio  interemptus  est."  Boniface,  in  his  letter  to  ^thelbald 
of  Mercia  (epist.  xix.),  of  which  Malmesbury  gives  only  an  extract,  says, 
"Osredum  spiritus  luxurife  fornicantem,  et  per  monasteria  nonnarum 
sacratas  virgines  stuprantem  et  furentem  agitavit,  usque  quo  ipse  gloriosum 
regnum  et  inutilem  vitam  contemptibili  et  despecta  morte  perdidit."     [R. 

Wendover,  t.  i.  p.  211.     Eodem  anno   (717)   "  Osredus juxta  mare 

pugnans,  belli  infortunio  interemptus  est." — T.] 

"  Beda,  v.  23,  24,  ejd.  App.  aa.  731,  737.  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  731.  Ti- 
gernach  also  mentions  the  imprisonment  of  Cuthwine's  son,  by  which  cor- 
rect Annal.  Ulton.  a.  730. 


NORTHUMBRIA.  213 

wulf,  the  archiepiscopal  dignity  was  restored  to  York,  his 
kinsman  Ecgberht  being  the  first  who  received  the  pall  for- 
merly bestowed  on  Paulinus^  He  had  reigned  eight  j'ears 
when  he  renounced  the  corroding  cares  attending  the  ima- 
ginary happiness  of  rule,  and  withdrew  to  the  monastery  of 
Lindisfarne,  where,  apart  from  worldly  anxieties,  he  lived 
nearly  thirty  years ^. 

Ceolwulf  on  his  abdication  was  succeeded  by  his  cousin 
and  heir,  Eadberht,  a  brother  of  archbishop  Ecgberht  and 
son  of  Eata^,  a  very  able  man,  fully  qualified  for  the  duties 
of  government.  Eadberht  raised  his  kingdom  to  its  former 
estimation,  chastised  ^Ethelbald,  king  of  Mercia,  who  had  at- 
tacked Northumbria,  while  he  was  engaged  in  warfare  with 
Tal organ  mac  Fergusa,  king  of  the  Picts,  and  took  Cyil  in 
Ayrshire,  and  the  neighbouring  lands  from  Dunnagual,  king 
of  Strathclyde,  or  his  father  Teudubr,  son  of  Beli  mac  Elpin 
(ob.  722).  Six  years  later,  in  alliance  with  Ouengus  or  Un- 
nust,  the  hated  king  of  the  Picts,  successor  of  Talorgan  mac 
Fergusa,  who,  in  the  year  750,  had  fallen  in  a  battle  with  the 
Welsh,  he  took  Alcluyd,  the  capital  city  of  Strathclyde,  and 
reduced  that  British  kingdom  under  his  subjection'*. 

1  Sax.  Chron.  a.  735.  [Ecgberht  was  celebrated  for  his  love  of  know- 
ledge, and  founded  a  noble  library  at  York.  See  his  Penitential  in  Anc. 
LL.  and  Inst.     Alcuini  Epist.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i.— T.] 

2  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  737,  760.     Sim.  Dunelra.  a.  764.     H.  Hunt.  lib.  iv. 

3  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  738.  Malmesbury  calls  Ecgberh  "fra- 
trem  ?equivocum." 

*  [In  App.  ad  Bedam,  a.  740,  it  is  said,  "  Aruwini  et  Eadberctus  inter- 
empti."  This  obviously  clerical  error  has  not  been  copied  by  Simeon, 
and  probably  did  not  exist  in  the  MS.  used  by  him  :  he  says  (a.  740), 
"  Arwine  filius  Eadulfi  occisus  est,"  without  naming  Eadberht. — Of  this 
prince  Simeon  writes  (Hist.  Dunelm.  ii.  3),  "Omnibus  adversariis  vel  sibi 
subjectis  vel  bello  prostratis,  reges  circumquaque  morantes,  Anglorum, 
Pictorura,  Britonum,  Scottorum,  non  solum  cum  eo  pacem  servabant,  sed 
et  honorem  illi  deferre  gaudebant :  cujus  excellentire  fama,  ac  operum  vir- 
tutis,  longe  lateque  diifusa,  etiam  ad  regem  Francise  Pipinum  pervenit, 
propter  quod  ei  amicitia  junctus,  multa  ei  ac  diversa  dona  regalia  trans- 
misit." — T.]  App.  ad  Bedam,  a.  750.  "  Eadberctus  campum  Cyil  cum 
aliis  regionibus  suo  regno  addidit."     Cf.  Annal.  Camb.  a.  722,  750,  760. 


214  NORTHUMBRIA. 

The  Prankish  king  Pepin  sought  his  friendship,  and  sent 
him  by  his  ambassadors  costly  presents,  in  which  we  may 
discern  the  respect  paid  to  a  powerful  prince,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  recognise  the  pohcy  of  the  Franks,  to  gain  friends 
in  the  rulers  of  North-Britain,  and,  in  the  event  of  a  war, 
allies  against  the  more  neighbouring  southern  parts  of  the 
country.  But  Eadberht  grew  weary  of  a  glorious,  though, 
according  to  some  accounts,  not  wholly  prosperous  sway,  and, 
after  a  reign  of  twenty-one  years,  he  also  renounced  his  throne 
and  the  worlds  The  other  kings  of  Britain  endeavoured  to 
dissuade  him  from  this  step,  and,  it  is  said,  offered  to  resign 
to  him  portions  of  territory,  if  he  would  continue  to  bear  the 
sceptre 2.  During  the  ten  remaining  years  of  his  life  he  had 
ample  cause  not  to  regret  his  resolve,  or  at  least  to  perceive 
that  the  anxieties  of  his  predecessors  were  not  groundless. 
His  son  Oswulf,  to  whom  he  had  transferred  his  crown,  was 
in  the  following  year  treacherously  murdered  by  his  thanes, 
when  -(Ethelwald,  surnamed  Moll,  of  unknown  lineage,  was 
by  his  faction  placed  on  the  throne  of  Ida^,  the  extinction  or 
neglect  of  whose  race  brought  the  most  unhappy  consequences 
to  the  country.  One  ealdorman  after  another  seized  on  the 
government,  and  held  it  till  his  expelled  predecessors  re- 
turned with  a  superior  force,  or  popular  favour  and  successful 
treason  had  raised  up  a  new  competitor.     The  family  con- 

Annal.  Ulton.  a.  721.  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  756.  Chron.  Mailros.  Tigernach, 
aa.  750,  752. 

'  App.  ad  Bedam,  a.  758,  assigns  his  abdication  to  causes  not  easily  to 
be  reconciled,  "  Dei  amoris  causa  et  coelestis  patrise,  violentia  accepta  S. 
Petri  tonsura."  H.  Hunt,  says  that,  "  videns  regum  prsedictorum,  Edel- 
baldi  scil.  et  Sigeberti,  vitam  cerumnosam  et  finem  infaustum,  Ceolwlfi  vero 
prffidecessoris  sui  vitam  laudabilem  et  finem  gloriosum,  meliorem  paj-tem 
elegit,"  etc.  This  cannot,  however,  be  strictly  correct,  as  Ceolwulf  did  not 
die  till  near  thirty  years  after  his  abdication  (764),  or  nine  years  after  the 
retirement  of  Eadberht.  Chr.  Mailr.  more  consistently,  "  tonsura  capitis 
pro  Deo  accepta,  apud  Eboracum  sub  archiepiscopo  Egberto  factus  est  ca- 
nonicus."     The  Sax.  Chron.  and  Florence  place  his  abdication  in  757. — T. 

-  Sim.  Dunelm.  de  Eccl.  Dunelm.  lib.  i. 

3  App.  ad  Bedam,  a.  759.    Sim.  Dunelm. 


NORTHUMBRIA.  215 

nexion,  which  had  hitherto  been  maintained  by  marriages 
among  the  Anglo-Saxon  princes^  ceased,  and  the  subjects  of 
the  usurpers  lost  not  only  the  friendship  and  protection  of 
the  once  allied  states,  but  found  in  family  hatred,  thirst  for 
restoration  and  desire  of  revenge,  new  and  dangerous  enemies. 
In  a  battle  which  lasted  three  days,  at  Eadwine's  Cliff,  or, 
according  to  another  account,  at  Eldun  near  Melrose,  the 
ealdorman  Oswine  was  slain  ^  This  victory,  however,  af- 
forded but  little  security  to  /Ethelwald,  who,  a  few  years 
afterwards,  by  a  battle  fought  at  Wincanhealh'^,  lost  his  king- 
dom, though  not  his  life^,  and  was  succeeded  by  Alhred'*,  a 
son  of  Eanwine,  who,  it  is  said,  traced  his  descent  from  Ida. 
Alhred  endeavoured  to  continue  the  alliance  with  the  Prank- 
ish empire,  at  the  moment  when  Charles  the  Great  was  en- 
gaged in  the  Saxon  conquest.  He  not  only  sent  embassies 
to  the  emperor,  but  was  desirous  also  to  use  the  services  of 
his  countryman  Lullus  for  that  object,  who,  after  having  faith- 
fully followed  Boniface  in  his  self-denying  calling,  had  suc- 
ceeded him  in  the  see  of  Mentz'^.  It  was  to  this  king  that 
the  Northumbrian  Willehad,  a  friend  of  Alcwine,  applied  for 
leave  to  convert  the  pagan  Frisians  and  Saxons  to  the  Chris- 
tian faith :  whereupon  Alhred  summoned  his  bishops  and 
other  ecclesiastics  to  consult  on  his  request,  which,  after  ma- 
ture deliberation,  was  granted.  The  missionary  was  recom- 
mended to  the  protection  of  the  Almighty,  Avho  did  not  for- 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  761.     Sim.  Dunelm.  ^  Pincanhealh? 

^  Fl.  Wigorn.  "regnum  reraisit."  Sim.  Dunelm.  "  regnum  amisit  in 
Winchanheale."  H.  Hunt.  "  coactus  dimisit  illud  "  (sc.  regnum).  Matt. 
Westmon.  a-  765,  "vita  decessit:"  whence  Turner,  vol.  i.  p.  411,  "the 
tomb  received  him  ; "  while  Lingard  (vol.  i.  p.  110)  has,  "he  resigned  in 
an  assembly  of  the  witan  at  Finchley." 

^  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  765. 

^  Othloni  Vita  S.  Bonifacii,  lib.  i.  c.  24.  For  two  letters  of  Alhred  to 
Lullus  see  Magna  Biblioth.  Patrum,  t.  xiii.  108.  ep.  xc.  Alhred  and  his 
queen  Osgearn  write  to  him  :  "  Nostris  quoque,  dilectissime  frater,  legati- 
onibus  addominum  nostrum  gloriosissimum  regem  Carl  obsecramus  consu- 
lendo  subvenias,  ut  pax  et  amicitia,  quse  omnibus  conveniunt,  facias  stabi- 
liter  inter  nos  confirmari."  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "Lullus,  et  ipse  nations 
Anglus,"  etc. 


216  NORTHUMBRIA. 

sake  him,  but  blessed  him  in  the  foundation  of  the  bishopric 
of  Bremen,  the  later  archiepiscopal  see  of  Hamburg'.  After 
a  lapse  of  some  years  Alhred,  forsaken  by  his  thanes  and  re- 
lations, and  driven  from  York,  renounced  the  throne,  and 
found  an  asylum  with  Cyneth,  king  of  the  Picts.  He  was 
succeeded  by  -^thelred,  a  son  of  ^thelwald  Moll 2,  who  in 
the  fifth  year  of  his  reign  was  compelled  to  abdicate  and 
forsake  his  country.  Two  rebel  ealdormen,  ^thelbald  and 
Heardberht,  had  slain  Ealdwulf,  son  of  Bosa,  the  chief  com- 
mander of  the  royal  army,  at  Kingscliff,  and  afterwards  his 
generals  Cynewulf  and  Ecga,  in  a  battle  at  Hilathirn^.  Alf- 
wold  son  of  Oswulf,  and  grandson  of  Eadberht,  then  ob- 
tained the  kingdom''.  He  is  praised  as  a  pious  and  upright 
king,  and  adorned  with  the  title  of  ^  friend  of  God.*  But  the 
turbulence  of  the  nobles  of  his  kingdom  prevailed  over  better 
efforts.  The  ealdorman  Beorn,  his  chief-justice,  Avas,  on  ac- 
count of  his  rigour,  burnt  at  Silton  by  the  thanes  Osbald  and 
^thelheard,  who  had  assembled  a  body  of  forces ;  and  Alf- 
wold  himself,  after  a  tumultuous  reign  of  ten  years,  perished 
by  means  of  a  conspiracy,  at  the  head  of  which  was  the  ealdor- 
man Siga^. 

Osred  son  of  Alhred  now  ascended  the  throne  once  occu- 
pied by  his  father,  but  so  ill  defended  it,  that  when  ^thel- 
red,  son  of  ^thelwald  MoU'^,  returned  to  the  kingdom  for- 

'  Vita  S.  Willehadi,  c.  i.,  where  the  king  of  the  Angles  is,  according  to 
some  MSS.,  called  Alachind,  in  other  better  ones,  Alachrat.  In  App.  ad 
Bedam,  a.  765,  he  is  called  Aluchredus.  Tliis  agreement  between  the  name 
and  race  of  the  king,  the  native  country  of  the  priest  (he  went  in  779  from 
the  Frisians  to  the  Saxons)  and  the  chronology,  seems  to  remove  every 
doubt  as  to  my  explanation. 

'  Sax.  Chron.  a.  774.  3  ^   Hunt.  a.  778.     Sim.  Dunelm. 

■*  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  778.     Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  779. 

5  Sax.  Chron.  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  788.  [Alfwold,  as  we  learn  from  Simeon, 
was  buried  in  the  abbey  church  of  St.  Andrew  at  Hexham,  built  by  Wil- 
frith,  which  abbey  he  describes  as  excelling  in  beauty  all  others  in  the  land 
of  the  Angles  ;  its  Avails  were  adorned  with  various  colours,  and  it  contained 
painted  histories. — T.] 

fi  Sax.  Chron.  a.  790.  Fl.  Wigorn.  has  "  ^thelredus  f rater  Alf- 
woldi,"  instead  of  "films,"  and,  a.  774,  iEthelbertum  for  ,/Ethelredura. 


NORTHUMBRIA.  217 

merly  governed  also  by  his  father,  Osred,  betrayed  by  his 
thanes,  was  declared  to  have  forfeited  the  crown,  was  shaven 
for  a  monk  and  put  into  a  monastery,  and  afterwards  obliged 
to  seek  safety  in  exiled  ^thelred  strove  to  strengthen  him- 
self by  violent  measures.  The  ealdorman  Eardwulf  who  had 
at  first  governed  a  part  of  Northumbria  under  him,  as  we 
learn  from  existing  coins  (an  abundant  source  of  Anglo-Saxon 
history),  but  who  afterwards  opposed  him,  was  seized  and 
brought  to  Ripon,  where,  before  the  gates  of  the  monastery, 
he  was,  by  order  of  ^thelred,  to  be  put  to  death.  Being  left 
for  dead,  his  body  was  by  the  friars,  singing  the  Gregorian 
chant,  borne  into  the  church,  where  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
he  was  found  to  be  yet  living,  being  reserved  for  still  greater 
vicissitudes.  The  sons  of  Alfwold,  yElf  and  ^Ifwine,  were  less 
fortunate :  being  enticed  from  their  sanctuary  in  the  cathedral 
of  York,  they  were  barbarously  murdered  at  Wonwaldre- 
mere^.  The  discontented  now  again  turned  their  thoughts 
to  the  exile  Osred,  who  had  withdrawn  to  the  Isle  of  Man, 
whom  they  bound  themselves  by  oath  to  restore  to  his  king- 
dom ;  yet  scarcely  had  he  landed  when,  in  spite  of  oaths  and 
fealty,  he  was  seized  and  put  to  death  by  command  of  ^thel- 
red.  His  corpse  was  buried  in  the  church  of  Tynemouth. 
But  ^thelred  sought  by  other  means  to  strengthen  his 
power :  shortly  after  he  had  freed  himself  from  his  dangerous 
rival,  he  married  /Elflasd,  a  daughter  of  OfFa  king  of  Mercia^. 
Events  such  as  are  here  recorded  must  have  been  attended 
with  the  saddest  effects  on  the  condition  of  the  people ;  we 
accordingly  meet  with  no  more  distinguished  individuals 
among  the  Northumbrians.  Agriculture  was  neglected,  fa- 
mine and  its  companion  pestilence  desolated  the  land.  But  a 
more  dreadful  scourge  than  these  transient  evils  was  at  hand. 
In  the  year  793  the  Northmen  first  landed  on  Lindisfarne, 
plundered  the  monastery  and  church,  not  even  sparing  the 

1  Sax.  Chron.    Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  790.         '  Sim.  Dunelm.  aa.  790,  791. 
3  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  792. 


218  NORTHUMBRIA. 

monks,  some  of  whom  they  slew,  some  they  earned  off  as 
slaves,  others  they  sent  forth  naked,  or  cast  into  the  sea.  In 
the  following  year  the  pirates  returned  and  plundered  the 
monastery  at  Ecgferthes-mynster  (Wearmouth  ?) :  but  one  of 
their  leaders  was  slain  by  the  inhabitants,  their  ships  were 
wrecked  in  a  storm,  and  the  survivors  who  reached  the  shore 
perished  by  the  sword  of  the  Northumbrians  ^  Thus,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  notions  then  prevailing,  did  St.  Cuthberht, 
the  patron  of  that  cloister,  protect  Northumbria  from  the 
ravages  of  the  Danes,  M'ho  were,  nevertheless,  some  years 
after,  destined  to  destroy  not  only  its  peace  but  its  indepen- 
dence. The  ruin  of  that  holy  edifice  made  a  deep  impression 
over  all  England,  which  shows  that  the  destructive  spirit  of 
the  Northmen  was  not  yet  universally  known ^. 

A  few  years  later  ^thelred  was  murdered  by  his  discon- 
tented thanes,  among  whom  the  ealdormen  Aldred  and  Wada 
are  especially  named  as  the  perpetrators^.  Many  laymen  of 
rank  and  ecclesiastics  now  abandoned  the  realm  of  internal 
dissension,  which  seemed  doomed  to  become  the  scorn  and 

*  Hist,  de  Cuthberto  ap.  Sim.  Dunelm.  p.  69.  Here  an  invasion  of  the 
'  Scaldings '  after  the  death  of  Ecgfrith,  and  before  Ceolwulf's  time,  i.  e. 
before  729,  is  supposed,  which  must  be  an  error,  arising  possibly  from  the 
inroad  of  the  Picts  in  710.     Cf.  Sim.  Dunelra.  de  Rebus  gestis  Reg.  Angl. 

aa.  793,  794,  who  is  copied  by  R,  Hoveden — "  Pagan! princeps  eorum 

ibidem  crudeli  nece  occisus  est  ab  Anglis." 

^  Alcuini  Epist.  29,  49,  etc.  Malmesb.  de  Pont.  lib.  iii.  *  De  Episcopis 
Lindisfarn.' 

^  Sim.  Dunelm.  aa.  796,  798.  The  Sax.  Chron.  places  his  murder  in 
794.  Not  only  does  probability  speak  in  favour  of  the  Durham  annals,  but 
also  the  eclipse  of  the  moon  on  the  28th  March,  796,  given  in  both  Simeon 
and  the  Chronicle  as  contemporaneous  with  the  accession  of  Eardvvulf. 
Cf.  L'Art  de  verifier  les  Dates,  in  tlie  calculation  of  eclipses.  [The  Chro- 
nicle gives  the  eclipse  in  795.  In  a  letter  to  OfFa,  Alcwine  writes  that 
Charles  was  so  incensed  against  the  Northumbrians,  in  consequence  of  the 
murder  of  iEthelred,  that  but  for  his  (Alcwine's)  mediation  he  would  have 
done  them  all  the  injury  in  his  power,  "  gentem  illam  homicidam  dorai- 
norum  suorum  pejorem  paganis  sestimans."  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  In  this  year 
(798)  London  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and  many  of  the  inhabitants  perished. 
Sim.  Dunh.— T.] 


NORTHUMBRIA.  219 

booty  of  its  neighbours  ^  The  ealdorman  Osbald,  who  had 
been  formerly  distinguished  as  the  leader  of  a  faction,  and 
had  been  on  terms  of  close  intimacy  with  ^Ethelred,  was  now 
proclaimed  king  by  his  partisans^  but  the  returning  moon 
found  him  a  fugitive  in  the  monastery  of  Lindisfarne,  from 
whence  he  embarked  for  the  Pictish  territory,  the  usual 
asylum  for  Northumbrian  exiles.  He  died  about  three  years 
afterwards,  as  an  abbot,  apparently  in  his  native  country^,  and 
was  buried  at  York.  The  Northumbrians  now  recalled  the 
ealdorman  Eardwulf,  -whose  life  had  been  so  miraculously 
saved  by  the  monks  of  Ripon,  from  exile,  that  school  of  the 
Northumbrian  kings,  with  whom  a  better  state  of  things 
seemed  to  return.  A  great  synod  held  under  his  auspices  by 
the  archbishop  of  York  at  Pincanhealh'*  bears  witness  to  an 
earnest  desire  of  good.  The  turbulent  nobles  again  assumed 
a  threatening  attitude,  and  the  ever-increasing  number  of  the 
descendants  or  relations  of  deposed  kings  necessarily  laid 
greater  dangers  in  the  path  of  every  succeeding  government. 
The  ealdorman  Wada  was,  however,  put  to  flight  and  slain  at 
Bilhngahoh^,  near  Whalley,  together  with  Alric  son  of  Heard- 
berht,  and  his  faction  annihilated^.  Torhtmund,  an  ealdor- 
man esteemed  for  his  fidelity  and  valour,  revenged  the  murder 

1  W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

"  Alcwine  (Epist.  xxix.  Opera,  p.  1537)  reminds  the  king  ^thelred,  the 

patricius  Osbald,  and  Osbert,  "  de  antiqua  amicitia de  fidei  vcritate, 

de  pacis  concordia,  quam  habere  debetis  inter  vos  ;  quia  amicitia  quse  de- 
seri  potest,  nunquam  vera  fuit."  This  letter  cannot  have  been  written  long 
before  the  murder  of  ^thelred,  as  it  makes  mention  of  the  destruction  of 
the  church  of  St.  Cuthberht  by  the  pagans. 

2  Sim.  Dunelra.  a.  799.  '^  Sim,  Dunelm.  a.  798. 

"  Here  and  in  Billingsgate  we  meet  with  the  name  of  the  noble  race  of 
the  Billings.  [In  the  Scop's  Tale  (Cod.  Exon.  p.  320)  we  are  told  that, 
"  Billing  (weold)  Wernura,"  Billing  (yovcrn'd)  the  Wurni. — T.j 

^  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  799.  Alcuini,  Epist.  xviii.  in  Oper.  p.  1514.  In  this 
letter  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Torhtmund  and  others  are  recom- 
mended to  the  hospitality  of  the  emperor  Charles.  As  ^thelheard  went 
to  Rome  in  799,  we  may  perhaps  assume  that  Torhtmund  left  his  home 
immediately  after  the  death  of  Aldred. 


220.  NORTHUMBRIA. 

of  his  former  master  ^^thelred  on  Aldred,  one  of  the  perpe- 
trators. The  ealdorman  Moll,  of  the  family  of  ^thelwald, 
was  put  to  death  by  order  of  Eardwulf,  as  was  also  Alhmund, 
a  son  of  Alhred,  who,  on  his  clandestine  return  with  other 
exiles,  had  been  seized  by  the  guards  of  the  king.  Yet  were 
his  adversaries  not  disheartened,  who,  when  forced  to  flee, 
found  an  hospitable  hearth  and  protection  with  Cenwulf,  king 
of  Mercia.  Eardwulf  now  felt  himself  strong  enough  to  at- 
tack the  territory  of  his  treacherous  neighbour,  the  strong 
hold  of  the  conspirators :  a  long  warfare  which  ensued  was 
ended,  through  the  intervention  of  the  bishops  and  nobles  of 
England,  by  a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship  between  the 
two  kings  sworn  on  the  holy  evangelists  ^  Five  years  after- 
wards Eardwulf  was,  however,  driven  by  his  subjects  into 
exile^:  his  detei'mination  not  to  yield  to  the  rebels,  who  had 
once  spontaneously  sworn  fealty  to  him,  and  to  implore  the 
aid  of  the  mighty  Prankish  monarch  Charles  the  Great,  as 
well  as  the  intervention  of  the  pope  Leo  the  Third,  proves 
him  to  have  been  of  a  firm  and  sagacious  character.  Charles 
was  not  ignorant  of  the  affairs  of  the  north  of  England ; 
through  his  lately  deceased  friend,  Alcwine,  they  must  have 
been  familiar  to  him.  Eardwulf  sought  the  emperor  at  Ni- 
meguen,  and,  having  forwarded  his  suit  there,  hastened  to  the 
holy  father  at  Rome,  by  whom  the  desired  mediation  was 
readily  undertaken.  Accompanied  by  a  papal  legate  in  the 
person  of  the  deacon  Aldulf,  and,  on  the  part  of  the  emperor, 
by  the  abbots  Rotfrid  of  St.  Amand,  and  Nanther  of  St.  Omer, 
Eardwulf  returned  to  England,  and  by  the  united  influence 
of  the  pope  and  emperor  was  reinstated  in  his  royal  dignity^. 

1  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  801. 

'^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  806.  In  consequence  of  an  hiatus  in  Simeon  of  Dur- 
ham from  a.  803  to  849,  we  are  during  that  interval  nearly  without  any 
accounts  of  the  kingdom  of  Northumbria. 

'  Einh.  Annales,  a.  808.  Enh.  Fuldens.  eod.  Tliat  the  expulsion  of 
Eardwulf  was  already  known  to  Leo  is  evident  from  his  letter  to  Charles 
(ap.  Bouquet,  t.  v.  p.  602)   wherein  he  says,  "quod  Eardulphus  rex  de 


MERCIA.  221 

Alfwold,  a  brother  probably  of  king  yEthelred,  had,  during 
the  two  years  spent  in  these  negotiations,  held  the  reins  of 
government,  but  offered  no  long  opposition  to  the  restoration 
of  peace.  Eardwulf  died  in  the  year  following,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son  Eanred,  who  reigned  amid  intestine  dis- 
sensions for  thirty-three  years  ^,  until  the  occurrence  of  events, 
which  will  enable  us  to  comprise  the  entire  history  of  En- 
gland under  one  head. 

Mercia,  towards  which  we  now  turn  our  attention,  presents 
an  appearance  widely  diflerent  from  that  of  Northumbria. 
Long  opposition  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity  had  been 
there  punished  by  the  absence  of  the  arts  and  knowledge 
attending  civilization,  as  well  as  of  institutions  conducive  to 
that  object.  Mercia  has  left  us  neither  the  name  of  an  author, 
nor  even  a  meagre  chronicle.  Nowhere  was  the  number  of 
ecclesiastics  smaller ;  and  while  the  other  states  w'ere  divided 
into  dioceses,  Mercia  proper  and  Middle  Anglia  formed  to- 
gether but  one  bishopric.  On  the  other  hand,  the  energetic 
measures  of  Penda  had  formed  valiant  soldiers,  and  created 
for  the  posterity  of  the  old  sea-heroes  a  military  force  alike 
formidable  to  the  Britons  and  to  the  other  Germanic  states. 
Placed  in  the  centre  of  the  country,  the  rulers  of  Mercia 
availed  themselves  of  their  position  to  threaten  all  their  neigh- 
bours, and  obtain  the  British  supremacy  or  Bretwaldaship. 

regno  suo  ejectus  fuisset,  jam  hoc  per  Saxones  agnoveramus."  A  mes- 
senger from  Eanbald,  archbishop  of  York,  had  not  only  ])een  sent  to  Rome 
but  also  to  the  emperor.  See  the  two  letters  of  Leo  to  Charles  in  Bouquet, 
vol.  V.  p.  601-4.  That  these  letters  had  reference  not  only  to  internal  dis- 
sensions, but  probably  to  the  intention  of  the  king  of  Mercia  not  to  ac- 
knowledge the  archbishops  and  the  bishop  of  Rome,  seems  evident  from 
the  words,  "  Prsedictus  Cenulfus  rex  nee  suum  archiepiscopum  (sc.  Cantu- 
ariensem)  pacificum  habet,  nee  istum  Eanbaldum  item  archiepiscopum," 
etc.  p.  602  c. — "  Valde  pertimesciraus,  ne  ipse  populus  acquisitionis  sanctas 
Romanse  ecelesise  per  quamlibet  oecasionem  et  certamen  prtedecessoris  raei, 
D.  Gregorii,  beatissimi  papse,  quodipsis  in  partibus  posuit,  meis  temporibus 
infructuosum  existere  videatur,  nee  mihi  in  judicio  eveniat,"  etc.  p.  60i  a. 
See  also  Palgrave,  vol.  i.  p.  484. 

1  Sim.  Dunelm.  de  Eccl.  Dunelm.  lib.  iii.  c.  5.     Matt.  Westm.  a.  810. 


222  MERCIA. 

The  advantage  of  some  long  reigns  promoted  both  its  internal 
tranquillity  and  the  success  of  its  designs  against  the  dis- 
tracted states  around  it. 

After  the  death  of  Wulfhere,  his  brother  ^Ethelred,  Avho 
had  married  Osthryth,  a  sister  of  Ecgfrith  of  Northumbria, 
succeeded  to  the  throne  \  In  the  first  year  of  his  reign  he 
made  wav  on  Hlothhiere  (Hlothhaeri)  king  of  Kent^,  and 
ravaged  his  kingdom,  destroying  churches  and  monasteries, 
and  even  the  episcopal  see  of  Rochester.  A  few  years  after- 
wards he  invaded  the  dominions  of  his  brother-in-law,  king 
Ecgfrith.  In  this  contest,  JElfwine,  the  brother  of  Ecgfrith, 
fell,  a  youth  equally  beloved  by  Mercians  and  Northumbrians, 
when  the  ferocity  of  both  nations,  aggravated  by  this  event, 
threatened  the  direst  consequences.  At  this  conjuncture  the 
wholesome  influence  and  judgement  of  the  archbishop  Theo- 
dore, M'ho,  in  pursuance  of  his  calling,  to  mediate  between 
hostile  nations,  and  with  the  success  which  more  frequently 
attends  mediators  when  the  passions  are  at  the  highest  than 
in  earlier  stages  of  the  quarrels,  prevailed  on  the  Northum- 
brians to  renounce  all  further  vengeance  for  the  death  of  their 
prince,  in  consideration  of  the  payment  of  the  legal  wergild, 
and  also  to  restore  to  Mercia  the  province  of  Lindisse,  which 
had  been  taken  from  Wulf  here  by  Ecgfrith.  To  the  remaining 
years  of  his  long  reign  no  blame  seems  to  be  attached.  A 
great  misfortune  saddened  his  later  days :  the  nobles  of  the 
northern  part  of  the  kingdom,  or  Southunibria,  murdered  the 
queen  his  consort^.  He  subsequently  gave  the  government  of 
Southumbria  to  his  nephew  Cenred,  the  son  of  his  brother 
Wulfhere,  to  whom  at  length  he  resigned  the  entire  king- 

1  Beda,  Iv.  21.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  675.  Matt.  Westm.  a.  696,  calls  her 
erroneously,  "Egfridi  regis  filiam." 

-  Beda,  iv.  12.  "Cum  ^Edilred adducto  maligno  exercitu,  Cantiam 

vastaret,"  etc. 

^  Beda,  V.  24,  "a  Merciorum  primatibus  intercmpta."  Sax.  Chron. 
a.  697.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  696.  Matt.  Westmon.  a.  696,  "  crudeliter  neca- 
verunt." 


MERCIA.  223 

dora^,  his  own  sons  being  yet  in  their  minority.  Hence  it 
would  appear  that  the  Mercian  law  of  succession,  unlike  that 
of  Northumbria,  where  we  have  seen  a  boy  of  eight  years  suc- 
ceed to  the  throne,  required  from  its  king,  in  addition  to  right 
by  birth,  the  qualifications  indispensable  for  the  duties  of  that 
high  office.  Among  those  of  mature  age,  the  next  by  birth 
seems  always  to  have  succeeded,  and  the  right  of  the  elder 
line  at  the  same  time  to  have  been  preserved.  He  who  had 
entered  on  the  government  was  not,  however,  compelled  to 
resign  it  on  the  maturity  of  the  direct  heir,  whereby  all  the 
dangers  and  calamities  of  guardianship  were  prevented  :  it  is, 
therefore,  merely  through  an  error  of  a  comparatively  late 
writer^  that  Cenred  is  considered  as  the  guardian  of  ^thelred's 
son,  since  he  legally  and  unconditionally  possessed  for  life  the 
kingly  power.  The  son  of  Penda  entered  the  monastery  of 
Bardeney,  took  the  tonsure,  and  for  many  years,  as  abbot, 
directed  the  peaceful  avocations  of  the  monks^  So  soon  had 
the  time  passed  away,  when  the  sons  of  Woden  knew  no 
greater  disgrace  than  to  die  in  a  bed !  But  to  the  nation  the 
new  increasing  longing  after  the  cowl  was  more  pernicious 
than  the  use  of  harness'*.  x\fter  a  few  years,  passed  for  the 
most  part  in  conflicts  with  the  Britons,  Cenred  also  resigned 
the  reins  of  government  to  a  successor,  the  young  Ceolred, 
the  son  of  ^thelred  and  Osthryth,  and  with  Offa  of  Essex, 
a  prince  adorned  with  all  the  graces  of  youth  and  manners, 
as  well  as  endowed  with  every  quality  befitting  a  prince, 
journeyed  to  Rome,  there  to  take  the  monastic  vow  at  the 
hands  of  pope  Constantine,  and  to  fast  and  pray  for  the  sal- 

1  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  702,  704. 

^  Wallingford  (from  whom  so  many  errors  have  found  entrance  into 
English  history)  says  (Gale,  t.  i.  p.  527)  that  Cenred  had  engaged  to  Ji]thel- 
red  to  resign  the  crown  to  his  (Jilthelred's)  son  on  his  majority.  That 
the  resignation  of  Cenred  took  place  before  the  J  3th  June,  704,  appears 
from  the  document  in  Hickes,  t.  iii.  p.  262.  n.  I^J . 

2  Sax.  Chron,     Fl.  Wigorn.  obiit  a.  716. 

^  Vita  S.  Guthlaci  in  Actis  Sanctorum,  App.  i.  vol.  ii.  p.  39. 


224  MERCIA. 

vation  of  the  souls  of  their  forsaken  consorts,  their  relations 
and  people,  to  the  end  of  their  earthly  course  ^  His  successor 
Ceolred  died  in  the  same  year  as  his  father. 

Ceolred  has  by  later  writers,  whose  accounts  are  probably 
derived  from  the  chronicle  of  some  monastery  favoured  by 
him,  been  celebrated,  in  pompous  diction,  as  the  illustrious 
heir  of  his  father's  and  his  grandfather's  virtues ;  but  to  us 
the  unfavourable  testimony,  given  by  one  of  his  most  distin- 
guished contemporaries,  the  archbishop  of  Mentz,  Boniface, 
appears  more  worthy  of  belief".  He  seems  to  have  lacked 
either  the  valour  or  the  good  fortune  of  Penda,  for  in  the  war 
between  him  and  Ine,  the  honour  of  victory  at  the  battle  of 
Wodnes-beorh  was  claimed  by  both  parties.  His  young  pre- 
sumptive successor,  the  clito^  /Ethelbald,  son  of  Alweo,  the 
brother  of  Penda,  who,  though  remote,  was  yet  his  next 
relative,  he  persecuted  inexorably.  Like  Penda  he  was  hostile 
to  the  church,  and  gave  himself  up  to  sensual  pleasures  with 
a  recklessness  that  made  him  the  prey  of  death  during  the 
riot  of  a  feast,  thus  supplying  an  historic  interpretation  to  the 
monkish  tradition,  that  the  evil  spirit,  while  conversing  with 
him,  had  deprived  him  of  life'*. 

^thelbald  had  hitherto  found  in  the  marshes  of  Croyland, 
where  he  afterwards  founded  the  celebrated  abbey,  not  only  a 
shelter,  but  instruction,  with  the  holy  hermit  St.  Guthlac, 
who,  like  the  royal  house  of  Mercia,  was  of  the  noble  race  of 
the  Icelings.  He  was  acknowledged  as  king  without  oppo- 
sition. He  is  described  as  of  vast  bodily  strength,  graceful 
form  and  great  courage ;  but  pride  and  sensuality  were  the 

1  Beda,  v.  19.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  709. 

-  Bonifacii  Ep.  ad  ^thelbaldum.  Malmcsbury  has  given  us  a  portion 
of  this  letter. 

^  Clito  was  a  title  given  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  the  members  of  a  royal 
house,  and  seems  equivalent  to  iEtheling,  of  which  it  was  probably  in- 
teiided  as  a  translation. 

"^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  71 C.  Bonifacii  Epist.  ad  ^thelbaldum  ap.  Malraesb. 
lib.  i. 


MERCIA,  225 

reproach  of  his  earlier  years  ^  While  providing  by  strict 
justice  for  the  internal  peace  of  the  country,  for  the  clergy 
and  the  poor,  by  liberal  disbursements,  and  appearing  to  ex- 
ecute his  public  duties,  he  addicted  himself  to  excesses  with 
married  women  and  nuns,  and  hurried  the  thanes  of  Mercia 
into  the  same  vortex  of  corruption  and  dissoluteness.  The 
affectionate  interest  with  which  Boniface  ever  regarded  the 
fortunes  of  his  native  country,  the  fervour  with  which  he 
dared  to  set  before  the  king  his  transgressions,  with  a  remark- 
able allusion  to  the  chastity  of  the  Old-Saxons,  were  not  with- 
out an  effect,  which  may  have  been  increased  by  the  circum- 
stance, that  the  scorner  of  holy  wedlock  was  childless.  At  a 
synod  held  by  archbishop  Cuthberht,  at  Clofesho  in  Oxford- 
shire, it  was  attempted,  through  the  prelates  and  monks,  to 
effect  a  reformation  of  the  laity^. 

^thelbald's  reign  of  forty-one  years  was  distinguished  by 
many  successful  conflicts  with  the  Britons.  East  Anglia, 
Kent,  and  Essex  followed  his  standard  without  a  struggle, 
and,  for  a  time,  Wessex  also,  against  the  common  enemy. 
Taking  advantage  of  a  change  of  government  he  invaded 
Northumbria,  but  was  driven  back  by  king  Eadberht^. 
Nevertheless  the  haughty  ^thelbald  maintained  the  supre- 

*  Ingulph.  sub  init.  See  the  letter  already  cited  of  Boniface.  Cf.  also 
Felicis  Girwii  Vita  S.  Guthlaci  in  Actis  Sanctor.  April,  xi.  c.  3  et  4. 

'  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.e.  4.  [The  passage  relating  to  the  Old-Saxons  is 
worth  insertion  :  "  In  antiqua  Saxonia,  ubi  nulla  est  Christi  cognitio,  si 
virgo  in  paterna  domo,  vel  maritata  sub  conjuge,  fuerit  adulterata,  manu 
propria  strangulatam  creraant,  et  supra  fossara  sepultse  corruptorem  sus- 
pendunt;  aut,  cingulo  tenus  vestibus  abscissis,  flagellant  earn  casta; 
matronse  et  cultellis  pungunt,  et  de  villa  in  villara  missje  occurrunt  novfe 
flagellatrices,  donee  interimant.  Insuper  et  Winedi,  quod  est  foedissimum 
genus  hominum,  hunc  habent  morem,  ut  mulier  viro  raortuo  se  in  rogo 
cremati  pariter  arsura  prsecipitet."  Malm.  1.  cit.  and  De  Gestis  Pontif.  lib.  i. 
e.  4.  places  the  Council  of  Clofesho  in  747.  The  true  date,  which  is  given 
in  the  Sax.  Chron.,  is  manifest  from  ^thelbald's  charter,  beginning  "Anno 
DccxLii.  regni  ^thibaldi  xxvii.  congregatum  est  magnum  concilium  apud 
Clouesho,"  etc.  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  105. — T.] 

^  App.  ad  Bedam,  a.  740. 

VOL.  I.  Q 


226  MERCIA. 

macy  in  Britain  ^,  and  was  able,  either  by  hostile  inroads  or 
by  fomenting  rebeUions,  so  to  weaken  his  most  potent  rival, 
Cuthred  of  Wessex,  that  he  was  reduced  to  submit  to  the 
most  humiliating  oppressions.  But  excess  of  disgrace  soon 
re-assembled  the  disaffected  nobles  of  his  realm  around  the 
king  of  Wessex,  who  was,  moreover,  much  strengthened  by  a 
reconciliation  with  his  brave  and  powerful  ealdorman  ^thel- 
hun%  who  had  unsuccessfully  risen  in  arms  against  him. 
The  battle  at  Burford^  was  to  the  West  Saxons  a  struggle  for 
life  and  liberty,  to  the  Mercians  for  the  supremacy  in  Britain, 
^thelhun,  bearing  in  his  hand  the  golden  dragon,  the  banner 
of  Wessex,  marched  in  the  front  of  the  army,  and  slew  the 
standard-bearer  of  the  Mercians.  The  fall  of  so  conspicuous 
a  person  struck  terror  into  the  enemy,  and  raised  the  courage 
of  the  West  Saxons.  A  battle  of  such  importance,  fought  with 
so  much  valour  and  obstinacy,  rarely  took  place  between  those 
people.  Though  no  one  gave  ground,  yet  no  one  was  more 
forward  than  ^thelhun,  whose  battle-axe,  rapid  as  lightning, 
clove  both  armour  and  body,  whose  way  was  marked  by 
death.  In  like  manner  did  the  unconquered  sword  of  ^thel- 
bald  cut  through  armour  as  a  garment,  and  bones  as  though 
they  had  been  flesh.  Like  firebrands  in  the  opposite  arrays 
they  spread  destruction  around  them,  when  at  once  the  two 
gigantic  terrific  forms  stood  over  against  each  other.  A 
mutual  glance,  a  mutual  attack  instantly  followed,  when, 
strange  to  relate,  yet  not  without  example,  strength  and 
courage  on  a  sudden  forsook  the  king,  who,  while  his  men 
were  yet  bravely  fighting,  fled  at  a  moment  when  a  single 

^  In  a  charter  of  736  he  styles  himself,  "  Rex  non  solum  Marcersium, 
sed  et  omnium  provinciarum  quae  generale  nomine  Sutangli  dicuntur  :  "  and 
signs,  "Ego  iEtdilbalt,  Rex  Britanniffi."  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  96.  Smith's 
Beda,  p.  786.     Hemingford,  t.  i.  p.  219- 

2  The  title  of  Consul  is  given  to  him.  H.  Hunt.  a.  750.  So  Matt.  West- 
mon.  a.  708.  "  Offerus  consul  Northamhymbrorum." 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  752.  In  the  account  of  this  battle  it  will  be  easy  to 
recognise  the  pompous  diction  of  Henry  of  Huntingdon. — T. 


OFFA.  227 

stroke  might  have  decided  the  fate  of  himself  and  kingdom. 
For  the  one  and  the  other,  from  that  day,  the  sun  of  their 
glory  was  set.  A  few  years  afterwards  he  fought  another  battle 
against  Wessex  at  Secandun',  where,  disdaining  flight,  not- 
withstanding the  slaughter  of  his  people,  he  either  fell  in  the 
field,  or  was  treacherously  murdered  by  his  guards,  and  buried 
at  Repton^.  Beornred,  who  had  placed  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  army  and  government,  was  obliged  in  the  following- 
year^  to  yield  to  the  superior  power  and  pretensions  of  Offa, 
a  descendant  of  the  royal  house  of  Wibba,  and  to  retire  from 
the  kingdom  of  Mercia. 

The  real  name  of  Offa  is  said  to  have  been  Winfrith'^;  his 
father  was  an  ealdorman  named  Thingfrith.  Though  lame, 
dumb,  and  blind  from  his  birth,  the  youth  acquired  speed  of 
foot,  speech,  and  sight,  Avhen  the  usurper  Beornred  persecuted 
his  parents  and  oppressed  his  native  land.  Hence  he  obtained 
the  name  of  the  second  Offa,  from  his  resemblance  to  his 
ancestor,  Offa  (Uffo)  the  son  of  Waermund,  king  of  Angeln, 
who,  blind  from  his  birth  till  his  seventh  year,  and  dumb  till 
his  thirtieth,  yet,  roused  by  the  impending  shame  of  being 
excluded  from  the  succession,  through  a  war  threatened  by 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  755.  Florence  calls  the  battle-place  Segeswald.  Seck- 
ington  in  Warwickshire  is  supposed  to  be  the  spot. — T. 

^  Sim,  Dunelm.  H.  Hunt.  "  non  sine  miserabili  exercituum  ruina, 
fugam  dedignans,  occisus  est,"  which  has  been  incorrectly  copied  by 
Matt.  Westmon.  a.  755.  "per  fugam  non  declinans  ruinam  interfectus 
occubuit." 

^  The  Saxon  Chronicles  are  wrong  in  the  year  755,  but  right  in  7 16, 
where  .^thelbald  is  said  to  have  reigned  forty-one  years.     Sim.  Dunelm. 

says,  a.  757,  "  Ethelbald interfectus  est.     Eodem  vero  anno  Merci 

bellum  inter  se  civile  inierunt.  Bearnred  in  fugam  verso,  Offa  rex  victor 
extitit."  My  more  definite  account  is  founded  on  the  acts  of  the  Council 
of  Cealchythin  789,  the  thirty-first  of  the  reign  of  Oft'a.  Hickes,  t.  i.  p.  171. 
The  victory  over  Beornred  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  757,  and  the  coro- 
nation of  Ofi"a  probably  only  in  758.  That  the  regnal  years  are  not 
reckoned  from  the  day  of  the  predecessor's  death,  but  from  that  of  the 
coronation,  appears  from  many  passages,  as  Sim.  Dunelm.  aa.  758  and  759. 

*  In  the  Vita  Offse  II.  he  is  called  Pinefrid,  no  doubt  a  repetition  of  the 
usual  blunder  in  the  Latin  chronicles  of  P  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  W  ( V). — T. 

Q  2 


228  OFFA. 

the  king  of  the  Saxons,  suddenly  recovered  the  use  of  speech 
and  sights 

Such  is  the  account  given  by  the  Danish  wTiters,  though 
the  author  of  the  Life  of  Offa  II.  supposes  that  the  son  of 
Waermund  reigned  in  England.  In  the  general  outline  his 
story  is  nearly  the  same  as  that  given  in  the  Danish  chronicles, 
which  are,  however,  not  in  perfect  accordance  with  each  other. 
It  seems,  therefore,  not  improbable  that  the  monkish  bio- 
grapher derived  some  parts  of  his  narrative  from  ancient 
sources  with  which  we  are  unacquainted,  and  that  between 
the  two  Offas  there  existed  some  points  of  similitude  suffi- 
cient for  a  foundation  to  the  parallel. 

'  However  the  several  accounts  of  the  genealogies  of  the  Mercian  kings 
may  vary  with  regard  to  the  other  names,  they  all,  nevertheless,  agree  with 
respect  to  Wihtljeg,  Wermund  and  Offa.  See  Nennius,  Alfred  of  Beverley, 
Saxon  Chron.  a.  626.  This  remark  holds  good  also  for  the  same  three 
kings,  in  the  otherwise  varying  lists  of  Saxo  and  that  in  Eric's  Chronicle ; 
though  in  Svend  Aagesen  Wiglet  (Wihtlseg)  is  wanting.  But  in  all  the 
three  authors,  who  draw  from  different  sources,  we  find  the  same  story 
of  Uffo.  The  Danish  or  Anglian  Uffo,  it  is  true,  is  not  blind,  but  is  the 
son  of  the  blind  Wermund ;  that  he  was  dumb  till  his  thirtieth  year  is 
expressly  mentioned  by  Svend  Aagesen,  In  Beowulf  we  have  Garmund 
(Wermund),  Ongentheow  (Angeltheow),  Higelac  (Icel),  all  belonging  to 
the  genealogy  of  the  Mercian  kings.  See  a  taga  of  Offa  in  Beow.  xxvii. 
[Cod.  Exou.  p.  320  ;  also  Beow.  vol.  i.  p.  258,  and  vol.  ii.  p.  xxxii  sq.  The 
single  combat,  in  which  Uffo  revenged  the  insult  offered  to  his  father  and 
himself,  took  place  on  an  island  in  the  Eider,  where  a  part  of  the  city  of 
Rensburg,  called  the  Altstadt,  now  stands.  Wermund's  adversary  is  said 
to  have  been  Sigar,  a  king  of  Holstein  ;  the  name  of  his  son,  slain  by  Uffo, 
was  Hildebrand.  See  Saxo,  lib.  iv.,  and  Sveno  Aggonis.  ap.  Langebek. — 
T.],  also  Dahlmann's  Forschungen,  Th.  i.  p.  233.  The  story  of  the  two 
Offas  has  been  written  by  a  monk  of  St.  Albans,  and  is  printed  at  the  end 
of  Watts's  edition  of  Matt.  Paris.  The  account  of  the  elder  Offa  agrees 
for  the  most  part  with  Svend  Aagesen's,  not  only  in  the  general  outline, 
but  also  in  the  first  speech  of  Uffo  or  Offa.  Nor  is  the  agreement  of  the 
two  sagas  in  the  girding  of  the  youth  with  the  sword  by  the  father,  as  well 
as  the  ensuing  combat,  to  be  overlooked.  It  is,  however,  remarkable  that, 
besides  these  '  Vitse,'  the  date  and  author  of  which  are  unknown,  no  other 
ancient  English  writer  mentions  the  story  of  the  youth  of  Offa,  not  even 
Broraton  himself.  [The  story  of  the  Danish  Uffo  is  well  condensed  by 
Suhm,  Historie  af  Danmark,  Bd.  i.,  or  in  Grater's  translation,  Bd.  i.  p.  11 7. 


OFFA.  229 

At  the  Council  of  Clofesho,  and  on  other  occasions,  the 
name  of  the  young  patrician  Offa  appears  next  in  order  to 
that  of  the  king,  at  least  before  those  of  the  other  laity.  OfFa 
himself,  in  two  of  his  charters,  mentions  his  grandfather 
Eanwulf,  who,  in  king  -^thelbald's  time,  held  land  in  the 
territory  of  the  Hwiccas,  where,  at  Bredon,  he  had  founded 
a  church',  and  who,  if  we  may  hazard  a  conjecture  on  the 
alliteration  of  names,  so  frequent  among  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
was  either  father  or  brother  of  the  Christian  petty  kings  of 
that  country,  Eanfrith  and  Eanhere.  We  must,  therefore, 
consider  him  as  the  nearest  relative  of  the  king,  though  de- 
scending in  a  collateral  line  from  their  common  ancestor^,  and 
ascribe  the  bloody  wars^  attending  his  accession  to  the  throne 
to  the  resistance  of  Beornred,  whom  we  meet  with  some  years 
afterwards  in  Northumbria,  where  he  burnt  Catterick,  but  in 
the  same  year  perished  himself  by  fire,  as  we  are  told,  by  the 
judgement  of  God'*. 

Offa's  dominion  does  not  seem  to  have  been  firmly  esta- 
blished before  the  death  of  Beornred ;  till  then  we  do  not  find 
him  engaged  beyond  the  limits  of  his  kingdom.  His  first 
memorable  expedition  was  against  the  Ilestingas,  a  people 
whose  locality,  like  that  of  many  others  among  the  Saxons,  is 
not  known  with  certainty.     They  have  been  sought  for  about 

'  See  charters  in  Smith's  Beda,  pp.  76Qj  7Q7,  and  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i. 
pp.  169,  176. 

-  "  Offa  quinto  genu  Pendse  abnepos."  W.  Malm.  hb.  i.  But  this  is 
incorrect,  as  he  descended  from  Eawa,  son  of  Wibba,  the  brother  of  Penda. 
Saxon  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  755,  with  which  Alfred  of  Beverley  agrees, 
"cujus  (sc.  iEdilbaldi)  pati-uelis,  Enulii  nepos  Offa."  Malmesbury  makes 
a  similar  mistake  with  regard  to  Cenwulf,  the  second  successor  of  Offa. 
See  p.  238. 

^  App.  ad  Bedam,  a.  757-  Alcuinus  ap.  Malmesb.  lib.  i.  c.  4.  "  Non  arbi- 
tror  quod  nobilissimus  juvenis  Egfcrtus  propter  peccata  sua  mortuus  sit, 
sed  quia  pater  suus  (Offa  sc.)  pro  confirmatione  regni  ejus  multum  san- 
guinem  eft'udit." 

•*   Matt.  Westmon.  a.  769-      Sim.  Dunelm.,  where  it  is  erroneously  said, 

"  Earnredo  tyranno incendio  periit,  Dei  judicio."     According  to 

Malmesbury,  Beornred  was  slain  by  Offa  in  757. 


230  OFFA. 

Hastings  in  Sussex,  and  most  probably  inhabited  the  district 
around  that  town  to  which  they  gave  their  namei.  Some 
years  after  Offa  fought  a  bloody  battle  against  his  hated 
enemies,  the  men  of  Kent^,  at  Otford  on  the  Darent,  in  which 
the  Mercians  gained  the  victory^. 

In  the  following  year  OfFa  overcame  at  Bensington  in 
Oxfordshire  Cynewulf  of  Wessex,  a  prince  celebrated  for  his 
valour,  and  took  from  him  the  royal  town  of  Bensington^. 
In  the  wars  against  the  Britons  his  arms  were  equally  suc- 
cessful. In  the  early  part  of  his  reign  he  had  repulsed  them 
at  Hereford^,  and  subsequently  devastated  Deheubarth  or 
South  Wales'^.  From  the  king  of  Powis  he  took  a  consider- 
able tract  of  his  territory,  and  even  his  residence  Pengwern 
(Shrewsbury).  The  flat  country  at  the  foot  of  the  eastern 
sides  of  the  mountains,  between  the  Wye  and  the  Severn,  he 
peopled  with  Anglo-Saxons,  no  defence  being  so  efficacious 
as  that  of  free  dwellers  on  the  land,  whose  settlements  may 
still  be  traced  by  their  Saxon  denominations.  To  protect  the 
settlers  from  the  sudden  inroads  and  maraudings  of  the  hostile 
mountaineers,  he  caused  to  be  constructed  a  considerable 
rampart  with  a  ditch",  from  the  mouth  of  the  Dee  to  that  of 
the  Wye.  This  work,  known  by  the  name  of  OfFa's  dvke. 
traces  of  which  are  yet  discernible,  so  well  answered  its  pur- 
pose, that  it  became  the  boundary  between  Britons  and 
Mercians,  and  afterwards  between  Wales  and  England.    The 

1  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  771.  To  the  town  of  Hastings  there  belonged,  at  a 
later  period,  a  territory  of  500  hydes.  See  Gale,  t.  i.  p.  748.  See  also 
Palgrave,  vol.  ii.  p.  cclxxix. 

2  W.  Malm,  lib.i.  (speaking  of  Cenwulf),  "Contra  Cantuaritas  succes- 
sivum  ab  Offa  suscipiens  odium,  regionem  illam  valide  afflixit."  Sim.  Dun- 
elm,  a.  798.     Mailros.  Hoveden  h.  a.,  who  copies  Simeon. 

3  Sax.  Chron,  a.  774  (one  MS.  reads  773).     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  774. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  777  (one  MS.  reads  775).  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  778.  H.  Hunt. 
a.  777.  *  Annal.  Camb.  Bmt  y  Tyw.  a.  760. 

^  Annal.  Camb.  a.  778.     Brut  y  Tyw.  a.  776. 

'  Asser  V.  JElfredi.  "Offa qui  vallum  magnum  inter  Britanniam 

atque  Mercian!  de  mari  usque  ad  mare  facere  imperavit."  Giraldus  de 
lUaudabilibus. 


OFFA.  231 

last  Anglo-Saxon  king,  Harold,  ordered  that  every  Briton 
who  should  appear  armed  on  this  side  of  OfFa's  dyke  should 
have  his  right  hand  struck  ofF^.  If  the  British  language  and 
British  customs  are  met  with  on  this  side  of  the  barrier^,  they 
are  to  be  attributed  either  to  Welsh  reduced  to  a  state  of 
complete  subjection,  or  who,  at  a  later  period,  forsook  their 
desert  mountain  heights  for  the  fertility  of  the  plain. 

Nothing  would  more  raise  the  wars  of  Offa  above  desendng 
the  appellation  of  battles  between  the  kites  and  the  crows,  by 
which  the  great  epic  poet  of  England  has  unconsciously  eter- 
nalized the  narrow  historic  notions  of  his  time^,  than  if  it 
could  be  granted  us  accurately  to  ascertain  how  far  they  were 
influenced  by  the  mighty  ruler  of  the  Franks,  Charles  the 
Great.  If  any  reliance  may  be  placed  on  the  monkish  bio- 
grapher, the  kings  of  Kent,  previously  to  the  invasion  of  that 
state  by  Offa,  had  applied  to  Charles  for  his  aid  and  protec- 
tion^. The  menacing  letters  of  the  emperor  were  unheeded 
by  the  Mercian,  and  in  the  course  of  years  their  mutual  suc- 
cess united  the  lord  of  the  Germanic  insular  realm  with  the 
chief  of  the  Roman  continent.  Charles  sent  to  Offa — or,  as 
he  himself  expresses  it,  the  most  powerful  ruler  of  the  East 
to  the  most  powerful  iniler  of  the  West — many  costly  presents, 
the  catalogue  of  which  has  been  preserved,  though  not  that 
of  the  presents  sent  in  return,  which  to  us  would  have  been 
of  far  greater  interest.  From  a  charter  with  its  seal  still  in 
existence,  we  know,  however,  that  Offa,  king  of  the  Mercians, 
confirmed  certain  gifts  of  land  near  the  port  of  Lundenwyc^, 

^  Joh.  Salisbur.  Polj'crat.  lib.  vi.  See  a  more  particular  account  of  OfFa's 
dyke  in  R.  Higden,  Polychron.  p.  194. 

2  Asser,  x.  Camden,  edit.  Gibson,  p.  587-  Higden  also  says,  "  Sed  hodie 
hinc  inde,  ultra  citraque  fossam  illam,  potissimum  in  provincia  Cestrise, 
Salopise,  Herfordise,  Wallici  cum  Anglicis  passim  sunt  permixti." 

^  "  Such  bickerings  to  recount,  met  often  in  these  our  writers,  what  more 
worth  is  it  than  to  chronicle  the  wars  of  kites  or  crows,  flocking  and  fight- 
ing in  the  air  :"  Milton,  Hist,  of  England.— T.  *  Vita  Offfe  II. 

*  This  remarkable  charter,  dated  April  5,  790,  together  with  those  of 
other  English  kings  in  favour  of  St.  Denis,  exist  in  the  Tresor  des  Chartes, 
in  the  Hotel  Soubise  at  Paris. 


232  OFFA. 

made  by  one  of  his  subjects  to  the  abbey  of  St.  Denis,  The 
same  highly  favoured  cloister  received  from  another  of  Offa's 
vassals,  the  ealdorman  Berhtwald  of  Sussex,  with  the  confir- 
mation of  the  king,  the  church  of  llotherfield,  and  his  ports 
of  Hastings  and  Pevensey^  Charlemagne  promised  not  only 
to  pilgrims,  but  also  to  merchants  from  England,  his  im- 
mediate protection^,  which  last  concession  may,  perhaps,  be 
regarded  as  an  extension  of  the  privilege  granted  by  Dagobert 
to  the  Anglo-Saxons  attending  the  fair  at  St.  Denis,  and  may, 
therefore,  have  been  the  immediate  cause  of  the  above-men- 
tioned donations.  A  dangerous  misunderstanding  took  place, 
however,  between  the  two  monarchs  on  the  following  occasion. 
Charlemagne  had  demanded  for  his  son  Charles  the  hand  of 
one  of  Offa's  daughters,  which  the  latter  would  grant  only  on 
condition  that  to  his  own  son  Ecgferth  (Ecgfrith)  should  be 
given  in  marriage  Berhta,  the  beloved  daughter  of  Charle- 
magne, who  w-as  afterwards  secretly  married  to  Angilbert, 
the  learned  abbot  of  St.  Riquier,  and  is  celebrated  by  her 
contemporaries  as  the  softened  resemblance  of  her  father  in 
mind,  voice,  aspect,  and  bearing^.  Gerwold,  abbot  of  St. 
Wandrille  or  Fontenelle,  of  a  distinguished  family,  and 
formerly  chaplain  to  queen  Bertrade,  but  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  administration  of  the  customs  in  the  northern 

*  Charter  of  792  ap.  Du  Chesne.     Monast.  Angl.  t.  vi.  p.  1077. 

2  See  the  letter  of  Charles  to  Offa  in  Wilkins,  Cone.  t.  i.  p.  158,  in  Al- 
cuini  Oper.  t.  ii.  App.  p.  618,  and  an  extract  of  it  in  Malmesbury,  Leiand 
Collect,  t.  i.p.402.  Cf.  Privilege  of  Pepin,  a.  753,  ap.  Bouquet,  t.  v.  p.  227. 
As  in  this  letter  he  speaks  of  the  death  of  pope  Hadrian  I.,  which  took 
place  in  Dec.  795,  and  mentions  ^thelred  of  Northumbria,  who  died  on 
the  following  18th  of  April,  as  still  living,  the  date  of  it  is  fixed  with 
tolerable  accuracy.  According  to  this  letter  the  emperor,  besides  other 
presents,  sends  to  Offa  a  Hunnic  sword  and  belt,  and  two  silken  mantles ; 
a  circumstance  greatly  in  favour  of  the  genuineness  of  the  letter,  as  Charles, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  year  796,  distributed  many  presents  from  the  trea- 
sures taken  from  the  Huns.      See  Einh.  Annal.  a.  796.     Chron.  Moissac. 

Sim.  Dunelm.a.  795.  "  Karolus Hunorum  gentem  subegerat 

sublatis  inde  xv.  plaustris  auro  argen toque  palliisque  holosericis  preciosis 
repletis." 

*  See  Helperich's  or  Angilbert's  '  Carolus  Magnus,'?;.  219  sq. 


OFFA.  233 

towns  and  ports  of  France,  particularly  at  Quentawic,  was 
frequently  sent  with  commissions  from  the  emperor  to  king 
Offa,  with  whom  he  had  become  very  intimate.  He  was, 
nevertheless,  unsuccessful  in  his  endeavours  to  lower  the 
proud  pretension  of  the  descendant  of  Woden,  and  to  induce 
him  to  abandon  a  demand,  which  had  so  greatly  incensed 
the  invincible  emperor  of  the  Franks,  that  it  required  all  his 
exertions  to  prevent  the  closing  of  the  French  sea-ports 
against  the  merchants  of  England  ^  According  to  other 
accounts,  the  decree  was  already  carried  into  effect,  a  similar 
interdict  was  also  issued  by  Offa  in  the  English  ports,  and 
Alcwine,  the  friend  of  both  princes,  was  destined  to  appease 
a  quarrel  arising  from  disappointed  ambition^.  We  are  made 
acquainted  with  the  restoration  of  peace  by  an  earlier  docu- 
ment than  the  before-mentioned  letter  to  Offa,  namely,  by  a 
letter  of  intercession  in  favour  of  some  Mercian  exiles,  to 
^thelheard,  archbishop  of  Canterbury^. 

The  notion  of  Offa's  great  influence  at  this  time,  entertained 
by  pope  Hadrian,  was  grounded  more  on  the  suspicion  that 
the  king  of  Mercia  was  desirous  to  instigate  the  Frankish 
monarch  to  cast  him  from  the  papal  chair'*  than  on  the  splen- 
dour attending  many  victories  over  his  countrymen.  That  a 
hostile  disposition  might  have  arisen  between  Offa  and  the 
pope  is,  considering  the  pretensions  raised  by  the  latter  at 
every  opportunity,  exceedingly  probable.  While  the  small 
kingdom  of  Kent,  which  had  already  been  under  subjection 
to  his  ancestors,  possessed  the  first  primacy  of  the  Anglo- 

^  Chron.  Fontanel,  in  Monura.  Hist.  Germ.  t.  ii.  p.291,accordingto  which 
this  event  took  place  about  the  year  788. 

-  Epist.  Alcuini  ad  Colcura  Lectorera  in  Scotia.  Bouquet,  t.  v.  p.  607  ; 
also  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  c.  4. 

^  Wilkins,  t.  i.  p.  154.  Alcuini  Epist.  Ixi.  JEthelheard  became  arch- 
bishop in  791.  [Tliese  exiles  were  probably  those  who  had  sided  with 
Beornred  against  Offa.  There  seems  little  doubt  that  they  had  been  har- 
boured by  Charles  for  hostile  purposes. — T. J 

**  Hadriani  Epist.  ap.  Bouquet,  t.  v.  p.  589. 


234  OFFA. 

Saxon  church,  and  the  one  next  in  rank  was  placed  in  the 
rapidly  declining  state  of  Northumbrian  Offa  felt  the  want,  in 
his  own  more  powerful  realm,  of  a  prelate  independent  of 
both  Canterbury  and  York.  He  had  long  vainly  endeavoured 
to  persuade  Jaenberht,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  transfer 
his  see  to  Lichfield.  The  archbishop  was  now  accused  of 
having  promised  aid  and  shelter  in  his  diocese  to  the  Franks^ 
in  the  case  of  their  effecting  a  hostile  landing  in  England' ; 
which  reason,  together  with  others,  such  as  that  Offa  was 
desirous  of  founding  an  archiepiscopal  see  near  the  spot  where 
he  had  humbled  his  enemies,  being  considered  valid,  it  was 
resolved,  in  a  synod  held  at  Cealchyth,  under  the  legate  of 
Hadrian,  to  establish  a  separate  archbishopric  for  the  kingdom 
of  Mercia,  which  should  be  conferred  on  the  hitherto  bishops 
of  Lichfield,  and  first  in  the  person  of  Aldulf^,  the  successor 
of  Higeberht.  That  this  new  ecclesiastical  arrangement,  not- 
withstanding the  ready  comphance  yielded  to  the  formidable 
Offa,  must  have  been  a  source  of  heartburning  among  the 
neighbouring  kingdoms,  already  in  a  state  of  irritation  from 
so  many  other  causes,  may  be  easily  imagined,  the  effects  of 
which  were  manifested  in  the  early  abolition  of  the  archiepi- 
scopal see  of  Lichfield. 

Offa  acquired  greater  renown  to  himself  and  greater  power 
to  his  state  than  had  ever  been  possessed  by  any  Anglo-Saxon 
king  or  kingdom^.  His  firmness  and  his  valour  are  incon- 
testable. His  delight  in  reading  is  also  celebrated  by  his 
contemporaries''.  For  the  better  administration  of  his  domi- 
nions he  provided  by  the  formation  or  collection  of  a  code  of 

1  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.     Vita  Offa  II.  p.  21. 

2  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  and  De  Gestis  Pont.  lib.  iv.  Vita  Offe.  Rad.  Dicet. 
Abbrev.  Chron.  a.  787,  where  the  limits  of  the  new  archbishopric  are  given. 
Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  786. 

■«  See  charters  of  780  in  Cod.  Diplom.  pp.  167,  169.  Smith's  Beda, 
p.  767.  "  Ego  Offa,  Dei  gratia  concedente,  rex  Merciorum  simulque  na- 
tionum  in  circuitu." 

•*  Alcuini  Opera,  fol.  1554. 


OFFA.  235 

Mercian  laws,  the  loss  of  which  is  deeply  to  be  lamented  ^ 
Yet  were  these  estimable  qualities,  by  means  of  which  he  had 
founded  his  power,  stained  with  crime  which  stands  in  sin- 
gular contrast  to  the  better  part  of  his  character.     No  deed 
has  excited  greater  horror  than  the  murder  of  -^Ethelberht-, 
the  young  and  accomplished  king  of  the    East  Angles,  of 
which  he  is  accused.     In  the  hope  of  obtaining  the  hand  of 
^thelthryth,  the  daughter  of  OfFa,  this  unfortunate  prince 
had,  by  the  advice  of  his  council,  though  in  opposition  to  the 
will  of  his  mother,  set  out  on  a  journey  to  the  Mercian  court. 
On  arriving  at  the  border  he  sent  forward  a  letter  to  Offa, 
together  with  valuable  presents,  and  in  return  received  an 
invitation  couched  in  the  warmest  terms,  with  an  assurance 
of  security.     By  OfFa  he  was  received  in  the  most  hospitable 
and  splendid  manner ;  but  after  he  had  retired  to  his  apart- 
ment for  the  night,  a  message  was  brought  to  him  by  an 
officer  of  the  palace  named  Wimberht,  that  OfFa  was  desirous 
of  conferring  with  him  on  business  of  moment.     The  un- 
suspecting guest  followed  the  messenger,  but  when  passing 
through  a  dark  passage  he  was  attacked  and  basely  murdered 
by  assassins  posted  there  for  the  purpose.     By  the  monk  of 
St.  Albans  the  guilt  of  this  foul  murder  has  been  transferred 
from  the  head  of  the  founder  of  his  abbey  to  that  of  the  queen 
Cynethryth^ ;  but,  in  such  a  case,  privity  to  the  deed  is  as 
criminal  as  the  deed  itself,  especially  when,  as  in  the  instance 
of  OfFa,  who  soon  rendered  himself  master  of  the  kingless 
state,  the  fruits  of  the  perfidy  must  inevitably  fall  to  the  ac- 
complice.   OfFa  afFected  great  sorrow  for  this  atrocious  crime, 

'  See  Laws  of  Alfred  in  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes,  p.  27,  fol.  edit. 

2  Sax.  Chron.  a.  792. 

3  So  not  only  the  Vita  Offx  IL,  but  also  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  793.    ["  Offee 

detestanda  jussione,  suseque  conjugis  Cynethrithe  reginee  nefaria 

persuasione,  regno  vitaque  privatus  est  capititis  abscissione."  The  Sax. 
Chron.  Ethelwerd,  H.  Hunt.,  W.  Malm.,  place  the  event  in  792,  and  agree 
as  to  the  decapitation.  By  R.  Wendover  we  are  told  that  the  queen  caused 
her  victim  to  fall  into  a  pit  prepared  under  his  couch,  where  he  was  smo- 
thered by  the  attendants.  See  Fl.  Hist.  t.  i.  p.  250.— T.] 


236  OFFA. 

and  raised  a  stately  monument  over  the  remains  of  his  victim 
in  the  church  of  Hereford^  on  which  he  bestowed  rich  dona- 
tions. In  the  same  year  ^Iflaed,  another  daughter  of  OfFa, 
was  married  to  ^thelred  king  of  Northumbria. 

Among  those  events  recorded  of  Offa's  hfe  of  which  the 
authenticity  is  very  questionable,  is  a  journey  to  Rome  which 
he  is  said  to  have  made  towards  the  latter  part  of  his  reign. 
His  munificence  to  the  churches  and  pious  establishments  in 
that  city  is  highly  extolled;  and  though  it  is  difficult  to 
ascribe  to  Offa  other  than  ambitious  motives',  yet,  if  we  con- 
sider the  age  in  which  he  lived  rather  than  the  individual,  a 
pilgrimage  in  expiation  of  the  murder  of  ^thelberht  appears 
by  no  means  improbable.  But  though  Ofla  himself  may  not 
have  visited  Rome,  the  accounts  of  his  liberality  to  the  Saxon 
school  there^,  and  of  the  donation  or  confirmation  of  Rome- 
scot  for  the  benefit  of  that  foundation,  seem  not  undeserving 
of  credit. 

Offa  during  eight-and-thirty  years  had  toiled  indefatigably 
for  the  aggrandizement  of  his  dominion,  when  he  was  seized 
by  the  hand  of  death^  only  a  few  years  after  the  murder  of 
yEthelberht,  Avhich  had  called  doM'n  upon  him  the  execration 

'  The  monk  of  St.  Albans  is  perhaps  more  trustworthy  than  he  has 
hitherto  been  considered.  The  inmate  of  a  monastery  founded  by  Offa, 
he  has,  no  doubt,  placed  many  actions  of  the  founder  in  a  different  light 
from  that  in  which  others  have  regarded  them ;  yet  he  may  have  had  the 
use  of  documents  inaccessible  to  others.  Many  of  his  accounts  agree 
accurately  with  those  of  Florence,  W.  of  Malmesbury  and  others  ;  if, 
therefore,  he  is  not  older  than  these,  but  has  made  use  of  them,  the 
circumstance  of  having  availed  himself  of  such  sources  speaks  in  favour 
of  his  general  credibility.  He  is  not  therefore  to  be  altogether  rejected, 
but  in  cases  only  when,  for  particular  reasons,  he  is  to  be  regarded  with 
suspicion. 

-  Vita  Offffi  II.  W.  Malm.  lib.  ii.  c.  ii.  Among  the  traditions  concern- 
ing Offa  a  German  one  may  be  noticed,  viz.  that  Opho,  rex  Anglife,  the 
maternal  uncle  of  St.  Willibold,  first  bishop  of  Eichstadt,  erected  the 
monastery  of  Schuttern,  in  the  year  703  or  717-  See  Appendices  in  Chron. 
Montis  Sereni,  ed.  Mader,  pp.  282,  289. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  29  July.  Sim.  Dunelm.  26  July  a.  796.  Fl.  Wigorn.  erro- 
neously, 794. 


ECGFERTH  OF  MERCIA.  237 

of  Europe.  Seldom  do  we  see  the  hand  of  the  avenging 
Nemesis  so  manifest  as  in  the  destinies  of  the  house  of  the 
perfidious  Offa.  Cynethryth,  of  whose  ambition  and  pre- 
sumption a  tangible  proof  still  exists  in  the  coins  which  she 
alone  of  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  queens  caused  to  be  stampt  with 
her  own  image,  was,  three  months  after  the  deed  which  has 
branded  her,  thrown  by  robbers  into  her  own  well ;  a  manner 
of  death  which,  if  void  of  truth,  may,  nevertheless,  serve  to 
show  what  her  contemporaries  wished  and  thought  of  her. 
Tradition  will  not  even  acknowledge  her  as  an  Anglo-Saxon, 
but  represents  her  as  a  Frank,  who  for  some  atrocious  crime 
had  been  sent  out  to  sea  in  an  open  boat,  and  having  been 
found  by  the  youthful  OfFa,  had  seduced  him  to  conduct  her 
to  his  home^.  While  the  sanctity  of  the  pious  ^thelberht 
was  working  numerous  miracles,  the  bones  of  his  murderer 
were  washed  by  the  sweeping  floods  of  the  Ouse  out  of  their 
consecrated  earth^.  His  son  Ecgferth,  whom  in  the  year  785 
he  had  caused  to  be  crowned  king^,  died  of  disease  only  a 
few  months  after  the  death  of  his  father'*;  in  him  the  male 
line  of  Offa  was  extinguished.  Of  his  daughters,  ^Ethelthryth, 
the  affianced  of  yEthelberht,  ended  her  days  in  solitude  and 
sorrow  in  the  abbey  of  Croyland.     Of  Eadburh,  the  aban- 

^  Vita  Offse.     Broraton,  a.  752. 

-  Offa  was  buried  in  a  chapel  just  without  Bedford.  R.  Wend.  t.  i. 
p.  2G2.— T. 

^  H.  Hunt,  says  king  of  the  province  of  Kent ;  but  this  is  not  only  incon- 
sistent with  Malmesbury  and  other  authorities,  by  whom  we  are  informed 
that  Alric,  son  of  Wihtraed,  and  the  last  of  the  ^scings,  reigned  in  Kent 
till  794,  but  is  unsupported  by  the  oldest  testimonies,  which  state  merely 
that  Offa  associated  his  son  with  him  in  the  kingdom  of  Mercia,  making  no 
mention  whatever  of  Kent.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  785.  "  And  Ecgferth  was  con- 
secrated king."  Fl.  Wigorn.  "  Egferthus  rex  est  consecratus."  W.  Malm, 
lib.  i.  "  Egfertum  filium,  ante  mortem  suam,  in  regem  inunctum."  R. 
Wendover,  t.  i.  p.  247.  "In  illo  quoque  concilio  (Cealchyth)  Offa  rex  Mer- 
ciorum  potentissimus  in  regem  fecit  solemniter  coronari  Egfridum,  filium 

suum  primogenitum,  qui  deinceps  cum  patre usque  ad  finem  vitse 

ejus  regnavit."  See  also  charters  of  Offa  in  Cod.  Diplom.  Nos.  152, 1,65, 
where  Ecgferth  signs  himself  '  rex  Merciorura.' — T. 

*  Ingulphus. 


238  CENWULF  OF  MERCIA. 

doned  consort  of  Beorhtric  king  of  Wessex,  we  shall  speak 
hereafter.  The  remaining  daughter,  iElflaed,  lost  father, 
brother  and  husband  in  the  same  year. 

The  rich  inheritance  of  Offa,  dominion,  authority,  treasures, 
fell  after  the  short  reign  of  Ecgferth,  which  was  not  such  as 
to  justify  any  very  sanguine  hopes  ^,  to  Cenwulf,  a  descendant 
of  Cenwealh,  a  son  of  Wibba,  and  consequently  brother  of 
Penda.  Cenwulf  was  endowed  with  the  kingly  qualities  of 
Offa,  but  he  knew  also  how  to  maintain  his  power  by  justice 
and  clemency  as  well  as  by  valour.  So  at  least  sings  the 
praise  bestowed  on  him  almost  unanimously  by  the  eccle- 
siastical chroniclers  of  the  middle  age,  in  whose  hands  were 
placed  the  golden  keys  of  earthly  immortality  and  undying 
renown.  The  prosperity  of  his  reign,  which  was  followed  by 
no  similar  one  in  Mercia,  is  undeniable.  The  arts  of  peace 
begun  to  be  more  steadily  and,  therefore,  more  successfully 
cultivated.  Almost  the  only  art  which  has  left  behind  it  un- 
questionable monuments  of  its  time,  the  coinage,  proves  that, 
first  under  Offa,  and  subsequently  under  Cenwulf,  it  yielded 
the  best  impressions  which  Mercia  could  prodiice. 

The  ^scings  who  had  worn  the  crown  of  Kent,  though 
under  the  supremacy  of  Mercia,  were  now  extinct,  and  Cen- 
wulf formed  the  plan  of  uniting  that  kingdom  still  more 
closely  with  his  own.  He  found  an  opponent  in  Eadberht, 
surnamed  Praen,  who  held  the  sovereignty  of  Kent  for  three 
years.  This  prince,  who  seems  to  have  been  collaterally  con- 
nected Math  the  ^scings,  and  also  related  to  Ecgberht  king 
of  Wessex,  had  formerly  been  an  ecclesiastic-.     The  Mercian 

'  So  it  may  be  inferred  from  Alcwine's  letter  to  him  (No.  xlviii.). 

2  Sax.  Chron.a.  794.  Fl.Wigorn.  Thorne,  p.  2238.  Wallingford,  p.  530, 
confounds  Eadberht  Prsen  with  the  eldest  son  of  Wihtried,  who,  according 
to  the  Sax.  Chron.  and  Fl.  Wigorn.,  died  in  748.  That  he  w^as  an  eccle- 
siastic appears  from  a  letter  of  pope  Leo  (Anglia  Sacra,  t.  i.  p.  460),  where 
it  is  said,  "  De  ilia  epistola,  quara  ^thelhardus  (archiep.  Cantuar.)  nobis 

transmisit reddimus  responsuni,  quia  nos  de  clerico  illo  aposfafa,  qui 

ascenderat  in  regnum,  sirailem  ilium  reputantes  Juliano  Parabatre,  ana- 


CENWULF  OF  MERCIA.  239 

overcame  his  rival  by  the  sword,  as  well  as  by  the  equally 
efficient  aid  of  spiritual  weapons.  He  offered  to  abolish  the 
archbishopric  of  Lichfield,  an  act  which  could  not  fail  to 
dispose  in  his  favour  all  the  higher  clergy  of  England,  and 
was  especially  calculated  to  gain  over  to  the  king  of  Mercia 
the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  all  whose  interests  imme- 
diately depended  on  that  dignity.  The  pope,  Leo  the  Third, 
declared  also  his  willingness  to  abolish  the  new  archbishop- 
ric, and  to  excommunicate  the  apostate  churchman  who  had 
usurped  the  throne  of  Kent.  Cenwulf,  after  having  laid  the 
Kentish  territory  waste  as  far  as  the  marshes,  took  the  king 
Eadberht  prisoner,  led  him  bound  into  Mercia,  having  caused 
the  eyes  of  his  captive  to  be  put  out  and  his  hands  ampu- 
tated^. He  did  not,  however,  deprive  him  of  life,  but,  after 
some  time,  on  the  occasion  of  the  consecration  of  the  church 
founded  by  him  at  Winchelcomb,  which  was  conducted  with 
extraordinary  pomp,  and  at  which  splendid  gifts  were  be- 
stowed both  on  ecclesiastics  and  laymen,  he  restored  him  to 
liberty-. 

themizantes  objicimus,"  etc.     Other  particulars  concerning  liim  have  been 

preserved  only  by  H.  of  Huntingdon  :  "  Populos  Cantice rex  Egbricht 

in  dominium  suscepit,  quos  prius  cognatus  suus  Pren  injuste  amiserat. 
Edbriht  Pren  regnavit  III.  annis." 

1  Sax.  Chron.  a.  796.  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  798.  Neither  Ethelwerd  nor 
Florence  mention  the  mutilation.  "  quern  vinculis  oppressum  duxerunt 
usque  ad  Merce."  Ethelw.  a.  796.  "  ligatum  in  Merciam  secum  duxit." 
Fl.  Wigorn.— T. 

-  Malmesbury  gives  a  glowing  account  of  Cenwulf's  munificence  and 
clemency  at  this  ceremony  :  "  Apud  Winchelcumbam,  ubi  ecclesiam  Deo 
exsedificaverat,  ipsa  dedicationis  die  regem  captivum  ad  altare  manumittens, 
libertate  palpavit,  memorabile  clementise  suae  spectaculura  exhibens  [!]. 
Aderat  ibidem  regiae  munificentiae  appjausor  Cuthredus,  quem  ille  Cautua- 
ritis  regem  prsefecerat.  Sonabat  basilica  plausibus,  platea  fremebat  dis- 
cursibus,  eo  quod  ibi  in  conventu  tredecim  episcoporum,  decern  ducum, 
nuUus  largitatis  pateretur  repulsam,  omnes  suffarcinatis  marsupiis  abirent ; 
nam  praeter  ilia  xenia  quae  magnates  susceperant,  inaestimabilis  scilicet 
pretii  et  numeri,  in  utensilibus,  vestibus,  equis  electissimis,  omnibus,  qui 
agros  non  habebant,  libram  argenti,  presbyteris  marcam  auri,  monachis 
solidara  unura,  postremo  toti  populo  multa  erogavit." — T. 


240  CENWULF  OF  MERCIA. 

The  arms  of  Cenwulf  were  also  fortunate  against  the  Welsh. 
In  the  first  year  of  his  reign  the  battle  of  Rhuddlan  in  the 
Vale  of  Chvyd  was  fought,  when  they  were  driven  back  over 
OfFa's  dyke.  In  another  battle  Caradoc,  king  of  Gwynedd, 
perished.  In  his  latter  years  his  ai'my  penetrated  to  Snow- 
don,  and  devastated  the  country  adjacent  ^ 

The  government  of  Kent  was  assigned  by  Cenwulf  to  his 
brother  Cuthred^;  but  the  suppression  of  the  Mercian  arch- 
bishopric was  delayed  for  some  years,  until,  at  a  synod  held 
by  the  primate  of  Canterbury  and  his  twelve  suffragans  at 
Clofesho^,  it  -was  carried  into  effect.  We  read  not  without 
surprise  in  what  contemptuous  terms  the  decree  of  the  synod 
mentions  the  schemes  of  Offa,  through  which  the  see  of  the 
holy  Augustine  had  been  prejudiced  in  its  rights,  and  after- 
M'ards  learn  from  the  same  source  that  archbishop  ^thelheard 
himself  had  made  a  journey  to  Rome  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
vailing on  the  pope  to  suppress  the  new  archbishopric,  and 
restore  to  its  integrity  the  foundation  of  his  glorious  prede- 
cessor Gregory  the  Great.  Pure  good-will  towards  ^Ethel- 
heard  seems  to  have  moved  the  pope  to  this  remarkable  act 
of  compliance  in  his  favour;  the  papal  court  could  derive 
from  it  no  advantage. 

^thelheard  died  shortly  after  the  completion  of  his  object. 
Between  Cenwulf  and  Wulfred,  the  new  archbishop,  a  quarrel 
soon  arose,  in  which  the  violence  and  avarice  of  the  former 
are  bitterly  complained  of.  For  six  years  the  king  prohibited 
the  primate  from  exercising  the  archiepiscopal  duties ;  and, 
on  his  return  from  Rome,  where  he  had  obtained  a  favourable 
decision  of  his  cause,  Cenwulf  declared  in  a  council,  that, 
unless  he  surrendered  certain  lands,  and  paid  a  certain  sum 
of  money,  he  should  be  expelled  from  the  kingdom,  and  that 
no  decrees  of  the  pope  nor  solicitation  of  the  emperor  Charle- 

»  Annal.  Camb.  aa.  796,  798,  816,  818.     Brut  y  Tyw.  a.  819. 

2  Ob.  A. D.  805. 

3  A.D.  803.    See  Wilkins,  Cone.  t.  i.  pp.  163,  167.  Smith's  Beda,  p.  787. 


MERCIA.  241 

masne  should  ever  effect  his  return.  To  both  demands  the 
archbishop  at  length  yielded,  but  the  promised  restoration  of 
its  privileges  to  the  church  of  Canterbury  was  unfulfilled*. 

The  foregoing  particulars  of  the  hfe  of  Cenwulf  seem,  as 
we  have  already  remarked,  inconsistent  with  the  praise  so 
liberally  bestowed  on  him  by  the  chroniclers,  who,  moreover, 
inform  us  that,  after  a  reign  of  twenty-six  years,  he  passed  to 
the  reward  of  his  numerous  good  deeds,  and  was  buried  at 
Winchelcomb^. 

Cenwulf  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Cenhelm,  a  child  of 
seven  years,  who,  at  the  instigation  of  his  sister  Cwenthryth, 
was  basely  murdered  in  a  wood  by  ^sceberht,  his  tutor. 
Ceolwulf,  a  brother  of  Cenwulf,  then  succeeded  to  the  throne, 
from  which  he  was  driven  two  years  afterwards  by  the  usurper 
Beornwulf,  a  Mercian  without  any  pretensions  by  birth^. 
Mercia  now  rapidly  approached  its  fall. 

The  history  of  the  smaller  states  contributing  to  form  what 
by  later  writers  has  commonly,  though  erroneously,  been 
called  the  Heptarchy,  is  almost  wholly  lost.  Even  the  genea- 
logies of  their  kings,  which  among  those  people  constituted 
the  chief  basis  of  their  annals,  is,  soon  after  the  introduction 
of  Christianity,  defective,  and  only  the  stories  or  rather  le- 
gends of  a  few  pious  nuns,  according  to  the  usual  pattern, 
and  in  the  customary  strains  of  praise,  were  composed.  What 
beyond  this  is  known  of  their  kingdoms,  consists  in  accounts 
of  the  victories  of  their  more  powerful  neighbours,  and  iso- 
lated traces  of  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  weaker. 

None  of  these  states  excites  the  curiosity  of  the  historical 

inquirer  so  much  as  that  of  East  Anglia,  which,  inhabited 

by  Germans  probably  before  the  time  of  Hengest  and  Horsa, 

entu'ely  surrounded  by  German  neighbours,  in  no  contact 

with  the  Britons,  must  necessarily  have  presented  a  most 

faithful  picture  of  Teutonic  antiquity.     Even  at  the  present 

*  Evidentiae  Eccles.  Cantuar.  ap.  Tw^'sden,  p.  2213. 
-  Sax.  Chron.  a.  819.     [H.  Hunt.  lib.  iv.  "Cenwlf  regnavit  xxvi  annis 
pacifice,  et  mortuus  est  coramuai  morte."— T.]         ^  Fl,  Wigorn.  Ingulph. 

VOL.  I.  R 


242  EAST  ANGLIA. 

day  in  no  other  part  of  England  do  so  many  well  preserved 
German  names  of  places  declare  who  were  their  ancient  lords 
or  founders.  Many  remarkable  traditions,  though  hitherto 
not  sufficiently  investigated  and  sifted  for  use  as  materials  of 
history,  are  preserved  relative  to  this  district.  Its  position 
was  particularly  favourable  to  an  intercourse  with  the  Old- 
Saxons,  and  we  may  regard  not  only  London,  in  those  remote 
times,  but  also  the  East  Anglian  ports  Lynn,  Yarmouth  and 
Dunwich,  as  resorts  for  Frisic,  Saxon  and  Gallic  mariners 
and  members  of  the  several  commercial  guilds  or  'hansen.' 

This  connexion  with  Germany  declares  itself  in  the  legends 
of  East  Anglia,  according  to  which  Eadmund,  who  reigned 
there  in  the  ninth  century,  was  a  son  of  Alcmund,  a  king  of 
Saxony,  and  born  at  Nuremberg.  The  land  itself  bore  for 
the  most  part  a  close  resemblance  to  the  opposite  marshy 
coasts  of  Holland  and  Friesland,  and  it  was  only  after  the 
lapse  of  many  ages  that  the  drained  fens  of  Cambridgeshire, 
or  of  the  so-called  isle  of  Ely,  begun  to  yield  to  the  inmates 
of  the  several  cloisters  there  the  blessing  of  the  land  of  Go- 
shen. As  Offa  against  the  Welsh,  so  had  the  first  kings  of 
East  Anglia  raised  a  vast  rampart,  defended  by  a  ditch, 
against  Mercia,  which  bore  the  name  of  the  Recken-dyke, 
though  known  at  a  later  period  among  the  common  people 
as  St.  Edmund's,  sometimes  the  devil's,  and  lastly  as  Cnut's, 
or  Henry  the  First's  ^  We  have  already  seen  that  this  dyke 
was  no  safeguard  against  the  powerful  Penda  j  such  artificial 
defences  tending  generally  to  the  restraint  of  intercourse  in 
times  of  peace,  and,  in  times  of  danger,  to  the  injury  of  the 
people,  by  a  delusive  appearance  of  security.  It  long  con- 
tinued, however,  to  define  the  limit  of  the  authority  of  the 
nominal  kings  of  the  country,  and  afterwards  of  the  peaceful 
jurisdiction  of  the  crosier  of  Norwich. 

After  the  kings  Sigeberht  and  Ecgric  had  fallen  in  battle 
against  Penda,  Anna,  the  son  of  ^ne,  a  brother  of  the  Bret- 

'  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  905.  "Limes  S.  Eadmundi."     Cf.  Sax.  Chron.  h.  a. 


EAST  ANGLIA.  243 

walda  Raedwald,  shared  the  same  fate.  He  was  succeeded 
by  his  brother  ^thelhere,  who,  compelled  to  submit  to  the 
formidable  conqueror,  was  in  the  following  year  slain  with 
him  in  the  memorable  battle  against  Oswiu  of  Bernicia^  It 
does  not  appear  that  Anna  left  any  male  offspring.  Of  his 
four  daughters,  Sexburh,  married  to  Earconberht  king  of 
Kent,  and  ^thelthryth  to  Ecgfrith  of  Northumbria,  died 
abbesses  of  Ely ;  ^thelburh  was  abbess  of  Faremoustier  en 
Brie,  and  Wihtburh  a  nun  at  Ely^.  ^thelhere  was  succeeded 
by  his  brother  ^thelwald^,  who  was  followed  by  Ealdwulf*, 
a  son  of  his  brother  ^thelhere,  who,  after  a  reign  of  forty- 
nine  years,  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  iElfwold^.  This 
prince  seems  to  have  been  the  last  of  the  direct  line  of  the 
Uffings,  as  after  his  death  we  find  East  Anglia  divided  be- 
tween Beonna  and  ^thelberht  or  Alberht^,  who  were  fol- 
lowed by  ^thelred,  the  father,  by  his  queen  Leofrun,  of 
^thelberht,  the  unfortunate  victim  of  Offa  and  Cynethryth. 
The  history  of  no  Anglo-Saxon  state  is  so  defective  as  that 
of  the  East  Saxons.     At  an  early  period  in  subjection  to  the 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  655. 

2  Beda,  iii.  8,  iv.  19.     Fl.  Wigorn.  Geneal.  ^  a.d.  655. 

*  A.D.  664.  FI.  Wigorn.  and  Geneal.  Ealdwulf  was  present  at  the 
Synod  of  Heathfield;  his  mother  was  Hereswith,  a  sister  of  St.  Hild. 
Beda,  iv.  17.  23.  He  died,  according  to  the  Ann.  Lauresh.,  in  713.  See 
Literary  Introduction,  p.  xxxvi.  note^. 

5  A  letter  of  his  to  archbishop  Boniface  is  extant.  See  Max.  Bibl. 
Patrum,  t.  xiii.  ep.  Ixxvi. 

•^  Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  749-  "  Elfwald  rex  Orientalium  Anglorum  defunctus 
est,  regnumque  Hunbeanna  et  Albert  sibi  diviserunt."  So  Chron.  Mailr. 
In  the  belief,  however,  that  the  first-mentioned  of  these  personages  never 
existed,  I  feel  no  scruple  in  eliminating  the  name  from  the  hst  of  East 
Anglian  kings.  Simeon's  original  was  apparently  some  Saxon  chronicle, 
where  two  words  were  joined,  as  Bej:teji  himbeanna  penj  to  jiice,  after 
him  Beanna  (Beonna)  succeeded ;  out  of  which,  misled  by  the  near  resem- 
blance in  Saxon  manuscript  of  im  to  un,  he  formed  the  name  of  Hun- 
beanna. Florence  (Geneal.)  says,  "  regnante  Offa  Beorna  regnavit  in  East 
Anglia,  et  post  eum  -iEthelredus,"  etc.  In  '  Beorna  '  the  final  vowel  ap- 
pears very  suspicious,  while  Beonna  (written  also  Beanna  and  Bynna)  is  a 
common  Saxon  name.  This  mistake  has  undoubtedly  arisen  from  the  slight 
difference  in  Saxon  MS.  between  n  and  ji. — T. 

R  2 


244  ESSEX. 

kings  of  Kent,  they  subsequently  fell  under  that  of  Mercia, 
or  perhaps  together  with  Mercia,  under  that  of  Northumbria. 
Some  battles  with  Wessex  in  which,  about  the  year  617,  their 
kings  Sexred,  Steward  and  Sigeberht  were  slain,  indicate  a 
short  interval  of  independence.  To  these  succeeded  Sige- 
berht, surnamed  the  Little,  a  son  of  Sseward,  who  was  fol- 
lowed by  Sigebert  the  Good,  the  son  of  Sigebald  and  friend 
of  Oswiu,  at  whose  instance  he  turned  to  the  Christian  faith 
and  received  baptism.  He  was  assassinated  by  two  brothers, 
who,  as  we  are  told,  hated  him  for  his  merciful  disposition. 
He  was  followed  by  his  brother  Swithhelm,  also  a  convert  to 
Christianity  ^  It  is  probable  that  the  East  Saxons  were  con- 
quered by  Penda,  though  the  chroniclers  have  not  conde- 
scended to  record  the  event;  but  who,  as  a  matter  far  more 
important,  inform  us  that  king  Sebbe  (Sebbi)  assumed  the 
tonsure,  and  lived  till  the  year  694 ;  and  afterwards  that  the 
youthful  Offa  also  abdicated  the  throne  and  made  a  pilgrimage 
to  Rome^.  His  successor  was  Selred,  who  was  slain,  but 
whether  in  battle  or  otherwise  we  are  not  informed^. 

Though  under  subjection  to  Mercia,  the  old  race  of  the 
Offings  continued  to  rule,  M'hose  genealogy,  though  not  alto- 
gether clear,  yet  sufficiently  shows  the  legitimate  succession. 
From  the  reign  of  Sleda  it  seems  to  have  been  observed  as 
a  family  law,  during  a  period  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years, 

»  A.D.  660.     Beda,  iii.  22.     Fl.  Wigorn.  Geneal. 

2  A.D.  709.  Beda  (v.  19)  says  of  him,  "  OiFa  juvenis  amantissiraae 
setatis  et  venustatis,"  but  styles  him  merely  "filius  Sigheri":  hence  it 
would  seem  that  he  had  never  assumed  the  reins  of  government.  The 
charter  in  Thome  (ap.  Twysden,  p.  2219)  issued  by  "  OfFa  rex  Anglomm," 
in  the  38th  year  of  his  reign,  is  not  of  69O,  but  a  century  later,  and  is  a 
charter  of  Offa  of  Mercia.  [See  the  document  in  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  191, 
where  it  is  marked  as  spurious. — T.] 

3  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  H.  Hunt.  a.  746.  This  prince  has  by 
some  writers,  following  a  blunder  of  the  Chron.  Mailros.,  rather  than  the 
authority  of  Florence,  been  placed  among  the  rulers  of  East  Anglia,  while 
his  name  alone  would  have  been  sufficient  to  show  the  race  to  which  he 
belonged. — T. 


KENT.  245 

that  the  names  of  their  kings  should  begin  with  the  same 
letter.  To  these  probably  a  king  Sigebald  belonged,  who 
endeavoured  to  prevail  on  Boniface  to  become  the  spiritual 
guide  of  his  peopled  Even  of  London  itself,  the  most  im- 
portant place  in  Essex,  we  find  scarcely  any  accounts  beyond 
the  names  of  some  ecclesiastics :  it  must  with  its  environs  at 
an  early  period  have  fallen  under  subjection  to  Mercia^. 

Kent,  though  probably  not  the  oldest  of  the   Germanic 
states  in  Britain,  had,  through  the  valour  of  its  first  kings  and 
leaders,  as  well  as  by  its  earher  connexion  with  the  Frankish 
realm,  and  its  adherence  to  the  continental  church,  acquired 
a  certain  eminence  and  even  precedence  over  the  other  insular 
kingdoms.     Soon,  however,  after  the  death  of  ^thelberht, 
under  his  son  Eadbald,  Kent  sank  into  a  condition  more 
commensurate  with  its  physical  strength,  although  the  sister 
of  Eadbald  -was  married  to  the  powerfvd  Eadwine  of  North- 
umbria,  and  himself,  now  reclaimed  from  his  criminal  passion  ^ 
for  his  step-mother,  had  espoused  Emma,  a  Frankish  prin- 
cess^.    Eadbald  was  succeeded  by  Earconberhf*,  his  son  by 
Emma,  who  guilefully  supplanted  his  elder  brother  Eormen- 
red,  the  eldest  son  of  Eadbald.     Like  his  father,  Earconberht 
reigned  a  round  number  of  twenty-four  years.     His  ecclesi- 
astical regulations  are  mentioned  with  praise,  and  for  him  was 
reserved  the  total  destruction  of  idols.     His  son  Ecgberht 
succeeded  to  the  throne,  on  which,  as  long  as  his  two  cousins, 
iEthelred  and  ^thelberht,  the  sons  of  his  father's  eldest 
brother,  Eormenred,  were  alive,  he  felt  no  security.     A  thane 

^  Bonifacii  Epiat.  xlix. 

2  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "  Londonia  cum  circumjacentibus  regionibus,  Mer- 
ciorura  regibus,  quamdiu  ipsi  imperitaverunt,  paruit." 

^  For  the  date  of  his  death  (20  June)  see  Literary  Introduction,  p.  xxxvi. 
note  ^.  It  is  also  given  by  Thorne,  p.  1769,  though  not  by  the  older  writers. 
Emma's  name  appears  in  a  charter  of  Eadbald  a.  618.  See  Smith's  Beda, 
p.  694  [and  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  8,  where  it  is  marked  as  spurious]. 
Emma  was  probably  a  daughter  of  the  Austrasian  king  Tlieudebert  IL 
Langhorne,  Chron.  Reg.  Angl.  p.  155.     Pagi,  a.  640. 

*  Beda,  iii.  8.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  640. 


246  KENT. 

named  Thunor,  either  divining  the  wish  or  obeying  the  com- 
mand of  his  master,  murdered  the  innocent  princes  ^  Ac- 
cording to  the  beautiful  legend,  to  which  history  itself  will 
not  refuse  a  space,  their  bodies  were  buried  by  the  murderer 
in  the  king's  palace,  under  the  royal  seat ;  but  a  heavenly 
light  was  seen  to  shine  over  their  resting-place,  which  led  to 
the  detection  of  the  foul  misdeed.  The  guilty  king  gave  to 
Eormenbeorh^,  a  sister  of  the  murdered  princes,  a  space  of 
land  as  blood-fine  (manbot) ;  thus  making  atonement  to  the 
secular,  as  he  did  afterwards  to  the  ecclesiastical  law,  by  a 
public  supplication  and  the  founding  of  a  monastery  in  the 
Isle  of  Thanet.  The  course  of  a  hind  during  a  day  deter- 
mined the  extent  of  the  land  ;  and  the  murderer  Thunor  was 
swallowed  by  the  gaping  earth.  Of  the  daughters  of  Earcon- 
berht,  by  his  wife  Sexburh,  a  daughter  of  Anna  king  of  the 
East  Angles,  we  find  that  Earcongote  became  abbess  of  Fare- 
moustier ;  Eormengild  was  married  to  Wulf here  of  Mercia. 

Eadric,  the  son  of  Ecgberht^,  was  deprived  of  his  throne  by 
his  uncle  Hlothhaere  (Hlothhaeri),  with  whom  he  seems,  how- 
ever, to  have  for  some  time  reigned  conjointly.  With  the 
help  of  the  South  Saxons  Eadric  at  length  overcame  his  faith- 
less kinsman  in  a  battle,  who  died  of  his  wounds*.  After  a 
reign  of  about  a  year  and  a  half,  Eadric  was  carried  off  by  a 
violent  death^,  when  Kent,  as  we  shall  presently  see^,  became 
a  prey  to  invaders,  and  the  seat  of  a  war  with  Ceadwealla  of 
Wessex,  until,  at  the  expiration  of  nine  years,  the  legitimate 
succession  was  restored  in  the  person  of  Wihtrsed  son  of 
Ecgberht '',  with  whom,  at  least  in  the  eai'ly  part  of  his  reign, 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  640.  Sim.  Dunelm.  h.  a.,  whose  narrative  of  the  mur- 
der is  particularly  circumstantial  and  florid.  Malmesbury  merely  alludes 
to  it.     See  also  Thorne,  p.  I906. 

2  Called  also  Domneva.  Sim.  Dunelm.  Fl.  Wigorn.  She  was  married 
to  Merewald,  a  son  of  Penda,  king  of  the  West  Hecanas. — T. 

3  Ob.  A.D.  673. 

*  Beda,  iv.  26.     Sax.  Chron.     FI.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  a.  685. 

^  Beda,  iv.  26.     W.  Malm.  Hb.  i.  ^  See  p.  260. 

'  Sax,  Chron.  a.  694.    This  date  can  apply  only  to  his  becoming  sole 


KENT.  247 

a  certain  Swaebheard  or  Waebheard  appears  to  have  been 
associated.  After  a  reign  of  thirty-three  years,  Wihtraed  was 
succeeded  by  his  sons,  Eadberht^,  -^thelberht  11.^ — six  years 
before  whose  death  the  capital  suffered  by  fire — and  Alric^, 
in  whom,  after  a  reign  of  thirty- four  years,  the  race  of  the 
^scings  became  extinct.  Eadberht  seems  to  have  had  a  son 
Eardulf*,  who  for  some  years  reigned  with  his  uncle,  but 
died  before  him.  It  was  Alric  who  yielded  to  the  superior 
power  of  Offa  in  the  battle  of  Otford.  The  state  of  Kent  in 
the  following  times  is  extremely  obscure.  The  small  territory 
was  often  divided  between  two  or  more  dependent  kings  ^, 
and  served  as  an  appanage  for  the  sons  of  the  Mercian  or 
West  Saxon  sovereigns.  Of  Eadberht  Praen  we  have  already 
made  mention  under  Cenwulf  of  Mercia.  The  see  of  Canter- 
bury imparted  to  this  little  kingdom  a  greater  degree  of  in- 
tegrity than  it  could  else  have  enjoyed  in  existence  with  the 

possessor  of  the  kingdom,  as  we  find  him  in  692  already  reigning  con- 
jointly with  Swaebheard.     See  Beda,  v.  8. — T. 

^  Ob.  A.D.  748.  A  charter  of  donation  to  the  church  of  Canterbury 
(Thome,  p.  2209),  purporting  to  be  granted  by  Eadbrith  Eating,  is  with- 
out doubt  a  forgery  of  comparatively  recent  date,  by  one  who  confounded 
Eadberht  of  Kent  with  the  Northumbrian  king  Eadberht  the  son  of  Eata. 
— T. 

^  Ob.  A.D.  760.  As  characteristic  of  the  age  may  be  noticed  Jjlthel- 
berht's  request  to  the  venerable  archbishop  Boniface,  that  he  would  send 
him  some  hawks.  Bonif.  Ep.  xl.  His  mother,  the  consort  of  Wihtraed, 
was  named  ^thelburh  (Aedilburg).  See  fac-simile  charter  of  697  in  the 
Antiquarian  Repertory,  vol.  ii.  p.  133,  also  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  50. 

^  Beda,  v.  23.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  725. 

*  A  charter  of  Eardulf,  dated  762,  is  extant  in  the  Textus  RofFensis 
(Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  115)  of  a  donation  to  the  church  of  St.  Andrew  at 
Rochester.  The  date  is  evidently  a  clerical  error  which  may  be  corrected 
by  the  substitution  of  v  for  x,  making  it  cclvii.  instead  of  cclxii.  A  dona- 
tion of  Eardulf  without  date  is  given  in  Twysden,  p.  2220.  See  also  a 
letter  from  him  to  LuUus  archbishop  of  Mentz  (Ep.  Bonif.  xxxvi.)  written 
conjointly  with  Eardulf  bishop  of  Rochester. 

^  See  charter,  dated  762,  of  Sigiraed  king  of  Kent  of  donation  to  Ro- 
chester, signed  also  by  "  Eadberht  rex  Cantise  ; "  and  another  of  about  the 
same  date,  signed  by  "  Eanmund  rex."  Charters  of  Ecgberht  are  also  ex- 
tant, dating  from  779  to  791,  in  one  of  which  a  "  Heahberht  rex  "  appears 
among  the  signatures.     See  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i. — T. 


248  SUSSEX. 

powerful  states  of  Northumbria,  Mercia,  and  Wessex.  To 
the  more  universal  civilization  of  Kent  it  is  probably  owing, 
that  the  earliest  Anglo-Saxon  laws  extant  are  those  enacted 
under  the  kings  of  that  countiy,  viz.  ^thelberht,  Hlothhaere 
and  Eadric,  and  Wihtraed. 

Sussex,  the  kingdom  of  MWe,  the  first  Bretwalda  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  tradition,  sank  soon  after  the  death  of  that  prince  into 
a  state  bordering  on  nonentity.  When  we  consider  its  small 
extent  in  comparison  with  the  neighbouring  kingdoms,  as 
well  as  its  position,  unfavourable  even  at  the  present  day  to 
purposes  connected  with  navigation,  and  too  remote  from  the 
centre  of  the  country  for  political  influence,  we  can  ascribe 
the  part  it  acted  under  the  sway  of  JElle  only  to  the  personal 
character  of  that  chieftain,  and  to  the  valour,  displayed  also 
at  a  later  period,  of  its  rugged  inhabitants.  This  virtue  of 
the  South  Saxons  is  conspicuous  on  almost  every  occasion 
where  their  name  occurs  in  history;  as  in  the  deadly  conflict 
with  Ceolwulf  of  Wessex,  in  their  wars  with  his  successor 
Ceadwealla,  as  well  as  in  instances  hereafter  to  be  mentioned. 
The  late  conversion  of  the  South  Saxons,  and  the  wild  state 
of  the  country  have  been  abeady  noticed.  To  these  circum- 
stances, and  to  the  necessarily  consequent  lack  of  literary 
ecclesiastics,  it  is  to  be  ascribed,  that  we  do  not  possess  even 
a  meagre  series  of  their  rulers,  much  less  any  circumstantial 
details  concerning  them.  They  were  the  vassals  sometimes  of 
Wessex,  sometimes  of  Mercia.  -^thelwealh,  the  first  Chris- 
tian king  of  Sussex,  received  from  Wulfhere,  king  of  Mercia, 
the  investiture  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  of  the  maegth^ 
or  tribe  of  the  Meanwaras  in  Hampshire ;  we,  nevertheless, 
regard  him  as  the  vassal  of  Wessex,  as  well  as  his  successors, 
whether  under  the  denomination  of  heretogas  (duces),  kings, 
or  under-kings.  In  the  latter  days  of  ^thelwealh  occurs  the 
aid,  already  noticed,  afforded  by  Sussex  to  Eadric  king  of 

*  Tribe,  territory,  so  denominated  from  its  inhabitants  being  all  of  the 
same  race  or  tribe. 


SMALLER  STATES.  249 

Kent,  ^thelwealh,  we  are  informed,  was  succeeded  by 
Eadric,  who,  like  his  predecessor,  fell  in  a  battle  against 
Ceadwealla  of  Wessex^  At  a  later  period  the  conquest  by 
Offa  of  the  territory  around  Hastings  is  recorded  without  any 
mention  on  the  occasion  of  a  king  of  Sussex^.  It  is  the  echo 
of  iElle's  name  alone  to  which  Sussex  is  indebted  for  a  place 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Heptarchy ;  a  denomination  equally  accu- 
rate or  inaccurate  with  most  similar  expressions  adopted  for 
the  purpose  of  generahzing  the  particular  facts  of  history. 

More  desirable  than  showing  that  the  usually  so-called 
greater  kingdoms  did  not  always  subsist  in  a  state  of  in- 
dependence^, it  would  be  to  give  some  account  of  the  smaller 
ones,  all  traces  of  which  have  insensibly,  and  at  an  early 
period,  almost  vanished  from  the  page  of  history.  To  these 
belong — Middel-Seaxe  (Middlesex),  which  owes  this  appel- 
lation both  to  its  position  with  regard  to  Essex  and  to  the 
temporary  neighbourhood  of  the  West  Saxons,  through  the 
conquest  of  Ceolwulf,  but  which  subsequently  passed  to  the 
Mercians;  Suthrige  (Surrey)'^;  the  Jutish  state  on  the  Isle 
of  Wight;  Magesetania,  or  the  land  of  the  Magesaetas  or 
Hwiccas  (Worcestershire)  and  of  the  Hecanas  (Hereford- 
shire):  Middel  Engle;  Elmet^;  the  Lindisfaras  (Lindsey), 
who  were  in  later  times  governed  by  under-kings,  and,  when 
that  title  fell  into  disuse,  by  heretogas  and  ealdormen  or 
gerefas ; — and,  without  doubt,  many  others,  whose  history 
may  yet  receive  illustration  both  from  local  tradition  and  the 

1  W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

-  After  the  rulers  mentioned  in  the  text  we  meet  with  the  names  of 
Huna,  Numa  (Nunna),  Nothelra,  and  Wattus,  as  governing  under  the 
supremacy  of  Ine  ;  and  at  a  later  period,  Osmund,  iEthelberht  and  Sige- 
berht  are  named  as  kings  of  the  South  Saxons.  A  charter  of  Nothelm  is 
subscribed  by  "  Csenredus,  Rex  West  Saxonum  : "  this  was,  no  doubt,  the 
father  of  Ine.  See  Palgrave,  vol.  ii.  p.  cclxxiv. — T. 

^  Some  of  the  elder  chronicles,  omitting  Essex  and  Sussex,  speak  often 
of  five  Anglo-Saxon  kingdoms.  Chron.  Anglise  MS.  Hamburg. 

■*  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  823. 

*  See  p.  148.     Beda  (ii.  14)  speaks  only  of  the  Siiva  Elmete. 


250  SMALLER  STATES. 

use  of  hitherto  neglected  records.  At  present  we  can  speak 
of  the  greater  number  of  these  districts  only  with  uncertaintj'^, 
though  some  others  may  with  confidence  be  specified,  as  the 
extensive  territory  of  the  Pecsaetas  (Peakland  in  Derbyshire) ; 
of  the  East  and  West  Wilsaetas  (Wiltshire);  the  Ciltern- 
saetas  ;  Spalda  (Spalding) ' ;  the  South  and  North  Gyrwas^, 
We  know,  however,  from  the  accounts  transmitted  to  us  rela- 
tive to  the  most  important  of  these  small  states,  the  Hmccas, 
that  they  were  generally  held  by  branches  of  the  greater  royal 
houses  in  hereditary  succession,  and  were  sometimes  in  the 
joint  possession  of  two  or  more  brothers.  Of  this  territory 
the  first  princes,  whose  names  are  recorded,  seem  to  be  Ean- 
here  and  his  brother  Eanfrith,  whose  daughter,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  was  married  to  ^thelwealh,  king  of  the  South 
Saxons.  These  were  probably  succeeded  by  Osric^  (supposed 
to  be  a  nephew  of  ^thelred  of  Mercia)  and  Oswald"^,  the 
former  ruling  over  Gloucestershire,  the  other  over  Worcester- 
shire. Their  follower  Oshere^  was  succeeded  by  his  sons 
^thelheard,  ^thelweard  and  iEthelric^',  and  these  by  the 
brothers  Eanberht,   Uhtred  and  Aldred'^.     Under  or  after 

^  In  a  charter  of  736  mention  is  made  of  the  Husmeri  on  the  banks  of 
the  Stour.  Smith's  Beda,  p.  786. 

2  Considerable  information  concerning  the  territorial  partition  of  England 
before  the  division  into  shires  might  be  derived  from  the  ancient  notices  in 
Gale,  t.  i.  p.  748,  were  they  not  unfortunately  too  incorrectly  written  or 
printed  to  admit  of  our  founding  even  a  conjecture  on  the  greater  part  of 
them :  e.  g.  to  the  South  Saxons,  whose  territory  is  estimated  by  Beda 
(iv.  13)  at  7000  hides,  it  assigns  no  less  than  100,000  hides.  See  also 
Ellis's  Introd.  to  Domesday,  vol.  i.  p.  145. 

2  Beda,  iv.  23.  "  provinciam  Huicciorum  cui  rex  Osric  prsefuit."  Charter 
a.  676,  in  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  16,  granting  100  manentes  to  the  abbess 
Bertana  for  the  founding  of  a  convent  near  Hat  Bathu. 

4  Monast.  t.  i.  p.  541. 

5  Charter  aa.  680  and  693  ?  in  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  pp.  22,  41. 

«  Charter  704-709,  706,  in  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  pp.  60,  64,  65,  96.  Hickes, 
t.  i.  pp.  169, 170.     Smith's  Beda,  p.  786. 

7  Chart,  from  a.  757  to  780  in  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  Hickes,  t.  i.  p.  170  sq. 
Smith's  Beda,  p.  767.  This  charter  is  perhaps  not  spurious,  but  for  v  we 
should  read  x,  making  the  date  761  instead  of  756. 


WESSEX.  251 

these  princesj  who  all  bore  the  title  of  king,  we  meet  with 
others  styled  ealdormen  (principes,  duces),  of  whom  little 
more  is  known  than  the  names  ^ 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  turn  our  attention  to  Wessex,  and 
to  consider  what  were  the  circumstances  which  favoured  this 
land  more  than  the  other  states,  and,  for  some  centuries,  caused 
it  to  be  especially  regarded  as  England.  A  solution  of  the 
problem  will  be  found  in  the  circumstance,  that  when  North- 
umbria  was  compelled  to  renounce  all  thoughts  of  further 
aggrandizement,  when  the  hostile  neighbours  of  Mercia  were 
confined  within  their  own  limits  by  OfFa's  dyke,  Wessex, 
though  defended  neither  by  natural  barriers  nor  early  success 
in  arms,  always  found  not  only  a  field  for  warfare,  but  also 
land  to  bestow  on  the  valiant,  both  on  the  Severn  and  in 
Cornwall,  the  land  of  the  strangers  :  hence  martial  discipline, 
legitimate  succession,  and  a  tranquil  state  of  possession  were 
rendered  so  permanent  in  the  country,  that  it  became  enabled 
to  adopt  gradual  improvements,  till,  in  one  of  its  princes,  it 
found  a  clear-sighted  and  energetic  man,  who  united  the 
descendants  of  the  invading  hordes  into  closer  connexion, 
and  brought  them,  as  far  as  newly  occurring  impediments 
permitted,  to  a  higher  degree  of  political  culture. 

The  successor  of  Ceolwulf,  Cynegils  (Cynegisl),  and  lat- 
terly jointly  with  him  his  son  Cwichelm%  conducted  the  war 
against  the  Britons  with  hereditary  success.  The  boundaries 
of  the  very  small  state  were  thus  gradually  enlarged,  which 
had  hitherto  comprised  only  the  districts  forming  in  later 

*  Palgrave,  vol.  ii.  p.  cclxxxix.  We  find  a.  800  a  dux  Merciorum  ^thel- 
mund,  whose  father  Ingeld  must  have  borne  the  same  title  under  Aldred. 
See  charter  in  Hickes,  1.  cit.  "dux  et  prefectus  regis."  Oshere  also  says 
(Cod.  Diplom.  p.  41),  "  consentiente  comite  meo  Cutberhto."  The  title  of 
princeps  was  frequently  borne  by  ealdormen.     See  Hickes,  1.  c.  1/1 . 

2  Fl.  Wigorn.  aa.  614,  628,  636,  648  ;  also  Alfred  of  Beverley.  Malmes- 
bury  indeed  says  (lib.i.2),  "  filii  Celrici,  Cinegislus  et  Quicelmus  ;"  though 
he  afterwards  calls  Cuthred,  the  son  of  Cwichelm,  the  fratruelis  of  Cen- 
wealh,  the  son  of  Cynegils.  The  cause  of  the  confusion  is  probably  'that 
the  son  died  before  the  father. 


252  CYNEGILS  AND  CWICHELM. 

times  the  shires  of  Hampton,  Berks,  Wilts,  Gloucester  to 
the  Severn,  and  a  part  of  Oxfordshire.  These  kings  pene- 
trated far  into  the  territory  of  the  South  Britons,  who  were 
defeated  at  Beamdun  (Bampton).  Seized  Avith  a  panic  at  the 
sight  of  their  well-appointed  foes,  of  their  gleaming  battle- 
axes,  and  the  magnitude  of  their  spears,  the  Britons  took  to 
flight,  leaving  two  thousand  and  sixty-two  of  their  country- 
men dead  on  the  field'.  The  two  kings  were  equally  success- 
ful against  Essex,  which  lost  three  kings,  the  sons  of  Saeberht, 
in  a  bloody  battle  from  which  very  few  escaped,  flight  being 
impeded  by  the  heaps  of  slain  and  torrents  of  blood^.  Penda 
made  war  on  them,  though  in  the  battle  of  Cirencester^  he 
did  not  overcome  them.  It  was  only  in  the  contest  with 
Eadwine  of  Northumbria  that  they  lost  a  part  of  their  pos- 
sessions, and  the  murderous  attempt  made  on  the  life  of  that 
prince,  at  the  instigation  of  the  exasperated  Cwichelm,  led  to 
a  defeaf^,  which  does  not,  however,  seem  to  have  been  fol- 
lowed up  by  Eadwine.  Cynegils,  at  the  instance  of  Oswald 
of  Northumbria,  became  a  convert  to  Christianity,  and  was 
baptized  by  bishop  Birinus.  Cwichelm  also  received  baptism 
and  died  in  the  year  following^. 

The  succeeding  years  passed  on  quietly  in  settling  the  new 
ecclesiastical  arrangements.  Cenwealh,  the  second  son  of 
Cynegils,  had  married  a  sister  of  Penda,  by  Avhich  connexion 
a  most  dangerous  enemy  or  neighbour — the  expressions  were 
in  those  days  synonymous — seemed  conciliated.  Cenwealh, 
on  the  death  of  his  father,  inherited  his  throne^,  but  not  his 
principles.  He  rejected  Christianity,  repudiated  his  wife,  and 
married  Sexburh,  who  survived  him.     Penda  avenged  the 

»  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.Wigoin.     H.  Hunt.  a.  6]4. 

^  In  this  and  similar  descriptions  Henry  of  Huntingdon  is  easily  to  be 
recognised.  ^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  628. 

^Beda,  ii.  9.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  626.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

■^  Beda,  iii.  7.  Sax.  Chron.     FI.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  aa.  635,  636. 

«  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  H.  Hunt.  a.  643.  Three  MSS.  of  the  Chi'on. 
read  641. 


CENWEALH.  253 

injury  of  his  sister  by  driving  Cenwealh  from  his  throne, 
who  found  an  asylum  at  the  court  of  Anna,  king  of  the  East 
Angles,  with  whom  he  passed  three  years,  and  by  whose 
counsel  and  example  he  was  converted  to  the  Christian  faith. 
With  the  assistance  of  Cuthred,  the  son  of  Cwichelm,  he  was 
reinstated  in  his  kingdom,  and  rewarded  his  nephew  by  the 
resignation  in  his  favour  of  a  third  part  of  his  dominions,  or, 
according  to  other  accounts,  with  a  grant  of  three  thousand 
hvdes  at  ^scesdun^  This  little  state  bordered  on  Mercia- 
and  was  probably  Ashdown  in  the  south  of  Berkshire. 

The  reign  of  Cenwealh  is  important  on  account  of  the 
aggrandizement  of  Wessex.  He  defeated  in  several  battles 
the  Britons  of  Dyvnaint  and  Cernau,  who  had  endeavoured 
to  throw  off  the  Saxon  yoke-,  first  at  Wirtgeornesburh,  after- 
wai'ds,  with  more  important  results,  at  Bradenford  (Bradford) 
on  the  Avon  in  Wiltshire^,  and  again  at  Peonna  (on  the  hill 
of  Pen  in  Somersetshire),  where  the  power  of  the  Britons 
melted  like  snow  before  the  sun,  and  the  race  of  Brut  received 
an  incurable  wound,  when  he  drove  them  as  far  as  the 
Pedrede  (the  river  Parret)  ^.  A  consequence  of  this  augmen- 
tation of  territory  was  the  establishment  of  a  second  bishopric 
in  his  kingdom,  at  Winchester,  where  he  also  founded  a 
monastery  and  a  church,  famed,  even  at  its  first  erection,  for 
its  magnificence^. 

Though  the  conduct  of  Cenwealh  towards  Agilbert,  of 
which  mention  has  already  been  made,  may  appear  unjust, 
it  seems,  nevertheless,  to  have  chiefly  resulted  from  the  ardent 
zeal  of  the  new  convert ;  nor  perhaps  ought  we  to  blame  in 

1  Sax.  Chron.aa.  648,  661.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  648. 

2  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "  Britannos  antiquse  libertatis  conscientiam  frementes, 
et  ob  hoc  crebram  rebellionem  meditantes,  bis  oranino  protrivit;  primum 
in  loco  qui  dicitur  Wirtgeinesburg ;  secundo  juxta  montem  qui  dicitur 
Pene."— T. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  652,  where  it  is  merely  stated  that  Cenwealh  fought  at 
Bradford.— T. 
4  Sax.  Chron.    Fl.  Wigorn.   H.  Hunt.  a.  658.  ^  ^^  Malm.  lib.  i. 


254  CENWEALH. 

him  the  wish  to  possess  a  bishop  speaking  his  mother-tongue, 
the  only  one  intelhgible  to  him' ;  while  to  other  distinguished 
dignitaries  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  church,  as  in  the  instance  of 
Benedict  Biscop,  the  founder  of  the  monastery  at  Wearmouth, 
he  gave  fi'equent  j^roofs  of  good  will^.  The  new  ecclesiastical 
organization  was  the  more  important,  as  the  general  admini- 
stration of  the  Anglo-Saxons  had  reference  chiefly  to  the 
military  constitution,  and  could  not  be  regarded  as  a  moral 
bond  of  union,  such  as  the  erection  of  the  see  of  Win- 
chester must  necessarily  have  been  in  a  very  high  degree. 
The  old  British  ecclesiastical  establishments  were  not  dis- 
turbed, but  rather  cherished  by  the  conqueror ;  and  we  are 
not  ignorant  of  the  donation  by  w^hich  the  monks  of  Glaston- 
buiy  were  induced,  even  on  the  grave  of  Arthur  himself,  to 
pray  for  the  eternal  salvation  of  the  Germanic  intruder^. 

More  dangerous  to  Cenwealh  was  the  contest  which  now 
took  place  with  the  king  of  Mercia,  Wulfhere,  the  brother  of 
his  first  consort ;  for  although,  in  the  beginning  of  the  cam- 
paign, the  latter  sustained  an  overthrow,  and  was  probably 
made  a  prisoner  in  the  territoiy  of  Cuthred,  at  ^scesdun, 
where  he  appears  as  the  assailing  party'*,  yet,  in  the  same 
year,  Cenwealh  lost  tw^o  valuable  friends  in  his  nephew 
Cuthred  and  Cenberht,  another  under-king.  The  Mercians 
too  pressed  forward,  or  were  successfully  supported  by  their 
southern  fi-iends,  in  return  for  the  cession  by  Wulfhere  of  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  of  the  Meanwara  maegth  or  tribe,  a  por- 
tion of  Hampshire,  to  his  ally  vEthelwealh,  the  apparently 
new  king  of  Sussex. 

After   a  reign  of  more  than  thirty  years  Cenwealh  died 

^  Beda,  iii.7.  "Rex,  qui  Saxonum  tantum  linguam  noverat,  pertassus 
barbarte  loquelae,  subintroduxit  in  provinciam  alium  suse  linguae  episcopum, 
vocabulo  Vini." 

^  BedseVita  S.  Benedicti.  "cujus  (sc.  Coinwalh)  ante  nonsemel  amicitiis 
usus,  et  beneficiis  erat  adjiitus." 

^  Malmesb.  de  Antiq.  Glaston.  Eccl.  ap.  Gale,  t.  i.  p.  308. 
.  *  Sax.  Chron.  a.  661.     Ethelw.  lib.  ii.  7.     H.Hunt. 


SEXBURH.  255 

suddenly^  without  children  or  Hneal  descendants.  He  had, 
however,  provided  for  the  administration  of  his  kingdom  by- 
committing  it  to  his  queen  Sexburh.  The  talents  displayed 
by  this  princess,  both  at  the  head  of  the  army  and  of  the 
state,  have  been  extolled  in  terms  which  show  how  great 
must  have  been  the  impression  made  on  her  countrymen  by 
a  phenomenon  so  rare  as  a  reigning  queen ^.  Nevertheless, 
within  a  year  the  energies  of  Sexburh  proved  inadequate  to 
the  cares  and  anxieties  of  the  male  dignity,  which  were  not  a 
little  aggravated  by  the  illegality  of  her  pretensions.  On  the 
death  or  expulsion  of  Sexburh^,  two  under-kings  of  Wessex, 
^scwine%  a  hneal  descendant  of  Ceolwulf,  and  Centwine, 
the  brother  of  Cenwealh, — who  appears  to  have  been  the 
only  rightful  heir,  and  whose  exclusion  by  Sexburh  seems 
inexplicable, — governed  the  state,  either  in  succession  or 
jointly,  for  several  years.  The  obscurity  attending  these 
reigns  is  further  increased  by  the  account,  that  the  imme- 
diate successor  of  Sexbm'h  was  Cenfus,  the  father  of  ^sc- 
wine^.  Even  Beda,  whose  early  years  fell  in  this  period, 
knew  little  of  the  ten  years'  anarchy  in  the  kingdom  of  Wes- 
sex. The  existence  of  ^scwine  himself  as  king  would  pro- 
bably, like  that  of  his  father,  have  afibrded  matter  of  doubt, 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  672.  Bedee  Vita  S.  Benedict!,  "immatura  morte  prae- 
reptus."  -  W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

^  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "  plus  quam  foemineos  animos  anhelantem  vita  de- 
stituit,  annua  vix  potestate  perfunctam."  [R.  Wendover,  p.  162,  however, 
says  that  she  was  expelled,  "  indignantibus  regni  magnatibus  expulsa  est  a 
regno,  nolentibus  sub  sexu  foemineo  militare." — T.]  So  also  Matt.  Westm. 
a.  672. 

^  Malmesbury  says,  "  Escuinus,  regali  prosapiae  proximus,  quippe  qui 
fiierit  Cinegisli  ex  fratre  Cuthgislo  abnepos."  I  follow  Fl,  Wigorn.  a.  674, 
and  Geneal. ;  also  Sax.  Chron. 

*  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  67-i  ;  but  in  Geneal.  Regum  W.  Sax.  he 
says,  "  Deinde  Kenfus  duobus  annis,  secundum  dicta  regis  ^Elfredi,  juxta 
vero  Chronicam  Anghcam,  filius  ejus^scwinus  fere  tribus  annis  regnavit." 
The  latter  account  only  is  noticed  by  Florence  in  his  Chronicle,  and  on  the 
authority  of  the  '  Anglica  Chronica  Occidentalium  Saxonum.' 


256  CENTWINE. 

had  not  a  great  battle  M'hich  he  fought  against  Wulfhere  of 
Mercia,  who  had  advanced  to  Bedwin  in  Wiltshire,  gained  for 
him  a  hero's  fame.  This  bloody  conflict  was  sufficiently  im- 
portant to  influence  the  accounts  of  it  in  a  manner  agreeable 
to  the  local  feelings  of  the  narrators.  While  the  chronicler 
of  Middle  England  strives  to  secure  the  honours  of  a  hard- 
earned  victory  for  the  king  of  Mercia,  he  of  Wessex — in 
whose  favour  the  retreat  of  the  Mercians  loudly  speaks — 
entertains  no  doubt  of  his  defeat  i.  By  the  death  of  JEscwine, 
which  followed  soon  after,  Centwine  appears  as  sole  ruler  of 
the  West  Saxons. 

The  wars  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  with  each  other  excited  in 
the  Armoricans  the  hope  of  recovering  the  home  of  their 
fathers  from  the  hand  of  the  stranger.     The  absence  of  the 
British  king  Cadwaladyr,  who  had  departed  on  a  pilgrimage 
to  Rome,  and  left  his  son  Yvor  to  the  care  of  the  king  of 
Armorica,  Alan  the  Second,  encouraged  the  ambitious  views 
of  that  prince  ;  and  a  landing  effected  under  the  guidance  of 
Yvor  and  his   cousin  Inyr  led  to  the  conquest  of  the  old 
British  country  to  the  south  of  the  Avon.     Centwine  led  a 
powerful  army  against  the  invaders,  but  a  battle  was  pre- 
vented by  an  amicable  arrangement,  according  to  which  Yvor 
W'as  invested  by  Centwine  with  the  principality  of  Dyvnaint 
and  Cernau,  and,  it  is  said,  obtained  the  hand  of  ^Ethelburh, 
a  niece  of  the  king  of  Wessex,  and,  at  a  subsequent  period, 
his  kingdom  also. 

According  to  these  and  other  Welsh  narratives,  Yvor  ap- 
pears completely  identical  \vith  Ine,  the  second  successor  of 

'  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  675.  Late  writers  follow  H.  Hunt. — 
"Rex  vero  Mercensis,  patria  et  avita  virtute  usus,  aliquantulum  prtestan- 
tior  pugna  fuit ;  uterque  tamen  exercitus  terribiliter  contritus  est,"  etc. — 
and  overlook  W.  of  Malmesbury,  who  says,  "  ille  (Escuinus)  Mercios 
anxia  clade  perculit."  [The  Saxon  Chron.  and  Florence  say  nothing  of  the 
result  of  the  conflict ;  the  latter's  silence  seems  certainly  to  be  in  favour  of 
the  W.  Saxons.— T.] 


CENTWINE.  257 

Centwine ;  as  the  story  of  Yvor's  fathez-  resembles  that  of 
the  predecessor  of  Ine\     The  part  assigned  to  the  king  of 
Armorica  in  this  expedition  accords  in  no  respect  with  the 
weakness  of  character  ascribed  to  him  in  other  accounts  ^.    It 
must  indeed  be  confessed  that  our  knowledge  of  the  history 
of  Wessex,  derived   from  Anglo-Saxon   sources,   is   highly 
unsatisfactory ;  we  must,  therefore,  have  occasional  recourse 
to  the  Welsh  traditions,  where,  in  consequence  of  the  prox- 
imity of  the  two  states,  much  latent  history  may  reasonably 
be  supposed  to  exist^.    If  in  this  respect  too  little  regard  has 
been  shown  to  Jeffrey  of  Monmouth,  on  the  other  hand,  care 
must  be  taken  not  to  overrate  his  contemporary  Caradoc  of 
Llancarvan,  though  criticism  has  hitherto  but  seldom  directed 
its  shafts  against  the  latter,  an  accumulation  of  quotations 
from  whom  imparts  a  show  of  deep  research  to  some  modern 
historic  productions.     In  most  instances,  however,  of  such 
conflicting  narratives,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  Welsh  hi- 
storians adopted  the  policy  of  purloining  from  a  successful 
enemy,  and  skilfully  transferring  to  his   British  contempo- 
raries, if  not  to  imaginary  personages,  the  object  and  reward 
of  his  battles,  the  glory  and  lastingness  of  his  individuality  in 
history.     The  case  before  us  leads  also  to  the  remark,  that  a 
similarity  of  names    sometimes   occurs   between   the   West 
Saxons  and  the  Britons,  to  be  accounted  for  only  by  the  sup- 
position of  early  alliances  between  both  nations.   With  regard 
to  the  name  of  Ceadwealla,  it  may  not  be  unimportant,  for 
the  genuineness  of  Anglo-Saxon  history,  to  remark,  that  this 
name,  as  in  use  among  the  old  Germanic  tribes,  is  to  be  found 
in  Caesar,  and  perhaps  in  Tacitus'*. 

^  Caradoc  of  Llancan'an,  p.  13  sq. 

^  Daru,  Histoire  de  Bretagne. 

^  That  a  war  like  the  above-mentioned  was  carried  on  may  be  inferred 
from  Florence  a.  682,  where  it  is  said,  "  Centwine,  rex  West-Saxonum, 
occidentales  Britones  usque  ad  mare  in  ore  gladii  fugavit."  The  Sax.  Chr.  and 
other  authorities  state  merely  that  Centwine  drove  the  Britons  to  the  sea. 

•^  Caesar  (B.  G.  vi.  31)  informs  us  that  a  prince  of  the  Eburones,  a  people 

VOL.  I.  S 


258  CEADWEALLA. 

While  Centwine  maintained  or  restored  the  supremacy  of 
Wessex  in  the  south  of  his  kingdom,  he  extended  its  influence 
also  over  the  Britons  of  Gweut  on  the  northern  side,  who  had 
endeavoured  to  cast  off  the  Germanic  yoke^  But  more  than 
by  external  enemies,  the  tranquillity  of  Centwine  was  dis- 
turbed by  his  nearest  relative,  Ceadwealla,  a  bold  aspiring 
youth  of  the  race  of  Cynric,  and  son  of  Cenberht,  a  sub-king, 
whose  territory  is  not  mentioned^.  Ceadwealla  had  been 
banished  by  Centwine,  but  the  flower  of  the  warlike  youth 
gathered  round  the  exile,  M'ho  found  a  harbour  in  the  forests 
of  Andredeswald  and  Chiltene  on  the  boundary  of  Sussex. 
With  this  valiant  band  he  subdued  that  kingdom,  and  slew 
its  king  ^thelwealh^ ;  but  Ceadwealla  was  subsequently  ex- 
pelled by  two  ealdormen  of  Sussex,  Berhthun  and  JEthelhun, 
who  through  him  had  lost  their  former  power  and  influence*. 
At  this  juncture  Centwine,  it  seems,  abdicated  the  throne. 
That  this  sickly  and  aged  prince  named  Ceadwealla  as  his 
successor,  who  had  till  then  been  the  object  of  his  persecu- 
tion^, is  one  of  the  many  improbabilities  with  which   the 

near  Liege  and  Aix-la-Chapelle,  was  called  Cativolcus,  ■which  is,  no  doubt, 
identical  with  Ceadwealla.  The  name  in  Tacitus  (Ann.  ii.  62),  if  correctly 
recorded  by  him,  is  rather  that  of  the  British  Cadwaladyr  than  of  the  king 
of  Wessex  :  "  Erat  inter  Gothones  nobilis  juvenis  nomine  Catvalda." — 'T. 

^  Malmesb.  de  Pont.  t.  i.  p.  349-     Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra,  t.  ii.  14. 

^  In  the  Sax.  Chr.  a.  661  he  is  stj'led  "  Coenbyrht  cyning."  Fl.  Wigorn. 
"  Cenbriht  subregulus."  Beda  calls  Ceadwealla  merely  "de  regio  genere 
Geuissorum."  The  authorities  agree  as  to  his  descent,  with  the  exception 
of  Malmesbury,  who  calls  him  "  Ceaulini  ex  fratre  Cuda  pronepos,"  where 
the  last  word  shows  that,  for  "  fratre,"  we  should  read  "  filio." 

^  A.D.  685.  Beda,  iv.  15.  Care  should  be  taken  not  to  confound  ^thel- 
wealh,  king  of  Sussex,  with  .^thelwald  (written  in  the  charters  Ecguald), 
a  vassal  king  under  Ceadwealla.  Wendover  (t.  i.  p.  182)  erroneously  calls 
the  former  Athelwoldus. — T. 

^  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  685.  H.  Hunt.  lib.  iii.  "qui  prius  regnaverunt."  [Very 
probably  a  mistake  for  Beda's  "  qui  deinceps  regnum  provincise  tenuerunt." 
— T.]  ^thelhun  is  by  Beda  called  "  Andhunus  ; "  in  ^Elfred's  version, 
"Hune." 

''  Malmesb.de  Gestis  Pont.  lib.  v.  1.  The  Saxon  Chronicle  a.  685  does 
not  say  that  Centwine  died  in  that  year,  but  that  "  Ceadwalla  began  to 


CEADWEALLA.  259 

ecclesiastics  have  sought  to  embelhsh  the  hfe  of  their  convert. 
Ceadwealla  was  the  nearest  in  succession,  and  had  been  con- 
verted to  Christianity  by  Wilfrith,  the  banished  bishop  of 
York,  whom  he  had  attached  to  himself  in  Sussex. 

The  first  enterprise  of  Ceadwealla  was  to  take  vengeance 
on  Sussex.  Berhthun  was  slain  in  battle,  also  Eadric,  the 
successor  of  iEthelwealh^,  and  Sussex  was  partitioned  into 
several  small  states  or  kingdoms,  under  the  supremacy  of 
the  king  of  Wessex. 

A  hard  fate  befell  the  Isle  of  Wight,  which,  only  a  few 
years  before,  had,  by  Wulf here  of  Mercia,  been  severed  from 
Wessex  and  ceded  to  Sussex,  though  governed  by  its  own 
prince,  Arwald.  The  twelve  hundred  families,  dwelling  on 
the  island — the  only  Anglo-Saxon  territory,  to  our  knowledge, 
which  had  not  yet  embraced  Christianity — were  nearly  all 
slaughtered  by  the  yet  unbaptized  Ceadwealla,  in  fulfilment 

contend  for  the  kingdom."  Malmesbury's  words  are,  "Kentwinus  morbo 
et  senio  gravis,  Cedwallam  regii  generis  juvenem  successorem  decreverat." 
The  same  writer  afterwards  adduces  a  charter  dated  in  August  688,  in 
which  the  name  of  Centwine  appears  :  "  consilio  et  confirmatione  Kent- 
uuini  regis."  If,  therefore,  this  document  be  genuine,  Centwine  was  then 
not  only  hving,  but  had  retained  the  kingly  title,  and  had,  perhaps,  after 
the  resignation  of  Ceadwealla,  been  required  to  give  his  sanction  to  a  dona- 
tion. That  Centwine  abdicated  and  entered  a  cloister,  having  transferred 
his  kingdom  to  Ceadwealla  as  the  next  heir,  appears  from  a  disregarded 
poem  of  Aldhelm  in  Alcwine's  works  (edit.  Quercetan.  f.  IG/S  sq.),  where, 
instead  of  '  Entuuini,'  we  should  no  doubt  read  '  Centwini.' 

"  Entuuini  filia  regis. 

Qui  primus  imperium  Saxonum  rite  regebat. 

rexit  regnum  plures  feliciter  annos. 

Donee  conversus  cellara  migravit  in  almam. 

Inde  petit  superas  racritis  splendentibus  arces. 

Post  hunc  successit  hello  famosus  et  armis 

Rex  Ceadualla,  potens  regni  possessor,  ut  hseres 

Tertius  accepit  sceptrum  regnator  opimum 
Quem  clamant  In  incerto  cognomine  gentes. 
Qui  nunc  imperium  Saxonum  jure  gubernat." 

[H.  Hunt.  a.  686  says,  however,  Centwino  "  Occidentaliura  rege  defuncto, 
Cedwalla  post  eum  regnans." — T.] 
1  A.D.  685.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  2. 

S  2 


260  CEADWEALLA. 

of  a  vow,  that,  if  he  took  the  island,  he  would  devote  to  Christ 
the  fourth  part  both  of  the  land  and  the  spoil,  and  which  he 
performed  by  assigning  it  to  Wilfrith,  who  happened  to  be 
present,  for  religious  purposes ;  by  him  the  same  was  trans- 
ferred to  his  nephew  Bernwine,  who,  assisted  by  a  priest 
named  Hiddila,  effected  the  conversion  of  the  island.  Two 
young  brothers  of  Arwald  fled  from  the  enemy  to  the  adjacent 
Jutish  province,  and  sought  a  refuge  at  Stoneham,  where, 
being  betrayed  to  Ceadwealla,  they  were  condemned  to  death. 
On  receiving  this  intelligence,  Cyneberht,  abbot  of  Hreut- 
ford  (Redbridge),  besought  the  king,  who  had  retired  to  that 
neighboui'hood  for  the  cure  of  the  wounds  he  had  received  in 
the  conflict  with  Arwald,  that,  if  it  were  absolutely  necessary 
to  slay  the  youths,  he  might  be  previously  allowed  to  instil 
into  them  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  pious 
office  being  fulfilled  they  readily  submitted  to  their  fate  ',  and 
the  anniversary  of  the  young  martyrs  was  celebrated  by  the 
church  during  many  centuries  2.  From  hence,  accompanied 
by  his  brother  Mul,  he  proceeded  into  Kent,  which  he  laid 
waste,  no  resistance  being  offered  by  the  inhabitants,  who  fled 
on  his  approach^. 

The  rapid  success  which  had  crowned  the  enterprises  of 
Ceadwealla,  and  the  internal  dissensions  which  prevailed  in 
Kent,  seduced  him  to  allow  his  brother  Mul  to  invade  and 
ravage  that  kingdom  a  second  time.  On  this,  as  on  the  pre- 
vious occasion,  towns  and  villages  were  abandoned  by  their 
inhabitants,  who  retired  on  the  advance  of  the  enemy ;  when 
Mul,  who  is  represented  as  endowed  with  all  the  qualities 
constituting  the  old  Germanic  pagan  prince  and  warrior, — 
elegance  of  figure,  grace  of  manners,  liberality,  and  valour 
bordering  on  ferocity, — having  with  twelve  attendants  only 

^  Beda,  iv.  16. 

-  The  anniversary  of  the  "  Fratres  Regis  Arwaldi  MM."  was  on  the 
21st  of  August.— T. 
^  Sax.  Chrcii.     Fl.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  a.  686.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 


CEADWEALLA.  261 

entered  a  house  for  the  sake  of  plunder,  was  discovered  by 
the  country  people  and  burnt  to  death.  A  bloody  vengeance 
for  the  death  of  his  brother  was  taken  by  Ceadwealla,  whose 
devastations  ceased  not  while  any  objects  of  rapine  or  slaughter 
were  to  be  found  in  the  devoted  province  ^ 

Influenced  apparently  by  the  exhortations  of  his  revered 
friend  Wilfrith,  Ceadwealla,  after  a  successful  reign  of  two 
years  only,  resolved  to  renounce  his  crown  in  favour  of  Ins 
cousin  Ine  (Ini)^,  and  make  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  for  the 
purpose  of  receiving  baptism  at  the  hands  of  pope  Sergius. 
On  his  way  he  was  most  honourably  Avelcomed  by  Cunibert, 
king  of  the  Lombards,  who  had  espoused  Hermelind,  an 
Anglo-Saxon  princess^.  He  was  baptized  on  Easter-day,  and 
assumed  the  name  of  Peter  in  honour  of  the  chief  of  the 
apostles ;  but  before  he  had  laid  aside  the  white  garb  of  bap- 
tism, he  was  seized  with  a  malady  which  terminated  in  death 
on  the  twentieth  of  April,  eight  days  only  after  the  ceremony, 
in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  interred  in  the  church 
of  St.  Peter,  where  an  epitaph,  placed  by  order  of  the  pontiff, 
recorded,  during  many  ages,  the  sanctity  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
king'*. 

The  early  history  of  Ine  is  involved  in  obscurity.  That  the 
Britons  have  identified  him  with  their  Ivor  or  Ynor  has  been 

1  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  a.  687-     W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

^  On  the  19th  Aug.  688  he  issued  a  charter  of  donation.  Malmesb.  de 
Pont.  lib.  V.  [Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  32.  Kemble  questions  the  authenticity 
of  this  document. — T.] 

3  The  remarkable  connexion  of  this  Lombard  prince,  as  well  as  of  his 
father  Bertari,  with  the  insular  Saxons,  has  been  already  noticed.  From 
the  first  part  of  her  name  we  might  be  induced  to  seek  for  the  kindi'ed  of 
Hermelind  among  the  kings  of  Kent.     Cf.  Paul.  Warnef.  lib.  vi.  c.  15. 

*  Beda,  v.  7.  The  sepulchral  inscription  on  Ceadwealla  by  S.  Benedictus 
Crispus,  archbishop  of  Milan,  was  discovered  in  the  15th  century,  accord- 
ing to  Johannes  de  Deio  '  de  Successione  S.  Barnabee,'  p.  23,  but  has  since 
disappeared.  It  is  given  by  Beda  1.  cit.  The  Britons  make  their  Cadwaladyr 
die  at  Rome  on  the  same  day  (xii.  Kal.  Mail)  of  the  year  689.  Galf.  Monom. 
lib.  xii.  18.  Brut  y  Tyw.  a.  681  also  says  he  died  at  Rome,  but  Anoal. 
Camb.  a.  682  that  he  died  of  pestilence  in  his  own  country. 


262  INE. 

already  noticed,  and  even  the  English  accounts  of  his  descent 
are  inconsistent  with  each  other  ;  still  there  appears  no  valid 
reason  for  rejecting  the  testimony  of  the  oldest  authorities, 
which  represent  him  as  the  son  of  Cenred,  a  sub-king,  and, 
like  his  predecessor,  a  descendant  of  Cutha,  the  son  of 
Ceawlin^ 

The  first  years  of  Ine's  reign  must  have  been  passed  in 
disquietude,  though  we  are  not  informed  against  what  foe, 
foreign  or  domestic,  he  had  to  contend.  Not  till  after  a  lapse 
of  five  years  does  he  appear  to  have  been  able  to  wield  the 
sword  of  vengeance  against  the  people  of  Kent  for  the  mur- 
der of  his  kinsman  MuP,  when  the  Kentish  king  Wihtraed 
deemed  it  prudent  to  avoid  an  unequal  contest,  and  to  ap- 
pease him  by  the  payment  of  thirty  thousand  pounds^,  the 
wergeld  or  legal  price  of  the  prince,  who  it  was  considered 
had  not  fallen  in  open  warfare,  but  had  been  treacherously 
murdered. 

Impelled  by  hereditary  hatred,  Ine  is  stated  to  have  di- 

^  The  title  "  subregulus  "  is  found  in  Fl.  Wigorn.  Geneal.  Cf.  Asseri  Vita 
jElfredi.  Sax.  Cliron.  a.  855.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  688.  The  varying  genealogy 
in  Malmesbury,  lib.  i.2,  "Ina,  qui  Cinegisli  exfratre  Cuthbaldo  pronepos," 
might  excite  scruples  in  a  modern  historian,  being  similar  to  that  in  the 
Chronicle  a.  688,  but  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  all  the  manuscripts,  and 
is  at  variance  with  the  other  one,  a.  855.  Cynegils,  otherwise  known  as 
the  son  of  Ceolric,  gets  thereby  another  father,  and  Cuthwine,  the  father  of 
Ceolwald  or  Cuthbald,  becomes,  instead  of  a  grandson,  a  son  of  Ceawlin. 
In  Malmesb.  de  Pont.  lib.  ii.  Ine's  father  is  named  Cissa,  and  so  again  in 
hb.  V.  (ap.  Wharton,  t.  ii.),  though  the  edition  of  this  work  in  Gale  (t.  i. 
p.  346)  gives  the  name  according  to  the  charter  there  printed,  "  Cisi,  Cenred, 
pater  Inse."  [In  the  preamble  to  his  laws  he  says,  "  I  Ine,  with  the  counsel 
of  Cenred  my  father." — T.] 

'  According  to  one  MS.  of  the  Sax.  Chr.  and  Fl,  Wigorn.  a.  694,  Mul 
was  a  brother  of  Ine  as  well  as  of  Ceadwealla.  Probably  Ine  and  Mul  had 
the  same  mother.  [R.  Wendover,  t.  i.  p.  187,  calls  him  "  cognatus; "  Ethel- 
werd,  "propinquus"  (Inae). — T.] 

3  The  Sax.  Chron.  a.  694  says  30,000  pounds.  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "  nun- 
dinantur  pacem  triginta  millibus  auri  mancis."  Florence  has  3750  pounds 
(hbras),  which,  reckoning  eight  mancuses  to  the  pound,  agrees  with  Mal- 
raesbury.  Ethelwerd's  account  is,  that  it  was  "  30,000  solidi,  per  singulos 
constanti  numero  sexdecim  nunimis." 


INE.  263 

rected  his  arms  against  East  Anglia,  which  he  ravaged,  having 
previously  expelled  the  nobility  from  the  country  i. 

During  the  long  reign  of  Ine  hostile  collisions  with  the 
Britons  were  inevitable  :  among  these  the  most  memorable  is 
the  war  against  Geraint,  king  of  Cernau,  conducted  by  Ine 
and  his  kinsman  Nunna,  which  ended  in  the  flight  of  the 
British  prince^. 

A  power  next  to  the  king's  was  possessed,  from  the  days 
of  Centwine,  in  the  southern  parts  of  Wessex,  by  a  king  or 
sub-king  Baldred,  whose  influence  and  importance,  though 
apparent  from  other  sources,  is  rendered  more  manifest  by 
the  circumstance,  that  the  Welsh  assign  to  a  prince  of  Devon 
and  Cornwall  living  at  the  time  the  Saxon  name  of  Baldrich^. 

The  hardest  conflicts  were,  however,  those  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  among  themselves,  in  which  they  engaged  with  all  the 
ardour  and  ferocity  of  their  forefathers,  for  martial  glory  and 
supremacy  in  their  loosely  bound  confederation.  In  the  year 
715  a  battle  was  fought  between  the  armies  of  Mercia  and 
Wessex,  in  which  it  was  unknown  on  which  side  the  slaughter 
was  most  appalling.  The  scene  of  this  engagement  was  Wod- 
nesbeorh  (Wenborough  in  Wiltshire),  a  spot  which  from  its 
position  either  natural,  or  perhaps  strengthened  by  art  as  a 
protection  to  a  temple  of  Woden,  had  already  been  strewed 
with  the  corpses  of  the  slain  in  former  conflicts. 

^  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  "  Nee  solum  Cantuaritfe,  sed  et  Orieiitales  Angli 
hsereditarium  exceperunt  odium,  omni  nobilitate  prime  pulsa,  post  etiam 
belio  fusa."  "  Sax.  Chron,     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  /lO. 

3  W.  Malm,  de  Antiq.  Glaston.  p.  308,  a.  681  :  "  Baldred  rex Ken- 
wine  etiam  consentiente  dedit,"  p.  309.     "Lanctocay Kenvvino  etiam 

et  Baldredo  consentientibus  dedit."  Ibid.  p.  311.     "  Privilegium  regis  Inae, 

a.  725.     Ina hortatu  Balddredi  et  Athelardi  subregulorum." — "  Balt- 

rec."  Ine  continues,  "  a  predecessoribus  meis  Kenewalchio,  Kenwino, 
Cedwalla,  Baldredo  confirraatum."  At  the  end,  "  Ego  Baldredus  rex  con- 
firmavi.  Ego  Adelard  frater  reginae  consensi."  Cutliredalso  in  a  charter 
a.  744  calls  Baldred  his  predecessor,  and  places  him  betsveen  Centwine  and 
Ceadvvealla.  In  a  letter  of  Aldhelm,  written  about  701,  he  is  called 
"  patricius  Baldredus."  lb.  347.  By  the  Britons,  "  Baldrich ; "  see  Caradoc, 
edit.  Wynne,  p.  17. 


264  INE. 

But  not  alone  for  his  warlike  achievements,  which  almost 
exclusively  occupy  the  chronicles  of  the  time,  has  the  name 
of  Ine  been  celebrated.  A  collection  of  the  laws  of  Wessex, 
made  by  his  command,  is,  with  the  exception  of  those  of  the 
Kentish  kings,  the  earliest  known  to  us  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  These  laws,  seventy-six  in  number,  have  special 
reference  to  theft,  murder  or  manslaughter,  feuds,  and  pecu- 
niary compensations  (bota),  with  others  applicable  to  the 
British  subjects  (Wealas),  who  are  placed  on  a  footing  nearly 
equal  to  that  of  their  Germanic  conquerors. 

Ine  also  improved  the  ecclesiastical  administration  of  his 
kingdom,  by  detaching  from  the  diocese  of  Winchester,  after 
the  death  of  bishop  Hedde  in  703,  a  new  bishopric,  the  see 
of  which  was  established  at  Shireburn^  Among  his  nume- 
rous praiseworthy  services  in  the  founding  and  endowment 
of  monasteries,  the  rebuilding  and  enlarged  endowment  of 
the  old  British  abbey  of  Glastonbury,  for  the  repose  of  the 
soul  of  his  murdered  kinsman  Mul,  is  the  most  memorable^. 
But  we  feel  more  particularly  induced  to  ascribe  to  the  actions 
and  views  of  Ine  a  nobler  character,  when  we  know  that  his 
friend  and  counsellor  was  the  excellent  bishop  Aldhelm  (Eald- 
helm),  a  man  on  whom  no  brighter  lustre  can  be  shed  by  the 
royal  descent  assigned  to  him  by  his  rank-adoring  country- 
men, and  whose  merits  we  unhesitatingly  place  on  a  level 
with  those  of  the  Venerable  Beda^ ;  for  though  in  compre- 
hensiveness of  knowledge  he  may  not,  perhaps,  have  been  his 
equal,  yet  as  a  Latin  poet  he  stood  higher,  merited  greater 
praise  for  the  cultivation  of  his  mother-tongue,  left  him  far 

^  Malmesb.  de  Pont.  lib.  ii. 

2  Malmesb.  de  Antiq.  Glaston.  ap.  Gale,  t.  i. 

3  Aldhelm  ob.  a.  709.  See  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.  Also  the  5th  book  of  Mal- 
mesbury,  De  Gestis  Pontificum,  published  in  Savile  and  Gale,  also  in 
Wharton's  Anglia  Sacra,  which  is  a  biography  of  Aldhelm.  An  edition  of 
h's  Latin  poems  as  well  as  of  his  work  '  De  Septenario  ct  de  Re  Gram- 
matica  ac  Metrica  ad  Aifridum  regem  Northumbrorum'  is  in  Maii  Classici 
Auctores  e  Vat.  Codd.  ed.  t.  v. 


INE.  265 

behind  in  knowledge  of  the  canon  and  Roman  law,  and  greatly 
excelled  him  in  influential,  practical  activity.  For  his  ex- 
tensive knowledge  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues  he  was 
indebted  to  the  school  of  Canterbury,  more  especially  to 
Hadrian  ^,  abbot  of  the  abbey  of  St.  Augustine  in  that  city, 
who  did  not  come  to  England  till  Aldhelm  was  near  thirty 
years  old ;  though  his  earlier  instruction,  particularly  in  dia- 
lectics, he  owed  to  the  abbey,  founded  by  a  Scot  of  Maildulfes- 
burh,  the  modern  Malmesbury^,  a  celebrated  monk  of  which, 
William  of  Malmesbury,  has  raised  an  honourable  biographic 
monument  to  this  most  renowned  scholar,  and  subsequently 
abbot  of  his  cloister.  In  enumerating  and  characterizing  the 
works  of  Aldhelm,  no  observation  is  more  descriptive  both  of 
him  and  his  nation,  even  in  our  days,  than  that  which  di- 
stinguishes pomp  as  a  leading  quality^. 

An  individual,  around  whose  name  a  still  brighter  glory 
shines  than  even  that  around  Aldhelm's,  may  not  here  be 
totally  passed  over  in  silence.  Winfrith,  more  generally  known 
under  his  assumed  name  of  Boniface,  was  a  contemporary  of 
Ine,  and,  previously  to  his  triumphs  over  paganism  in  Ger- 
many, had  been  employed  by  that  prince  on  a  mission  to  the 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  a  choice  equally  illustrative  of  the 
discriminating  sagacity  of  the  monarch,  and  honourable  to  the 
future  apostle  of  our  continental  brethren.  As  the  record  of 
the  greater  and  holier  acts  of  Boniface  belongs  not  to  our 
history,  we  must,  though  reluctantly,  limit  our  notice  of  him 
to  this  little  more  than  simple  mention  of  his  name'*. 

The  latter  years  of  Ine's  reign  were  less  prosperous  than 
most  of  the  earlier  ones.     Under  the  year  721  it  is  recorded 

1  Beda,  iv.  1,  v.  20.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i.     See  p.  181. 

2  Beda,  v.  18,  and  Smith's  note. 

^  Malmesb.  de  Pont.  ap.  Gale,  p.  342,  "  Grseci  involute,  Romani  splen- 
dide,  Angli  poinpatice  dictare  solent.  Quem  (Aldhelmum)  si  perfecte 
legeris,  et  ex  acumine  Grsecum  putabis,  et  ex  nitore  Romanum  jurabis,  et 
ex  pompa  Anglum  intelliges."  ' 

*  See  Vita  S.  Bonifacii. 


266  INE. 

that  the  aetheling  Cynewulf  was  slain  by  Ine  \  the  cause  of 
which  act  can  only  be  sought  for  in  a  rebellion  raised  by  the 
former.  The  flame  once  kindled  seems,  however,  not  to  have 
been  quenched  with  the  blood  of  Cynewulf.  The  insurgents 
had  made  themselves  masters  of  Tantun  (Taunton)  in  Somer- 
setshire, a  town  built  by  Ine  ;  but  his  queen  wrested  it  from 
their  hands  and  razed  it  to  the  ground.  While  Ine  was  car- 
rying on  a  successful  war  against  Sussex,  and  apparently  a 
less  successful  one  against  the  Britons  in  Cornwall  and  Gla- 
morgan, who,  under  the  king  of  that  country,  Rodri  Mal- 
wynog,  and  Ivor  with  other  chieftains,  had  taken  advantage 
of  the  disturbed  state  of  Wessex^,  Ealdberht,  also  an  getheling, 
fled  from  Wessex,  after  the  loss  of  Taunton,  at  the  head  of  the 
insurgents,  and  wandered  about  in  Surrey  in  all  the  misery 
of  exile,  but  found  afterwards  support  in  Sussex.  He  was  at 
length  overcome  and  slain  by  Ine^. 

Shortly  after  these  successes,  and  when  he  had  reigned 
thirty-seven  years,  Ine  resolved  to  renounce  the  sceptre  and 
the  world '^.  The  wish  by  which  this  step  was  preceded  must 
have  been  occasioned  by  the  cares  of  royalty  and  the  turbu- 
lence of  those  over  whom  Ine  had  perhaps  already  reigned 
too  long ;  but  the  manner  in  which  it  was  brought  to  maturity 
by  the  queen  ^thelburh  is  too  characteristic  to  be  passed 
over  in  silence.     A  sumptuous  entertainment  had  been  given 

^  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  If  faith  is  to  be  placed  in  Malmesbury, 
Ine  had  no  domestic  enemy  :  "  Domi  gratiam,  foris  reverentiam  mercabatur. 
Adeo  annis  duobus  de  quadraginta  potestate  functus,  sine  ullo  insidiarum 
raetu  securus  incanuit,  sanctissimus  pubHci  amoris  lenocinator."  [For 
'  quadraginta/  the  reading  of  five  MSS.  cited  by  Mr.  Hardy,  Savile's  text 
has  'sexaginta.'  According  to  Beda  (v.  7),  Ine  reigned  thirty-seven  years. 
— T.]  2  ^nnal.  Camb.  a.  722.     Brut  y  Tyw.  a.  721. 

3  Sax.  Chron.  a.  725. 

■*  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  728.  This  date  is  unquestionably  incor- 
rect. The  Chronicle  is,  moreover,  inconsistent  with  itself,  giving  tOw^thel- 
heard,  the  successor  of  Ine,  a  reign  of  fourteen  years,  and  placing  his  death 
in  741  (some  MSS.  740).  According  to  App.  ad  Bedam  he  died  in  739. 
[In  four  MSS.  of  the  Chronicle,  Ine's  departure  is  correctly  given  in  726. 
-T.] 


iETHELHEARD.  267 

at  one  of  the  royal  villas.  On  the  following  day,  after  the 
departure  of  Ine  and  his  queen,  the  superintendent,  by  order 
of  the  latter,  defiled  the  palace  with  the  dung  of  cattle  and 
heaps  of  rubbish,  and  placed  in  the  bed,  where  the  royal  pair 
had  passed  the  night,  a  sow  which  had  recently  farrowed. 
When  they  had  already  proceeded  more  than  a  mile  on  their 
way  back,  Ine,  for  reasons  assigned  by  his  queen,  was  induced 
to  return  to  the  villa.  On  arriving  there,  and  seeing  the 
change  it  had  undergone,  he  turned  his  inquiring  eyes  to- 
wards his  consort,  who  hereupon  took  occasion  to  expatiate 
on  the  vanity  of  human  life.  The  resolve  of  the  deeply  affected 
monarch  was  no  longer  delayed  ;  he  resigned  his  crown  to  the 
brother  of  his  wife,  the  under-kin g  ^thelheard,  of  the  race 
of  Cerdic^,  and  went,  accompanied  by  ^thelburh,  as  a  pilgrim 
to  Rome,  where,  rejecting  every  vestige  of  earthly  pomp,  and 
declining  to  lay  aside  his  hair,  but  clad  in  a  homely  garb,  he 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  years  in  privacy  and  devotion. 
His  wife,  who  had  prompted  him  to  this  step,  was  his  com- 
panion and  comfort  to  the  last^. 

Ine  left  also  another  relative  in  the  male  line,  the  aetheling 
Oswald,  to  whom  he  had  destined  a  share  of  his  kingdom^. 
The  struggle  between  the  two  competitors  lasted  some  years, 
till  the  death  of  Oswald,  when  his  party,  though  powerful, 
desisted  from  further  opposition  to  -^Ethelheard.  Attacks  from 
without  rendered  this  union  extremely  necessary ;  though  the 
victories  w  hich  the  Britons  ascribe  to  themselves  over  Adelrad 
of  Wessex,  in  Wales  and  Cornwall,  by  which  name  ^thel- 
heard  seems  to  be  intended,  are  mentioned  as  having  taken 
place  in  the  years  720  and  722,  consequently  during  the 
reign  of  Ine,  and  are,  therefore,  extremely  doubtful.  At  the 
same  time  a  leader  could  reckon  on  no  dependents  and  no 


1  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.728.     W.  Mcalm.  lib.  i.  MV.  Malm. 

^  Beda,  v.  7.  "  ipse,  relicto  regno  ac  juvenioribus  commendato pro- 

fcctus  est."  Later  writers  mention  only  the  final  succession  of  vEthel- 
heard. 


268  CUTHRED. 

renown  if  he  had  not  been  victorious  over  the  refractory 
Welsh,  who  it  is  certain  had  about  this  time,  that  is,  after 
the  abdication  of  Ine,  succeeded  in  great  measure  in  casting 
off  the  Saxon  yoke^;  and  equally  certain  it  appears  that 
^thelheard  had  to  answer  for  this  disgrace  to  his  subjects. 
More  formidable,  however,  for  ^Ethelheard  was  the  prepon- 
derance gained  over  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  states  as  far  as  the 
Humber  by  the  Mercian  king  ^thelbald,  -who,  having  as- 
sembled a  formidable  army,  invested  Sumertun  (Somerton), 
the  chief  town  of  the  Sumersaetas,  which,  the  inhabitants 
being  unable  to  offer  any  efficient  resistance  from  within,  and 
cut  off  from  external  succour,  he  reduced  under  his  subjec- 
tion^. After  a  reign  of  fourteen  years  ^thelheard  died,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  kinsman  Cuthred^. 

It  was  the  lot  of  Cuthred  to  pass  the  greater  part  of  his 
reign  in  warfare  with  ^thelbald  of  Mercia,  which  led  to  no 
beneficial  result  for  either  of  the  contending  parties.  The 
Britons,  on  the  other  hand,  taking  advantage  of  the  discord 
prevailing  among  the  Anglo-Saxons,  had  so  greatly  increased 
in  strength,  that  both  the  hostile  monarchs  united  their  forces 
for  the  purpose  of  quelling  them.  In  this  undertaking,  owing 
to  the  superior  number  and  the  emulation  of  their  men,  they 
w'ere  so  successful  that  the  honour  of  victory  was  indisputably 
on  the  side  of  the  Anglo-Saxons'*.  On  the  occasion  of  a  new 
quarrel  between  Cuthred  and  ^thelbald,  the  Britons  took 
part  with  the  former,  who  with  their  aid  is  said  to  have  gained 
a  victory  over  the  Mercians  near  Hereford,  but  was,  never- 
theless, unable  to  protect  his  new  allies  from  the  vengeance 
of  iEthelbald^.  In  this  war  the  aetheling  Cynric,  the  son  of 
Cuthred,  fell,  a  youth  famed  both  as  an  undaunted  warrior 

*  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  731.  "Britones  magna  ex  parte  Angloruni  servitio 
mancipati  fuere."  ^  Sax.  Chron.     H.  Hunt.  a.  733. 

3Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  741. 

■*  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  743.  H.  Hunt.  Caradoc  also  seems  to 
speak  of  this  battle,  though,  instead  of  Cuthred,  he  names  ^thelheard. 

^  Caradoc,  p.  17. 


CUTHRED.  269 

and  a  hunter :  he  seems  to  have  perished  in  a  sedition  among 
his  followers,  who,  unable  to  face  the  dangers  into  which  he 
would  urge  them,  saw  no  other  escape  than  in  the  murder  of 
their  leader  ^ 

The  supremacy  which  Mercia  had  in  the  course  of  these 
contests  gained  over  Wessex  became  at  length  so  oppressive, 
that  Cuthred  resolved  to  take  the  field  once  more  against 
-(Ethelbald  and  his  ally  Oengus  or  Unnust,  king  of  the 
Picts^,  when  a  dangerous  rebellion  broke  out  in  his  kingdom, 
at  the  head  of  which  was  w^thelhun,  an  ealdorman  renowned 
for  his  valour,  who,  Avith  far  inferior  forces,  was  yet  able  for 
a  considerable  time  to  maintain  the  field  against  his  sovereign ; 
but  having  received  a  wound,  victory  at  length  declared  itself 
on  the  side  of  Cuthred^,  who  used  it  with  generosity,  and 
restored  yEthelhun  to  favour.  Two  years  afterwards  a  decisive 
victory,  owing  chiefly  to  the  valour  of  -^thelhun,  was  gained 
over  the  Mercians  at  Burford%  which  freed  Wessex  from  all 
further  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  other  Anglo-Saxon 
states.  From  that  glorious  day  the  West  Saxon  dynasty 
rapidly  rose  to  the  supremacy  over  all  the  other  insular  states, 
which  it  maintained  during  a  period  of  three  centuries,  when 
it  sank  under  the  resistless  attacks  of  a  barbarous  enemy. 

The  year  following  the  humiliation  of  Mercia,  Cuthred 
turned  his  arms  against  the  Britons,  who,  weakened  appa- 
rently by  the  victories  which  the  Dalriads  had  obtained  over 
them^,  and  unable  to  offer  effectual  resistance,  lost  great  num- 
bers in  their  flight^.     Soon  after  these  events  Cuthred  died 

^  H.Hunt.  Sax.  Chron.  a. 748.    "  App.adBedam,a.750.    Slm.Dunelm. 

^  Sax.  Chron,    H.  Hunt.  a.  750.  ■"  Sax.  Chron.  a.  752.    See  p.  22G. 

^  "  Congressio  Dalriada  et  Britonum  in  lapide  qui  vocatur  Minvirce,  et 
Biitones  devicti  sunt."  Tigern.  a.  717. 

"  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigorn.  H.  Hunt.  a.  753.  According  to  GefTrei 
Gaimar,  v.  1803,  Cuthred  was  beaten  by  the  Welsh  : 

"  Dous  anz  apres,  Gudret  li  reis  descunfiz  in,  mes  bien  guari, 

se  combati  contra  Gualeis  :  ne  gueres  del  son  ni  perdi." 

In  this  he  is  not,  however,  copied  even  by  Bromton. 


270  SIGEBYRHT. 

childless^,  and  too  early  to  witness  the  rising  prosperity  of 
his  nation. 

Cuthred  was  succeeded  by  his  kinsman  Sigebyrht,  the  son 
of  an  under-king  Sigeric,  two  names  which  remind  us  of  the 
kings  of  Essex ^,  who  were  nearly  allied  to  the  race  of  Cerdic. 
The  prosperity  of  his  predecessor  had  so  blinded  this  prince, 
that  he  treated  his  subjects  in  the  most  injurious  manner.  The 
exhortations  of  his  faithful  counsellors,  to  preserve  the  laws  in- 
violate and  maintain  justice,  only  served  to  instigate  the  tyrant 
to  greater  acts  of  violence.  At  the  beginning  of  the  second 
year  of  his  reign,  in  an  assembly  of  the  nobles  and  people^, 
Sigebyrht  was  formally  deposed  and  banished  from  the  king- 
dom, the  government  of  which  was  intrusted  to  Cynewulf,  an- 
other descendant  of  Cerdic,  Hampshire  alone  remaining  under 
the  authority  of  Sigebyrht,  from  whence  he  was,  however,  soon 
compelled  to  flee,  for  having  in  his  anger  murdered  the  faithful 
ealdorman  Cumbra"^,  who  had  ventured  to  give  him  some 
wholesome  counsel.  Like  his  predecessor  Ceadwealla,  he  fled 
to  Andredeswald,  though,  unlike  him,  not  again  to  leave  it. 
A  faithful  swineherd  of  Cumbra  discovered  him,  and  avenged 
with  his  spear  the  blood  of  his  murdered  master. 

The  long  reign  ^  of  Cynewulf  is  remarkably  barren  of  events 
of  which  any  memorial  has  been  preserved.  He  engaged  in 
several  hard-fought  though  successful  conflicts  wuth  the 
Britons,  but  at  what  place  and  in  what  year  we  are  not  in- 
formed*".     One  memorial  regarding  this  prince  has,  however, 

1  Sax.Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn, 

"  Fl.  Wigorn.  Geneal.     Cf.  Sax.  Cliron.  a.  823. 

3  H.  Hunt.  a.  755.  "  Congregati  sunt  proceres  et  populus  totius  regni." 

*  "  Consul  nobilissimus."  H.  Hunt.  In  a  charter  of  Cuthred,  a.  744 
(Cod.  Diplom.  p.  112),  Cumbra  signs  himself,  "  prsefectus  regis." 

*  The  Chronicle  and  other  ancient  authorities  assign  to  Cynewulf  a  reign 
of  thirty-one  years,  while  they  place  his  accession  in  755,  and  his  murder 
in  784.— T. 

®  Sax.  ChroD.  H.  Hunt.  a.  784.  In  the  latter  years  of  this  prince,  several 
of  the  Frisian  family  of  the  Fortemanni  are  said  to  have  served  the  king  of 
England.     See  Ocka  Scharlensis  Chronicke  van  Frieslandt,  fol.  18. 


CYNEWULF.  271 

been  preserved  in  the  form  of  a  grant  of  lands  to  the  church 
of  Wells  in  expiation  of  his  sins,  and  of  the  severities  which 
he  had  exercised  towards  his  Cornish  enemies  ^  The  letter 
which,  in  conjunction  with  his  bishops  and  nobles,  he  ad- 
dressed to  Lullus,  archbishop  of  Mentz,  shows  that  consider- 
able intercourse  existed  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the 
German  church'^.  A  conflict  with  OfFa,  the  powerful  king 
of  Mercia,  ended,  unfortunately  for  the  people  of  Wessex, 
who  lost  Bensington  (Benson)  in  Oxfordshire  to  the  con- 
querors^. 

The  death  of  Cynewulf  though  late  was  violent.  He  had 
ordered  into  banishment  Cyneheard,  the  younger  brother  of 
his  predecessor,  who,  instead  of  yielding  to  the  mandate, 
having  learned  that  the  king  with  a  slender  retinue  w^as  gone 
to  visit  a  female  at  Merton  to  whom  he  was  attached,  sur- 
rounded the  house  with  his  followers,  when  the  inmates  were 
wrapt  in  sleep.  On  discovering  that  the  place  was  beset,  the 
king,  seizing  his  weapons,  rushed  to  the  door  of  his  apart- 
ment and  offered  a  stout  resistance  to  his  assailants,  when, 
perceiving  the  oetheling,he  wounded  him  severely,  but  was  him- 
self immediately  overpowered  and  slain.  At  this  moment  the 
attendants  of  Cynewulf,  who  were  lodged  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, roused  by  the  cries  of  the  female,  hastened,  though  too 
late,  to  their  master's  succour.  Cyneheard's  offers  of  life  and 
rewards  they  received  wdth  scorn,  and  desperately  fighting 
were  all  slain  with  the  exception  of  one,  a  British  hostage, 
who  was  sorely  wounded. 

On  the  following  morning  the  king's  friend,  the  ealdorman 
Osric,  and  Wigferth  his  faithful  thane,  Avith  all  the  thanes  who 
had  remained  behind,  having  heard  what  had  taken  place, 
immediately  rode  to  Merton,  where  they  found  the  gates 
closed   against    them.      On   their   attempting   to   force   an 

^  Charter  a.  766  in  Monast.  Angl.      [Also  in  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  1,41, 
where  its  genuineness  is  questioned. — T.]  ^  Epist.  Bonifacii,  xcii. 

3  Sax.  Chron.  a.  775  (777).     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  778. 


272  BEORHTRIC. 

entrance,  the  tetheling  promised  them  money  and  lands  at 
their  own  discretion  if  they  would  receive  him  for  their  king, 
at  the  same  time  intimating  to  them,  that  many  of  their  kin- 
dred were  with  him  who  would  not  forsake  him.  But  the 
faithful  band  declared  unanimously  that  no  kinsman  could  be 
dearer  to  them  than  their  lord,  and  that  they  would  never 
follow  his  murderer.  They  then  called  upon  their  relations 
who  were  with  Cyneheard  to  leave  him  while  they  were  yet 
safe  and  unhurt ;  but  these  also  answered  that  they  had  made 
a  similar  offer  to  those  who  were  yesterday  with  the  king, 
which  was  not  listened  to ;  they  could  not,  therefore,  accept 
that  now  made  to  themselves.  A  conflict  then  ensued  before 
the  gates,  which  being  soon  forced,  the  a^theling  with  his  fol- 
lowers, to  the  number  of  eighty-four,  were  slain,  one  only, 
the  godson  of  Osric,  escaping  with  life,  and  he  was  covered 
with  wounds.  The  corpse  of  Cynewulf  was  buried  with  those 
of  his  forefathers  at  Winchester;  that  of  the  setheling  at 
Axminster\ 

The  next  in  succession  to  the  vacant  throne,  as  far  as  our 
knowledge  of  the  line  of  Cerdic  enables  us  to  judge,  was 
Ealhmund,  king  of  Kent,  a  great  grandson  of  Ingild,  the 
brother  of  Ine,  whose  pretensions,  either  from  disregard  to 
the  strict  line  of  succession,  provided  the  individual  were  of 
the  race  of  Cerdic,  or  from  some  other  to  us  unknown  cause, 
seem  to  have  been  passed  by,  and  another  member  of  the 
royal  house,  Beorhtric,  of  whose  right  it  is  merely  said  that 
he  was  descended  from  Cerdic,  was  by  the  witan  chosen  for 
king.  Beorhtric  justified  the  confidence  which  had  called 
him  to  the  throne.  For  the  internal  security  of  his  realm  he 
provided  by  the  expulsion  of  Ecgberht,  the  son  of  Ealhmund  ; 
and  against  the  inroads  of  foreign  foes,  whether  Britons  or 
other  Anglo-Saxons,  he  also  rendered  himself  secure.  The 
peace  of  the  land  was,  moreover,  not  a  little  confirmed  by  his 
alliance  with  OfFa  of  Mercia,  whose  daughter  Eadburh  he  had 
1  Sax.  Cbron.  a.  784.    Ethelwerd. 


EADBURH.  273 

espoused  ^  Ecgberht,  who  until  this  event  had  found  shelter 
among  the  Mercians,  and  cherished  hopes  of  one  day  obtain- 
ing the  crown  of  Wessex,  now  fled  to  the  court  of  the  Prankish 
emperor. 

This  reign  was  remarkable  for  the  first  landing  of  the  North- 
men in  England,  which  took  place  on  the  coast  of  Dorsetshire 
from  three  ships.  On  being  apprised  of  the  event  the  king's 
reeve  (gerefa),  named  Beaduheard^,  who  resided  at  Dorchester, 
supposing  them  to  be  contraband  traders  rather  than  pirates, 
rode  hastily  to  the  port  and  commanded  that  they  should  be 
forcibly  conducted  to  the  king's  town;  whereupon  he  was 
assailed  by  the  Northmen  and  slain  with  all  his  retinue. 

To  the  influence  of  the  queen  Eadburh,  a  daughter  of  that 
Cynethrith  whose  memory  the  murder  of  the  young  king  of 
East  Anglia  has  stained  with  everlasting  infamy,  may  pro- 
bably be  ascribed  the  indifference  with  which  Beorhtric  seems 
to  have  regarded  the  increasing  power  of  Mercia  over  Kent. 
Through  the  fond  weakness  of  her  consort,  this  woman  had 
imperceptibly  acquired  an  absolute  dominion  in  all  the  inter- 
nal concerns  of  the  kingdom.  Those  towards  whom  Beorhtric 
evinced  an  attachment,  or  who  were  opposed  to  her  baneful 
caprices,  she  found  means  to  destroy,  either  by  false  accusa- 
tions or,  failing  in  them,  by  poison.  A  young  ealdorman 
named  Worr,  distinguished  both  on  account  of  his  high  birth 
and  amiable  character,  was  the  favourite  of  Beorhtric,  and 
consequently  an  object  of  hatred  to  his  wife.  Accusations 
against  him  proving  ineffectual,  she  had  recourse  to  her  usual 
alternative  of  poison.  Her  purpose  was  effected,  but  her 
husband  also  partook  of  the  deadly  cup  and  perished  with 
his  friend.  In  their  utter  detestation  of  this  abandoned 
woman,  the  West  Saxons  resolved  that  no  future  consort  of 

1  Sax.  Chron,  a.  787. 

'  Ethelwerd,  lib.  iii.  Prooem.  Fl.  Wigorn.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  787>  where  it 
is  said  that  the  Northmen  came  out  of  "  Hreretha  lande." 

VOL.  I.  T 


274  EADBURH. 

a  king  should  be  permitted  to  occupy  a  royal  throne  by  the 
side  of  her  husband,  or  to  bear  the  title  of  queen'. 

After  this  event,  finding  that  her  presence  could  no  longer 
be  tolerated  in  Wessex,  Eadburh  fled  with  her  treasures  to 
the  court  of  Charlemagne,  who,  on  her  presenting  him  with 
various  costly  gifts,  jocosely  said  to  her,  "  Choose,  Eadburh, 
between  me  and  my  son,  who  stands  there  in  the  saloon^, 
which  you  will  have."  To  which  she  thoughtlessly  answered, 
"  If  I  may  be  allowed  to  choose,  I  will  have  your  son  as  being 
the  younger."  "  If  you  had  chosen  me,"  replied  Charles 
laughing,  "  you  should  have  had  my  son ;  but  having  chosen 
my  son,  you  shall  have  neither  me  nor  him."  Charles,  how- 
ever, bestowed  on  her  a  considerable  monastery,  in  which  for 
a  short  time  she  exercised  the  duties  of  abbess,  but  being  con- 
victed of  criminal  intercourse  with  one  of  her  own  country- 
men, as  well  as  with  others,  she  was  by  the  emperor's  order 
expelled  from  the  convent.  Attended  by  a  single  slave,  the 
daughter  of  OfFa  and  wife  of  Beorhtric,  after  various  wander- 
ings, died  a  beggar  in  the  city  of  Pa  via  ^. 

'  Sax.  Chron,  FI.  Wigorn.  a.  800.  Asser.  Sim.  Dunelm.  W,  Malm. 
From  that  time  the  consort  of  the  king  usuallv  bore  the  title  of  '  hlsefdige/ 
lady.—T. 

'  "  Elige,  Eadburgh,  quem  veils  inter  me  et  filium  raeum,  qui  mecum  in 
solario  isto  stat."  Asser. — T. 

^A.D.802.  "Uno  servulo  comitata."  Asser,  a.  856.  Sim.  Dunelm. 
a.  802.  [Asser  informs  us  that  he  had  the  story  of  Eadburh  from  Alfred's 
own  mouth  :  "  a  domino  meo  -Alfredo,  Angulsaxonum  rege  veridico,  etiam 
s?epe  mihi  referente  audivi,  quod  et  ille  etiam  a  veridicis  multis  referentibus, 
immo  ex  parte  nonmodica  illud  factum  commemorantibus,  audierat." — T.] 


ADDITIONAL   NOTES. 


Page  11,  note-. — The  characters  of  the  runic  alphabet  are  also 
named  chiefly  after  natural  objects,  some  of  them  from  trees, 
as  oak,  birch,  thorn  ;  and  like  the  bardic  alphabet  it  consisted 
originally  of  sixteen  letters. — T. 

P.  48. — The  following  passage  from  the  Codex  Eberbrard  Clusanus 
of  the  Gesta  Treverorum  is  rather  curious  :  "  Hujus  Marcelli 
(episc.  Treverici)  et  prsedecessoris  Naviti  per  Angliam  facta 
praedicatione,  ipse  rex  Britannise  fidem  Christi  suscepit,  et  bapti- 
zatus  est  ab  eodem  Marcello  anno  Dni  cclxxxvi." 

Pp.  79,  note  3,  and  97,  note  *. — That  the  Jutes  landed  in  England 
where  they  occupied  Kent,  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  part  of  Wes- 
sex,  is,  I  believe,  generally  admitted.  That  they  were  under 
a  leader,  or  (as  was  usual  among  the  Dunes)  two  leaders,  may 
also  be  believed,  without  exposing  the  believer  to  the  imputation 
of  being  over  credulous  :  nor  can  I  found  any  disbelief  or  doubt 
on  the  circumstance,  that  the  one  leader  was  named  Hengest, 
the  other  Horsa. 

In  addition  to  the  testimonies  of  Nennius,  Beda,  and  the 

T  2 


276  ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 

Saxon  Chronicle,  the  following  extracts  may  be  adduced  in 
favour  of  the  existence  of  Hengest,  Fin,  etc. 

1 .  From  the  Geographer  of  Ravenna,  who  is  supposed  to  have 

lived  in  the  seventh  century.     See  p.  88,  note*. 

2.  From  the  Scop  or  Scald's  Tale.     (Cod.  Exon.  p.  320  ; 

Kemble's  Beow.  vol.  i.  p.  229.) 

.     .     .     .     (weold)  

Fin  Folcwalding  Fin  Folcwalding  (rul'd) 

Fresna  cynne  the  Frisian  race 


Hnsef  Hocingum.  Hmef  the  Hocings°: 

3.  From  the  Battle  of  Finnesburh.    (Kemble's  Beow.  vol.  i. 
p.  239.) 

Ordlaf  and  Gu61af,  Ordlaf  and  Guthlaf, 

and  Hengest  sylf  and  Hengest  himself 

hwearf  him  on  laste  followed  in  his  track 


ponne  Hnsefe  guidon  then  for  Hncef  paid 

his  hsegstealdas.  his  followers . 

4.  Beowulf.  Hnaef  prince  of  the  Hocings,  and  Hengest  the 
Jute,  vassals  of  the  Danish  king  Healfdene  (the  Hal- 
danus  of  Saxo),  are  sent  to  invade  the  Frisian  territory, 
at  that  time  governed  by  Fin,  the  son  of  Folcwalda,  and 
husband  of  Hildeburh,  the  daughter  of  Hoce.  A  battle 
is  fought,  in  which  Hnsef,  together  with  all  the  chil- 
dren, brothers,  and  almost  all  the  thanes  of  Fin,  is  slain. 
During  a  truce  which  ensues,  the  bodies  of  Hnsef  and 
the  rest  of  the  slain  are  burnt,  Hengest  remains  with 
Fin,  but  at  the  same  time  meditates  vengeance  for  the 
death  of  Hnsef  and  his  followers,  which  he  subsequently 
wreaks.  Fin  being  slain,  and  his  queen  Hildeburh  borne 
off  to  Denmark.     The  entire  episode  follows  : 


^  The  Hocings  are  supposed  by  Zeuss  to  be  identical  with  the  Chauci. 
See  Ettmiiller,  Scopes  Vidsidh,  p.  16,  and  Cod.  Exon.  p.  515. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


211 


XVI. 


Dser  wses  sang  and  sweg 

samod  aetgaedere 

fore  Healfdenes 

hilde-wfsan, 

gomen-wudu  greted, 

gid  oft  Avrecen, 

Sonne  heal-gamen 

HroSgares  scoj^, 

sefter  medo-bence, 

maenan  sceolde  lo 

be  Finnes  eaferum, 

])a  hie  se  feer  begeat ; 

hseleS  Healfdenes, 

Hnsef  Scyldinga, 

in  Fres-wsele 

feallan  sceolde. 

Ne  huru  Hildeburh 

herian  Jjorfte 

Eotena  treowe  : 

unsynnum  wearS  20 

beloren  leofum 

pet  pam  lind-plegan, 

bearnum  and  broSrum : 

hie  on  gebyrd  hruron, 

gare  wunde. 

Dset  wees  geomuru  ides  : 

nalles  holinga 

Hoces  dohtor 

metodsceaft  bemearn, 

siSSan  morgen  com,  30 

J)a  heo  under  swegle 

gesedn  meahte 

mor])or-bealo  maga, 

])ser  heo  sjer  meeste  heold 

worulde  wvnne. 


There  xvas  song  and  sound 

at  once  together 

before  Healfdene's 

warlike  chiefs, 

the  ivood  of  joy  was  greeted, 

the  lay  oft  recited, 

when  the  joy  of  hall 

Hrothgar's  hard, 

after  the  inead-bench, 

should  recount 

concerning  Fin's  offspring, 

lohen  them  peril  o'envhelm'd ; 

xohen  Healfdene's  hero, 

the  Scyldings'  Hncef, 

in  Frisian  slaughter 

was  doom'd  to  fall. 

Not  Hildeburh  at  least 

had  need  to  praise 

the  faith  of  the  Jutes : 

she  was  of  her  innocent 

beloved  ones  depriv'd 

at  the  linden-play , 

of  her  children  and  brothers  : 

they  in  succession  fell, 

by  the  dart  wounded. 

That  was  a  mournful  woman : 

not  loithout  cause 

Hoces  daughter 

the  Lord's  decree  bemourn'd, 

after  morning  came, 

when  she  under  heaven 

might  see 

the  slaughter  of  her  kinsmen, 

where  she  ere  had  most  possess' d 

of  worldly  joy. 


5.  i.e.  the  harp. 
13,  MS.  Healfdena. 
22.  conject.  Kemble,  MS.  hild-p. 
of  the  lime,  or  linden  tree. 


1 1 .  be,  added  from  conjecture. 
20.  unsynnigum  ? 
So  called  from  the  shield  being  made 
34.  MS.  he. 


2t8 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


Wig  ealle  fornam 

Finnes  ]?egnas, 

nemne  feaum  anum ; 

]>xt  he  ne  mihte 

on  ])am  me))el-stede 

wis  Hengeste 

wiht  gefeohtan, 

ne  ])a  wea-lafe 

wige  forJ>ringan 

peodnes  pegne ; 

ac  hie  him  gepingo  budon, 

J)3et  hie  him  oSer  flet 

eal  gerymdon, 

healle  and  heah-setl ; 

])set  hie  healfre  geweald 

wis  Eotena  beam 

agan  moston, 

and  set  feoh-gyftum 

Folcwaldan  sunu 

dogra  gehwylce 

Dene  weorpode, 

Hengestes  heap 

hringum  ])enede, 

efne  swa  swiSe 

sinc-gestreonum 

fsettan  goldes, 

swa  he  Fresna  cyn, 

on  beor-sele 

bjidan  wolde. 

Da  hie  getruwedon, 

on  twa  healfa, 

fseste  frioSu-wsere, 

Fin  Hengeste 

elne,  unflitme, 

a6um  benemde, 

pset  he  ))a  wea-lafe. 


War  destroy' d  all 

Fin's  thanes, 

save  a  few  only ; 

so  that  he  might  not 

on  the  battle-place 

against  Hengest 

at  all  contend, 

nor  the  sad  remnant 

by  war  protect 
10    from  the  king' s  thane ; 

but  they  to  him  conditions  offer' d, 

that  they  to  him  another  dwelling 

would  wholly  yield, 

a  hall  and  high  seat ; 

that  they  half  j>ower 

with  the  sons  of  the  Jutes 

might  possess, 

and  at  the  money-gifts 

Folcwalda's  son 
20     every  day 

the  Danes  should  honour, 

Hengest's  band 

with  rings  should  serve, 

even  as  much 

with  costly  treasures 

of  rich  gold, 

as  he  the  Frisian  race, 

in  the  beer -hall 

tvould  adorn. 
30     Then  they  confirm'd, 

on  the  two  sides, 

a  fast  peaceful  compact. 

Fin  to  Hengest 

earnestly,  without  dispute, 

by  oath  enjoin' d, 

that  he  the  sad  remnant. 


6.  MS.  wig. 
11.  hie,  they,  i.  e.  the  Danes  and  Jutes. 
15.  hie,  they,  i.  e.  the  Frisians. 
27.  he,  i.  e.  Hengest. 
29.  gibelde,  ornavit,  inscrip.  in  Nero  D.  4,  MS.  Cott 


10.  i.  e.  Hengest. 
23.  MS.wenede. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


279 


weotena  dome, 

arum  heolde, 

J'set  Sser  senig  mon, 

wordum  ne  weorcum, 

wsere  ne  braece, 

ne  ])urh  inwit-searo 

pefre  gemtendon, 

]>eah  hie  hira  beag-gyfan 

banan  folgedon, 

])eodeulease, 

])a  him  swa  ge]jearfod  wses 

gj'f  J'onne  Frysna  hwylc, 

frecnan  spr?ece, 

]j0es  morpor-hetes 

myndgiend  wsere, 

j^onne  hit  sweordes  ecg 

swe6rian  sceolde. 

A6  wses  gesefned, 

and  lege  gold 

ahsefen  of  horde. 

Here-Scyldinga 

betst  beado-rinca 

wses  on  bsel  gearu  : 

set  ])am  ade  wses 

e5-gesyne 

swatfah  syrce, 

swj'n  eal  gylden, 

eofer  iren-heard, 

8e])eling  msenig 

wundum  awyrded, 

sume  on  wsele  crungon. 

Het  ]>a.  Hildeburh, 

set  Hnsefes  ade, 

hire  selfre  suna 

sweoloSe  befsestan. 


b^  his  ivitans  doom, 

piously  should  hold, 

that  there  no  man, 

hy  words  or  luorks, 

should  break  the  compact, 

nor  through  guileful  craft 

should  they  ever  complain, 

though  they  their  ring-giver  s 

murderer  followed, 
10     lordless. 

since  they  were  so  compel' d  ; 

but  if  of  the  Frisians  any  07ie, 

by  audacious  speech, 

this  deadly  feud 

should  call  to  mind, 

then  it  the  edge  of  sivord 

should  appease. 

The  oath  tvas  completed, 

and  moreover  gold 
20     rais' d from  the  hoard. 

Of  the  martial  Scyldings 

the  best  of  warriors 

on  the  pile  was  ready  : 

at  the  heap  was 

easy  to  be  seen 

the  blood-stain' d  tiinic, 

the  swine  all  golden, 

the  boar  iron-hard, 

many  an  cetheling 
30     icith  wounds  afflicted, 

{some  had  in  the  slaughter  fall' n). 

Bade  then  Hildeburh, 

at  Hncefs  pile, 

her  own  sons 

be  to  the  fire  committed, 


8.  For  Jeah  I  suspect  we  should  read  l^set. 
17.  MS.  sy«5an. 
19.  icge  is  very  questionable. 
22.  betst  b.-r.,  i.e.  Hnaef. 
34.  MS.  sunu,  i.  e.  her  sons  who  had  been  slain. 


280 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


b^n-fatu  bsernan, 
and  on  bsel  don 
earme  on  axe. 
Ides  gnornode, 
geomrode  giddum ; 
guS-rinc  astah, 
wand  to  wolcnum, 
wsel-fyra  msest 
hlynode  for  hlawe ; 
hafelan  multon, 
ben-geato  burston ; 
Sonne  bldd  setspranc 
lat5-bfte  lices : 
lig  ealle  forswealg, 
gsesta  gifrost, 
pai'a  Se  ])8er  gub  fornam. 
Bega  folca  waes 
hira  blaed  scacen. 


10 


their  carcases  be  burnt, 
and  on  the  pile  be  reduced 
the  miserable  ones  to  ashes. 
The  woman  mourn  d, 
bewail' d  in  songs ; 
the  warrior  ascended, 
ivended  to  the  clouds, 
the  greatest  of  death-fires 
roar'd  before  the  mound ; 
their  heads  ivere  consum'd, 
their  wound-gates  burst ; 
then  out  sprang  the  blood 
from  the  corpse's  hostile  bite  : 
fiame  swallow' d  all 
{greediest  of  guests,)  [bereft, 

those  ivhom  loar  had  there  of  life 
Of  both  ])eople  was 
their  flower  departed. 


XVII, 


Gewiton  him  Sa  wigend 

wica  neosian,  20 

freondum  befeallen, 

Frysland  geseon, 

hamas  and  hea-burh. 

Hengest  Sa-gyt 

Wcelfagne  winter 

^vunode  mid  Finne, 

unflitme, 

eard  gemunde, 

peali  J'e  he  ne  meahte 

on  mere  drifan  30 

hringed-stefnan. 

Holm  storme  "weol, 


The  warriors  then  departed 

their  villages  to  visit, 

of  their  friends  deprived, 

Friesland  to  see, 

its  dioeUings  and  high  burgh. 

Hengest  yet 

the  death-hued  tvinter 

remain  d  with  Fin, 

without  strife, 

his  home  rememher'd, 

although  he  might  not 

on  the  sea  drive 

the  ringed  p7'0w. 

Ocean  boil'd  with  storm. 


3.  MS.  eaxle. 

6.  i.e.  Hncef  ascended  {in  fiame  and  smol-e),  like  the  Ger.  (in   Feuer 
und  Rauch)  aufgehen.      So  also  Homily,  MS.  Bibl.  Pub.  Cantab,  p.  282. 

MS,  ]>xt  ceaf  he  forbrernS for^an  tJe  tJsera  manfulra  smic  astihS  on 

ecnysse.  10.  So  Beow.  4646,  bolda  selest  bryne-wylmum  mealt. 

21.  deprived  through  their  having  fallen.  26.  MS.  Finnel. 

27.  MS.unhlitme.  29.  ne,  added. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


281 


•won  wii5  winde, 

winter  ype  beleac 

fs-gebinde, 

o6]>8et  oSer  com 

gear  in  geardas. 

Swa  nu  gyt  deS 

pa  6e  singale 

ssele  bewitiaS, 

wuldor-torhtan  weder. 

Da  wses  winter  scacen, 

faeger  foldan  bearm, 

fundode  wrecca, 

geest  of  geardum. 

He  to  gyrn-wrsece 

swiSor  ])ohte 

])onne  to  see-lade, 

gif  he  torn-gemot 

purhteon  milite  ; 

])8es  he  Eotena  beam 

inn-gemunde, 

swa  he  ne  forwyrnde 

woruldrsedenne, 

])onne  him  Hunlafing, 

hilde  leoman, 

billa  selest, 

on  bearm  dyde  ; 

])ces  wteron  mid  Eotenum 

ecge  cu^e, 

swylce  ferhS-frecan. 

7.  MS.  singales. 


ward  against  the  wind, 

winter  lock'd  the  wave 

tvith  icy  band, 

till  that  came  the  second 

year  to  the  courts. 

So  noio  yet  do 

those  ivho  constantly 

ivatch  a  happy  moment, 

gloriously  bright  tveather. 
10     When  winter  was  departed, 

earth's  bosom  fair, 

the  stranger  husten'd, 

the  guest  from  the  courts. 

He  on  ivily  vengeance 

was  more  intent 

than  on  a  sea-voyage, 

if  he  a  conflict 

could  bring  to  pass  ; 

for  he  the  sons  of  the  Jutes 
20     inivardly  re^nember'd, 

so  he  refus'd  not 

worldly  intercourse, 

when  he  Hunlafing, 

the  flame  oftvar, 

the  best  of  falchions, 

in  his  bosom  placed  ; 

for  with  the  Jutes  there  were 
men  f am' d for  sivord-play , 
also  of  spirit  bold. 


8.  MS.  sele. 


13.  MS.  gist. 


14.  gyrn  =  gryn. 

14.  loily  vengeance,  i.e.  the  feh?J  or  deadly  feud  for  the  death  of  Hnsef 
and  the  others.  19.  MS.  J^set.  19.  the  slain  ones. 

23.  Hunlafing  is  apparently  the  name  of  Hengest's  sword,  which  had 
probably  been  the  property-  of  Hun,  king  of  the  Hsetweras  (Scops  Tale, 
p.  320,  22).  The  terminations  laf,  a  relic,  legacy,  and  ing  are  commonly 
applied  to  a  sword ;  thus  Beow.  eald  laf,  an  ancient  sword :  so  Tyrfing, 
Miming,  Hrunting,  names  of  celebrated  swords.  See  Kemble's  Glossary 
to  Beowulf,  V.  Laf.  Hunlaf  occurs,  however,  as  a  man's  name  among  the 
Anglo-Saxons. 

26.  So  Beow.  1.4382  :  sweord > set  he  on  Biowulfes  bearm  alegde  : 

sword that  he  in  Beowulf  s  bosom  laid. 


282 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


Fin  eft  begeat 
sweord-bealo  slic^cn, 
Bet  his  sylfes  hum, 
siS])an  grimne  gripe 
GuSlaf  and  Oslaf, 
sefter  s^-siSe, 
sorge  msendon, 
setwiton  weana  da?l : 
ne  meahte  weefre  mod 
forhabban  in  hre])re. 
Da  wses  heal  hroden 
feonda  feorum, 
swilce  Fin  slsegen, 
cyning  on  cor])re, 
and  seo  cwen  numen. 
Sceotend  Scyldinga 
to  scypum  feredon 
eal  in-gesteald 
eorS-cyninges, 
swylce  hie  set  Finnes  ham 
findan  meahton, 
sigia,  searo-gimma. 
Hie  on  s^-lade 
drihtlice  wff 
to  Denum  feredon, 
Iseddon  to  leodum. 


Fin  afterwards  o'erwhelm'd 

cruel  misery  from  the  sword, 

at  his  own  dtvelling, 

when  the  grim  one  with  gripe 

Guthluf  and  Oslaf, 

after  a  sea-journey, 

grievously  upbraided,  [woesi 

reproach' d  for  his  jjart  in  their 

he  might  not  his  wavering  soul 
10     in  his  breast  retain. 

Then  was  the  hall  beset 

with  foemen, 

also  Fin  slain, 

the  king  amid  his  people, 

and  the  queen  taken. 

The  Scyldings'  warriors 

to  their  ships  bore 

all  the  house-chattels 

of  the  earth-king, 
20     such  as  at  Fin's  dwelling 

they  could  find, 

of  jewels  and  curious  gems. 

They  on  the  sea-road 

the  princely  woman 

to  the  Da)ies  bore, 

to  their  people  led. — T. 


Page  91,  note  2. — For  the  near  resemblance  between  the  Northum- 
brian and  East  Anglian  dialects,  see  Lufa's  Testament  in 
Analecta  Anglo-Saxonica,  p.  119.^ — T. 

Page  203,  note  "*. — The  pubUcation  of  "  The  Poetry  of  the  Codex 
Vercellensis,  with  an  English  translation,  by  J.  M.  Kemble,  M.A. 
Part  I.  The  Legend  of  St.  Andrew,  for  the  ^Ifric  Society," 
induces  me  to  add  a  few  words  to  the  above-cited  note  relative 
to  my  own  connexion  with  the  Vercelli  Poetry.     In  1834  Mr. 

5.  '  Ordlaf,'  Batt.  of  Finnesb.  perhaps  more  correct  than  Oslaf. 

7.  msendon.     In  Horaiiy,  MS.  Bibl.  Pub.  Cantab,  p.  217>  the  verse  of 
Luke  there  quoted  (xviii.  15)  has  'bemtendon '  where  the  editions  of  the 
Gospels  have  '  ciddon,'  rebuked, 
ij.  MS.  scypon. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES.  283 

Cooper,  then'  Secretary  to  the  Record  Commission,  sent  me  a 
transcript  of  the  manuscript,  requesting  me  to  report  on  its 
contents.  On  inspection  I  found  that,  besides  Homilies,  the 
volume  contained  the  several  poetic  pieces  since  known  as 
the  '  Vercelli  Poetry.'  Having  stated  my  opinion  of  these 
poems  to  Ml.  Cooper,  their  communication  to  the  world  was 
resolved  on :  they  were  printed  accordingly  as  one  of  the 
Appendices  to  that  gentleman's  intended  Report  on  Rymer's 
Foedera,  though,  in  consequence  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Com- 
mission, not  published.  Soon  after  the  formation  of  the  ^Ifric 
Society  I  suggested  the  publication  of  these  relics  to  the 
Council,  though,  regarding  them  as  Government  property,  not 
until  I  had  ascertained  from  Lord  Langdale  (under  whose 
control  they  had  been  placed)  that  he  had  no  objection  to  their 
publication  by  the  ^Ifric  Society. — T. 


284 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  SONS  OF  WODEN. 


From  the  Sax. 
Chron.a.855. 

Noe. 

I 
Sceaf. 

I  . 
Bedwig. 

Hwala. 

I 
Hathra. 

I 
Itermon. 

I 
Heremod. 

I 

Sceldwa. 

1 
Beaw. 

I 

Tsetwa. 

I 
Geat. 

I 

God^vulf. 

.1 

Finn. 

I 
Frithuwulf. 

I 

Frealafi. 

I 
Frithuwald. 


cL(lloDen. 


From  Snorra  Edda, 
edit.  Rask. 

Sif. 

I 

Loride. 

I 
Henrede. 

I 

Vingethor. 

I 
Vingener. 

I 

Moda. 

I 
Magi. 

I 
Cespheth  (Sefsmeg). 

I. 

Bedvig. 

i 
Atra  (nobis  Anna) . 

I 

Itrmann. 

I 
Heremod. 

I 
Skialldunn  (moJ/s  Skiold). 

I 
Biaf  (nobis  Biar  and  Bavr). 

I 
Jat. 

Gutholfr. 

I 

[Finnr.] 

Fiarlef  (Frialafr)  (nobis  Frithleif). 

i 
VoTHiNN  (nobis  Othinn). 


I 1 

Wecta,     Bseldteg. 
ancestor  I 

of  the  -n         1 

kings  of       Brond. 

Kent. 


1 r 1 1 1 

Casere,      Seaxneat,    Wsegdseg,    Wihtlseg,      Winta, 
ancestor  ancestor  ancestor  ancestor        ancestor  of 

of  the  of  the  of  the  of  the  the  prmces 

kings  of  kings  of  kings  of  kings  of         of  the  Lin- 

E.  Anglia,  Essex.  Delra.  Mcrcia.  disfaras. 


Frithogar,  Beornd  (Beonoc), 

ancestor  of  ancestor  of 

the  kings  of  the  kings  of 

Wessex.  Bernicia. 


1  Three  MSS.  for  Frealaf  read  Freawine,  and  omit  the  following  FritluiwalJ. 
In  the  Bernician  list  (S.C.  a.  547)  Frealaf  is  called  Freotholaf. 


285 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  KENT. 

iLtlloDcn'. 
I 

Wecta'. 

I 
Witta>. 

Wihtgils'. 


HeNGEST  ',  HORSA  ' 

446.     ob.488.  ol).455. 

I 

Eric,  surnaraed  JEsc-, 

488.    ob.512. 


Octa3. 

I 
Eormenric', 

ob.568. 
I 


Ricole-*, 
m.  Slcda,  k.  of  Essex. 


^thelbeiht  , 
508.     ob.24  reb.616. 
m.  1.  Berhta,  daugbter  of  CbarHiert ;  2.... 

Eadbald', 


/Ethelburh  or  Tate'', 
m.  Eadwine  of  Northunibria. 


GIG.     ob.20  Jan.  640. 

m.  1.  his  stepmother  ;  2.  Emma, 

(laughter  of  a  Frankish  king. 


Eormeured", 
m.  Oslaf. 


Ecgfrith'' 
618. 


Earcoiibevht'*, 

640.     ob.l4  July  664. 

m.  Sexburh,  d.  of  .-Vuna,  k.  of 

E.  Anglia. 


Eanswith '", 
virgo  sancta. 


Eormenbeorli", 

or  Doraneva. 

m.  Merewald, 

ealdorm.  of  the 

W.  Angles. 


Eonnciiburh'-.     Eormengyth ' -.     .Etlteltliryth'-.     iEthelred '-.    jEtlielbyrht'^. 


r 
Eadric'^ 
673-686. 


Ecgberht'3, 

664.     ob.July 

673. 

I 


Earcongote*', 

ob.in  the  abbey 

of  ISrie. 


■ 1 

Eoriuengild'-, 

m.  VVulfliere,  k. 

of  Mercia. 


Wihtraed'-', 

690.    ob.23  AprU  725. 

m.  I.  Cyner\  th ;  2.  /Ethelburh. 

Hi 


PIlothha;re'3, 

673.     ob.6Feb. 

685. 

I 

Richard", 

a  monk  at  Lucca. 


Eadberht'^ 
725.    ob.748. 

I 
Eardwulf'^, 
ob.bcfore  794. 


^thelberht  11.'^ 
748.    ob.760. 


Alric'*, 
760.    ob.794. 


>  Beda,  i.  15.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  449. 

-Beda,  ii.  5.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  457. 

^  Beda,  ii.  5. 

■*  Beda,  ii.  3.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  604. 

*  Sax. Cbron.aa.  508,516.  Beda,  ii.5;  i.  25. 

"=  Beda,  ii.  9.  Flor.  Geneal. 

'  Beda,  ii.  5.  Chaiter  in   Smith's  Beda, 


p.  694.  Sax.  Chron.  Fl.  Wigom.  a.  640.  Ann. 
Juvav.  Thome,  col.  1769.  Cod.  Diplom.  p.  10. 

*>  Beda,  iii.  8.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  640.  Flor. 
Geneal. 

'  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p.  9.  Smith's  Beda, 
p.  694. 

'"  Flor.  Geneal. 


"  Sim.Dunclm.  Flor.  Geneal.  'flt.Malm. 
lib.i. 

1-  Flor.  Geneal. 

'3  Beda,  iv.  5,  26.     Sax.  Cliron. 

"  Beda,  iv.  26,  v.  23.  Sax.  Chron.  Cod. 
Diplom.  pp.  42, 48, 49, 50.  /Etbelburh's  name 
appears  first  in  a  charter  of  696. 


">  Beda,  v.  23.  In  Cod.  Diplom: tHTpnTSS; 
there  is  a  charter  of  J!thelberht's  of  741, 
while  the  Sax.  Chron.  and  Florence  place  the 
death  of  Eadberht  and  accession  of  iEthel- 
berht  in  748.— T. 

"■■  Charter  of  762  in  Cod.  Diplom.  p.  115. 
Seep.  247. 

'?  MIoid.  t.  i.  p.  588. 


GENEALOGY   OF  THE  KINGS  OF  WESSEX,  from  Woden  to  Ecgberiit. 

dclloticn'. 

I  I 

Baeldaeg. 

I 
Brand. 


28( 


Freothogar. 

I 
Freawiiie. 

I 
Wig. 

I 
Giwis. 


Esla. 


I 

Ceawliu*, 
r.560-591.  ob.593. 


Cuthwulf  \ 
ob.571. 


Cuthwine^ 
577.    ob.584  .> 
1 


Cynebald*', 

.(Ethelbald^. 

I 

Oswald', 

728.    ob.730. 


Ceadda' '. 

Cenbyrht'o, 
ob.661. 


Ceadwealla '", 
r.  683,  resig.  688.    ob.Easter 
689.     ni.  CenthiTth. 


Cwenburh  ". 


Cuthburh'3, 
ra.  Ealdfrith 

k.  of  Northumbria ; 

afterwards  abbess 
of  Winburne. 


1 

Cutha". 


Ceolwald'2. 


Elesa. 


Cerdic", 
494.    ob.534. 

I 

Cynric^, 

534.     ob.560. 


Cutha  ^ 
568.     ob.584. 


Cwichelm', 
ob.593. 


Ceolric  or  Ceol ", 
591.    ob.597. 

Cynegils'\ 

611.    ob.643. 

,_! 


Mul", 
ob.687. 


Cwiciielm'% 
Cenred'^.     614.    ob.636. 


Inei-',  Ingild'-. 

'", resig.  725.        ob.718. 


m.  .Ethelburb. 


Eoppa'-. 

I 
Eafa'^. 


Cenwealli "', 

643.     ob.672. 

m.  l.a  sister  of 

Penda;  2.  Sexburb. 


Centwine'", 
676.    ob.685. 
m.  a  sister  of 
Eormenburb, 
the  wife  of  Ecg- 
frith  of  North- 
umbria. 

I 
A  daughter". 


1 

A  daughter'" 

m.  to  Oswald, 

k.  of  Korthum- 

bria. 


A  daughter. 


r 


Stuf«. 


Wihtgar', 
514.    ob.544. 
I 
Oslac«. 


St.  Egelwine' 


Ceolwulf-',  Osburh", 

r.597.   ob.611.  m.k..EtheIwtili 

I  circa  835. 
Cuthgils«2. 

I 
Cenferth". 

I 

Cenfus-S 

r.672.  ob.674. 

I 

r.674.  ob.676. 


Ealhniund'^ 
k.  of  Kent. 


'  From  Woden  to  Cerdic,  Sa.\.  Chron.  aa.  552, 

-  Snx.  Chron.  aa.  495,  534. 

'  Sax.  Chron.   Fl.  Wigom.  a.  560. 

■•  Sax.  Chron.  a.  591. 

'  Sax.  Chron.  a.  571. 

'  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  568, 584.   Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  584. 


Ecgberht'-. 

'  Sax.  Chron.  a.  593. 

8  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.     H.  Hunt.  a.  577. 
W.  Malm. 

'  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  728,  730.   Flor.  Geneal. 
"'  Sax.  Chron.  a.  685. 
'J  Sax.Chrou.  a.  854. 
'-  Sax.  Chron.  a.  718.  Asscr.  Flor.  Cieneal.  The 


Chron.  a.  689.  makes  Ceolwald  the  son  of  Cuth- 
wine  and  brother  of  Cyncgils.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  855. 
In  Asser,  Eoppa  is  called  Eon-wa. 

"  Flor.  Geneal.     W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

'■•  Sax.  Chron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  and  Geneal. 

'5  Sa.\.  Chron. 

"  Beda,  iii.  7.     Sax.  Chron. 


''  Beda,  iv.  15.    Eddius,  c.  xixix.    Sax.  Chron. 

•8  Carmen  ap.  Alcuini  0pp.  p.  1675. 

'9  Beda,  iii.  7. 

M  Mahnesb.  de  Gest.  Pont.  lib.  ii. 

"  Sax.  Chron. 

"  Flor.  Geneal.     Sax.  Chron. 

^  Asser. 


•287 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  EAST  ANGLIA. 


<12Ioticu'. 

I 
Casere. 


Tvtmon. 

■   I 
Trygils. 

I 
Hrothraund. 

I 
Hryp. 

I 
Wilhelin. 


Of  rxKXOWx  lineage. 

Sigeberht, 

brother  of  Eorpwald 

on  the  mother's  side. 

r.  631,resig.  C34.     ob.635. 

Ecgric, 

kinsman  of  Sigeberlit. 

r.  631.     oK635. 


Wewa  or  Wehha. 
I 

WUFFA  -. 


Tytila^. 


Raedwalit  -', 
593.    -61?. 

Eorpwald-,     Raeginhere', 
r.  617.    ob.628.        ob.61/. 


1 

iEne*. 


I 

Amia% 
r.  635.    ob.654. 


_- 1 

-•Etlielhere ', 

r.654.    ob.655. 
m.  Hereswith, 
d.  of  Hereric. 
ob.20  Sept.... 


^Ethel\vold% 
r.  655.    ob.664. 


1 

Edric' 


Ealdwulf*, 
r.663.    ob.713. 


Alfwold", 
r.  713.    ob.749. 


lurwine'". 


Elric' 


Eadbiirh'", 
abbess  of 
Repton. 


Sexburh  ", 
m.  Earconberht 

k.  of  Kent. 

ob.abbess  of  Ely, 

6  Jnlv  after 

679. 


_1_ 


.tthelburh", 

abbess  of  Brie 

iu  France. 

"  Filia  naturalis." 


1 

^1ithelthr3tli'-, 
m.  l.Tunberht, 
ealdorm.  of  the 

S.  Grrwa.s ; 
2.  Ecgfrith,  k.  of 
Northumberland. 
ob.23  June  679, 
as  abbess  of  Ely. 


Wihtburh  or  Wihtgyth  ", 
a  nun  at  Ely. 


'  From  Woden  to  Wewa,  Flor.  Geneal. 
-  Beda,  ii.  15.     Flor.  Geneal. 
3  Beda,  ii.  12.     Ror.  Geneal. 

*  Beda,iji.  18. 

*  Beda.iii.  24. 
5  Beda.iii.  22. 

"  N'ennius,  jVpp.,  the  only  authority  for  this 
prince's  existence. 
VOL.  I. 


'  Beda,  iv.  17.    See  Literarii  Introd.  p.  xxxvi. 
nnle  '. 

9  W.  Malm.  lib.  i.     Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  749. 
'"  T.  Eliens.  Hist.  EUens.  ap.  Wharton,  A.  S. 
t.  i.  p.  595.     Felix.  Vita  S.  Guthl.  iv.  33. 
"  Beda,  iii.S.iv.  19. 
'=  Beda,  iv.  3, 19,  20. 
"  Flor.  Geneal. 


288 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  ESSEX. 

I 
Seaxneat'. 

I 
Gesecg'. 

i 
Antsecg'. 

I 
Sweppa'. 

I 
Sigefugel'. 

I 
Bedca'. 

I 
Ofta'. 

I 
^■E.scwixE  or  Ercenwine', 
a.  527.  i 

_,    I 

Sleda-, 
5S7.    m.  Ricole,  sister  of  jEthelberht, 
k.  of  Kent. 
1 


I 

Sseberht', 
ob.6I6. 

+ 


Seaxbald '". 


Seaxred^,             SsewardS  SigeberhtS 

ob.soon  after  616.     ob.soon  after  610.     olj.sooa  after  616. 
, 1_ 


Sigeberht  the  Little  \ 
617.     -653. 

I 

Sigehere', 

lu.  S.  Osj-th,  d.  of 

Frithewald,  k.  of  Surrey, 

and  Wilburh  d.  of  Penda. 

I 
Offa", 

resig.  709. 
died  1  monk  at  Rome. 


1 

Sebbe", 
reg.  665,  resig. ...     ob.69-1. 


Sigeberht  the  Good ' 
653.    ob.660. 

I 

Selred'-, 

r.  709.    ob.746. 


1 

S«ithhclin. 


I 1 

Sigeheard ",  Sw  aet'red, 

r.  after  his  father,      r.  after  his  father, 

69-).  704. 


'  Flor.  Geueal.  H.  Hunt. who  makes  Antsecg  the 
son,  and  Gesecg  the  grandson  of  Seaxneat,  and  calls 
Sigefiigel  Sigewlf. 

-  Beda,  ii.  3.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  604. 

•'  Beda,  ii.5. 

''  Fl.  AVigorn.  Geneal.    \V.  Malm.  lib.  i. 

'  Beda.iii.  22.    Flor.  Geneal.    W.  Malm. 

VOL.   I. 


*  Beda,  V.  30, 

^  Beda,  iv.  11.    W.  .Malm. 

'  Beda,  iii.  30.     Rad.  de  Diccto,  Abbrcmt.  a.  6 1 1 . 

»  Beda,  V.  19.    W.Malm. 
'"  Flor.  Gencil. 
"  Beda,  iii  22. 
"  Sax.  Chioii.   Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  746.  W.  Malm.  lib.  i. 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  BERNICIA. 


'  This  list  to  Ida  is  from  Florence, Geneal., which 

I  have  preferred,  not  so  much  because  it  is  more 
complete  than  that  in  the  Chronicle,  but  rather, 
judging  from  the  orthography,  from  its  being  pro- 
bably derived  from  a  Northumbrian  source. — T. 

-  This  list  is  from  the  Sax.Cbron.  a.  547,  which 
Florence  has  copied  in  his  Chronicon. 

^  Sax.Chron.a.  547.  Fl.AVigorn.  Sim.Dunelm., 
who  assigns  a  reign  of  eleven  years  only  to  Ida. 
Neunii  App. 

■*  Tlie  names  of  the  sons  of  Ida  are  from  Simeon 
and  the  Chronol.  ap.  Wanley  and  Petrie.  Instead 
of  Glappa,  Frithuwald  and  Hussa,  Florence  and 
others  have  Bealric,  Theodhere  and  Osmffir.  See 
p.  119. 

*  Sa.x.Chron.    Fl.Wigorn.  Nennius.    Beda,iii.6. 

«  Beda,i.34. 

'  Beda,  iii.  1.     Annal.  Ulton.  p.  53. 

8  Flor.  Geneal. 

'  Beda.iii.  9,  7. 

•0  Beda,  iii.  14. 

"  Beda,  iii.  14,  iv.  5,  iii.  15.     Nennii  App. 

'-  Beda,  iv.  19,  25.  Vita  S.  Cuthb.  c.  x.  Eddii 
Vita  S.  Wilf.  c.  xxxviii. 


1 
Baeldeag. 

Brand. 

I 
Beorii. 

Beornd. 

Waegbrand. 

Ingebrand. 

I 
Alusa. 

I 
Angengeat. 

Ingengeat. 

I 
Aetlielbryht. 
1     •' 
Oesa. 

I 
Eoppa. 

Idas, 

547.     ob.559. 

m.  1.  Bearnoch; 

2.  concubine. 


I 

Baeldaeg. 

Brand. 

I 

Beonoc. 

1 

Aloe. 

Angenwit. 

I 

Ingui. 

I 
Esa. 

Eoppa. 

1 

Ida. 


289 

"  Beda,  iii.  14,  21. 

"  Beda,  iii.  21. 

'*  Beda,  iv.  21.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  C97. 

«  Beda,  iv.  19,  20.     Eddius,  c.  xx.xix. 

\[  Beda,  v.  18.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  705.     W.  Malm. 

"  Beda,  v.  18,22. 

"  Beda,  V.  23,  and  Smith,  ib.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  729. 
The  descent  of  Osric  seems  uncertain. 

™  Beda,  iv.  21. 

^'  Nennii  App. 

^  Beda,  iii.  24.     Acta  SS.  t.  ii.  p.  1 78. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  729,  738.     Flor.  Geneal. 

-^  Sax.  Cliron.  a.  7Ifi. 

"  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  729,  731,  737. 

•"  Flor.  Geneal. 

^  Sax.Chron.a.7C5.  Flor.Gencal.  Sim.Dunelm. 
a.  768.    Chron.  Mailr.     Bonifacii  Epist. 

^  Sim.  Dunelm. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  a.  738.     Flor.  Geneal. 

^  Sax.  Chron.  aa.  738,  7r)7,  768. 

"  Sax.  Cbron.     Fl.  Wigorn.  a.  789. 

^  Sim.  Dunelm. 

"  Sa.x.  Chron.  aa.  738,  766. 

3<  Annal.  Ult. 


I 

1. 
Glappa-" 
r.  1  yr. 


I 1 

1.  1. 

Adda-*,    iEthelric*, 

r.  8  yrs.      r.  588-592. 


Theodric^ 
r.  4  vrs. 


Frithuwald'', 

r.  7  vrs. 


H 


I. 

ussa  ■*, 
7  vrs. 


i^thelfrith  \ 
r.  593.     ob.017. 

m.  1.  Bebbe; 
2.  '  Acha,'  sister 

of  Eadwine. 


Theodbald". 


Eanfriths       Oslaf*.     Oslac^. 
m.  ad.  of  the 
k.  of  the  Picts. 
ob.634. 
I 
Tolargain,  or  Talorgan  '■•, 
k.  of  the  Picts.     ob.656. 


Oswald", 

born  604.     ob.5 

Aug.  642.     m.  635 

the  d.  of  Cynegils 

of  Wessex. 

I 

^thelwald '», 

k.  of  Deira. 


Oswiu", 

r.  642.     ob.15 

Feb.  670.     m.  1. 

Riemmelth  ;  2. 

Eanflffid,  d.  of 

Eadwine. 


Offa».     Oswudu'. 


.'Ebbe'^ 

abbess  of 

Coldingham. 


Ealhfrith'3, 

m.  Cyneburh,  d. 

of  Penda. 

I 

Osric  '", 

r.  718.     ob.9  Mav 

729. 


Ealhfla;di\ 

m.  Peada,  s.  of 

Penda,  653. 


Osthryth'S 
m.  -Ethelred  of 
Mercia.     ob.697. 


Ecgfrith  "', 

born  645,  r.  670. 

ob.20  May  685. 

m.  l..£thelthryth, 

d.  of  Anna,  k.  of 

E.Anglia;  2. 
Eormenburh,  sis- 
ter of  the  qu.  of 
Centwine,  k.  of 
Wessex. 


I  I 

'2.  2. 

Occa*.  Alrie*. 

I  I 

Ealdhelm'^.        Blascman'*'. 

I  I 

EcgwaId-3.  Bofa'«. 

Leodwald^'.       Bymhom  ^. 

Ealhwine-". 

Ealhred-', 

r.  765.     ob.774. 

m.  Osgcam,  or 

Osgyfu. 

r -^ -, 

Osred ''%         Ealh  mund  •», 
r.  788.     ob.792.  ob.800. 


2.  Ecca*. 
2.  Oswalds 
2.  Soger*. 
2.  Sogorthere< 


Ealdfrith", 

r.  685.     ob.705. 

m.  Cuthburh, 

sister  of  Inc. 

I 

Osred'«, 

born  697,  r. 705. 

ob.716. 


.^Ifwine^o, 
born  661.     ob.679. 

I 
Oslac'". 

I 
Adlsing^i. 

I 
Echun-'. 

I 
Oslaf". 


Cuth 


/Elflaed'S 
bom  654. 

ob.713.  

abbess  of      ^^^r^^,,^ 

r.716.    ob.718 


I 

wine- 
1 


Whitby. 


Ceolwulf5\ 
r.  729,  resig.  737 
became  a  monk. 


Eadberht'", 

r.  737,  resig.  758 

ob.20  Aug.  768. 

Oswulf", 
r.  758.     ob.24  Julv  759. 
I- 


Eata*". 

Ecgbert", 


archb.  of  York. 
ob.766. 


Alfwold'S  Osgeam, 

r.779.  ob.23  Sept.  788.      or  Osyyfu^\ 

I !~— I  m. Ealhred.  768. 

iElf",    i^lfwine'2, 
ob.791.       ob."91. 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  DEIRA, 


290 


QaJotJcii'. 

I 

\\  fegdipg. 

I 
Sigegar. 

I 
Swaebdaeg. 

I 
Sigegeat. 

I 
Sajbald. 

I 
Ssefugel. 

I 
Swcerta. 

,   I 
Seomel. 

I 
Westerfakiia. 

I 
Wilgils. 

I 
Usctrea. 


YfFe. 
I 


559.     ob.588. 

I 
I 


Individual  not 

named. 

I 

Hereric^, 

m.  Beorhtswyth. 

poisoned  in  Elraet 

before  616. 


'AchaS'  Eadwine'', 

m.  .iithelfrith,      bom  585,  r.  016.    ob.l4  Oct.  633. 
k.  of  Beniicia.        m.  1 .  C-wenburh,  d.  of  Ceorl,  k. 
of  Mercia  ;  2.  .f.thelburh,  d.  of 
.Ethelberht  of  Kent. 

I  


.^ifric^ 

I 

OsricS 

r.  633.     ob.634. 

1 

Oswine', 

r.644.     ob.20 

Aug.  651. 


I 

1. 

Osf^ith^ 

ob.UOct.633. 


r 

1. 
Eadfriths, 
ob.after  633. 


Hild", 

born  614.     ob.15 

Dec.  680.    Abbess 

of  WTiitby 


Hereswj-th ", 

m.  Anna,  k.  of 

E.  Anglia. 


2. 
Eanflffid°, 

born  626. 
m.  Oswiu  of 

Bernicia. 


1 

2. 

^'Ethelliun  ' 

ob.at  York. 


.Ethelthryth ' 
ob.at  York. 


'  The  line  from  Woden  to  ^Elle  is  from 
the  Chronicle,  aa.  560,  588,  and  Florence. 
The  names  of  Swserta  and  Seomel  do  not 
appear  in  the  Chronicle. 

'  Beda,  iii.  i. 


'  Beda,  iii.  14.     Sax.Cbron. 

*  Beda,  iii.  6. 

5  Beda.ii.  20,  ii.14,9. 

"  Beda,  iv.  23.  Flor.  Gencal.,  where 
Hereric  as  a  son  of  Eadfrith  and  grandson 
of  Eadwine.       Florence   has,   no    doubt, 


'  rendered  Beda's  words 
regis,"  erroneously. 
?  Beda.iv.  23.  ■ 
*  Beda,  ii.  20. 
■'  Beda,  ii.  9,  iii.  l.'i. 
'"  Beda,  ii.  14. 


Wuscfrea', 
ob.after  634 
in  France. 


'  nepos   ^duini 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  .MEKCIA. 


(IflloDen'. 

I 
Wihtlaeg. 

I 
Waermund. 


Ceorl, 
a  kinsman  of  Wvbba. 

r.  596.    ob.ede. 

Cwenburh, 

m.  Eadwiue, 
k.  of  Deira. 


OfFa. 

r -J- 

Dan, 

surcamed  Mykillatp, 

k.  of  Denmark. 


Angeltheow. 

Eomer. 

le'el. 

Cnebba. 

I 
Cvnewald. 

Creoda. 

Wybba. 


Weothelgeat. 

IVaga. 

I 
Wihtlaeg. 

W  oriuund. 

Offa. 

I 

Angengpat. 


A  daughter  ^ 
m.  Cenwealh, 
k.  of  Wessex. 


I 

Peadas, 

ob.Easter  656. 

m.  Ealhflsd,  a 

d.  of  Oswiu. 


Wulfhere^ 

r.  656.     ob.673. 

m.  Eormengild 

of  Kent. 

L_. 


— I — — 

jEthelred  '", 
r.  675,  resig.  "04. 

ob.4  May  716. 
m.Osthrylh,  li. of 
Oswiu.     ob.697. 


1 

PendaS 

r.  626.  ob.655. 
m.  Cyneswyth, 
or  Cynewise. 

!_L 


Eawa^, 

ob.5  Aug.  642. 


^Nlerewald", 

ealdorm.  of  the 

W'.Hecanas. 

m.  Eormeuburh 

of  Kent. 


-r 


]Merchelm'-. 
or  Mercelin. 


1^ 
Cyneburh'', 
m.  Ealhfrith 
of  Northum- 
berland. 


Cyneswyth  '^. 


Wi/burh^\ 

m.  Frithwold, 

under-king 

of  Surrey. 


Cenred'^ 

.  704,  resig. 

709. 


1  I  I — 1 1 1 

Werburh'".   Beorhtwald's,    Ceolred'",    Mildthryth -«.  Mildburh™.  Mildgyth-".  Merewine^", 
686,  a  sub-         709.     ob.716.  P 

king.  m.  AVerburh.  ~ 

ob.702  as  an 
abbess. 


Cenwealh''. 
Cuthwealh-'. 
Centwine-'. 
Centreou -'. 
Ba-ssa-'. 
Cuthberht-', 
descendant  in  the  5th  degree 
of  Cenwealh. 
I 


Alweo  --. 


^thelbald", 
r.  716.   ob.757. 


Heardberht'^. 


Osmod-'*. 

I 
Eanwulf'-*. 

I 

Thingferth^S 

m.  Mareellina. 

I 

Offa'', 

r.  757.     ob.lO  Aug. 

796.    m.  Cyne- 

thrrth.' 


CenwulP', 

r.  796. 

ob.819. 

ra.  l.Cvne- 

gyth ;'  2. 

«ifthr>th. 


Cuthl-fd^o, 

k.  of  Kent. 

ob.805. 


Cynethryth'3.  Cenhelin", 
an  abbess  oh.  17  Julv 

825.  819. 


CeoUvulP' 
r.819. 
ob.821. 

I 
.^Iflaed '°; 
m.  AVigniund 
s.  of  Wiglaf, 
k.  of  Mercia 

I 

Wistan'S 

ob.850. 


1 

Burger 
hild" 


Eadburh ««, 
17.     m.  Beorhtric, 
k.  of  Wessex. 


m.  .Ethelred, 
k.of  Northum- 

bria. 


.^Ifthryth", 
betrothed  to 

.Ethelbcrht,  k. 
of  E.  Anglia. 


Ecgferth«», 
ob.796. 


'  The  line  from  M'oden  to  Penda  is 
according  to  the  Sax.  Chron.  a.  626. 

^  This  hst  is  according  to  Florence, 
having  two  additional  names,  and  Angen- 
geat  for  Angeltheow. 

■''  Saxo  Gramm.  hb.  iv.  p.  175,  t.  i.  ed. 
MUUer. 

■•  Beda,  iii.  7.     Flor.  Geneal. 

*  Beda,  iii.  24. 

'  Sa.\.  Chron.a.  716.  Xennius.  Ann. 
Camb.  a.  644. 


■  Flor.  Geneal. 

'  Beda,  iii.  21,24. 

'  Beda,  iii.  24.     Sax.  Chron.  a.  675. 
Flor.  Geneal. 

'"  Sax.  Chron.     Beda,  iii.  11,  iv.  21. 
"   Sim.   Dunelm.     Flor.  Geneal.     AV. 
Malm. 

'2  W.  Malm.     Flor.  Geneal. 

"  Beda,  iii.  21. 

'^  Flor.  Geneal.     W.  Malm. 


"  Rad.  de  Diceto,  Abbrcv.  a.  64 1 .  Vita 
S.  Osithffi,  in  Smith's  Beda,  p.  129. 

'«  Beda,  V.  24. 

'7  W.  Malm.  i.  ii. 

'»  Eddii  Vita  S.  Wilfr.  c.  xxxix.  Mai- 
mesh,  de  Pont.  hb.  v.  ap.  Gale,  p.  345, 
and  charter  a.  686  ib. 

"  Beda,  v.  24.  Sax.  Chron.  a.  782. 
Sim.  Dunelm.  a.  783. 

^  Flor.  Geneal.     W.  Malm. 


2'  Flor.  Geneal. 

"  Sax.  Chron.  a.  716.     Flor.  Geneal. 

"■•  Charter  in  Smith's  Beda,  a.  786. 
Hemming,  t.  i.  p.  219. 

-*  Sax.  Chron.  a.  735.  Flor.  GeueaJ. 
Xennius  calls  him  Ossulf  (Oswulf). 

^  Sim.  Dunelm.  Sax.  Chron.  R. 
Wendover,  t.  i.  p.  250.  According  to  the 
Vita  Offs  11.,  Drithe  was  a  Frank,  called 
also  Petronilla,  a  relation  of  the  emperor 
Charles. 


^  Sax.  Chron.     Flor.  Geneal. 

27  Flor.  Geneal. 

=s  W.  Malm. 

25  Sax.  Chron.  Cod.  Diplom.  t.  i.  p[ 
214,  238. 

*>  Sax.  Chron.  a.  805. 

3'  Sax.  Chron. 

^  Flor.  Geneal. 

^  Fl.Wigom.a.  850,  and  Geneal.  ■« 
Malm. 


2yi 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  PRINCES  OF  THE  LINDIS- 

FARAS,  OR  INHABITANTS  OF  LINDSEY, 

THE  TERRITORY  ABOUT  LINCOLN. 

(KUoticn'. 

I 
AVinta. 

I 
Cretta. 

I 
Cweldgils. 

I 
CEBtlbied. 

I 
Bubba. 

1 
Bella. 

I 
Biscop^. 

Eanf'ertli. 

I 
Eatta. 

I 
Eaklfiith. 


'  This  list  is  from  Fl.  Wigorn. 

-  Tliis  is  apparently  Benedict  Biscop,  sumameil  Bailucing,  the  founder  of 
Wcarmouth  abbey.  See  p.  17t.  It  is  singular  tliat  the  name  of  Clecca  does  not 
appear  in  the  above  list,  of  whom  see  p.  133. — T. 


END  or  vol..  r. 


Printed  by  Richard  anil  John  E.Taylor,  Red  Lion  Court,  Fleet  Strci-t. 


BINDING  Stw » .  SEP    3 1968 


DA  Lappenberp,   Johann  Martin 
130  A  history  of  England 

L363  under  the  A.nelo-Saxon  kings 

v.l 


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