\lfe. SYr.L^^BUS OF ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE c6 O c8 03 (D *- i BY J. M. HART (UNIVERSITY OF nXC'T.W ^TT ADAPTED FROM BERNPTARD T j: N BRINK'S GESGHlCHTl. DER EAC LISCH r \ J ITTERATVR CINCINNATT EOBEET CLAEKE & ^.'0 1881 I I r I THE GIFT OF WILLIAM G. KERCKHOFF TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE LIBRARY OF FRIEDRICH KLUGE SYLi:.A.BUS OF ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE BY J. M. HART (UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI) ADAPTED FROM BERNHARD TEN BRINK'S QESCHICHTE DER ENGLISCHEN LITTERATVR > :> 1 'i •' -^' ' i>. :.f ,v. >.- CINCINNATI EOBEET CLAEKE & CO 1881 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY COPYRIGHT, 1881 By J. M. HART • , • • • f » • • • • • • * « * • • « ••• •*»••• » . . . • • • . ' • • • • • • • c • • • • t ••• • « • 1 • • • PR ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. CHAPTER I. KOMAN BRITAIN. 1. The earliest known inhabitants of England be- longed to the Keltic race, and were called Britons. When Jnlius Caesar invaded the island, 55 B. C, they were still in a barbarous or semi-barbarous state. A serious attempt to annex the island permanently to the Roman empire was not made until 43 A. D., in the reign of Claudius. The work of conquest was continued dur- ing the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and was complete by 85 A. D. From that time until the 5th century Britannia and the southern part of Scotia were administered as a Roman province. Roman law, manners, and letters were introduced. Large towns grew up, e.g., York, London, Lincoln. There was a thriving trade between the island and the continent. Extensive remains of roads, aqueducts, tesselated pave- ments, and the like, still bear witness to the thorough- ness of the conquest. When the Roman world became christianized, Britain also shared in the conversion. By the middle of the 4th century the island had its hierarchy and a well developed system of religious or- ders and monasteries. We do not know whether the primitive Britons pos- sessed anything that could be called a literature of their own, and, if so, of what character. Roman literature was imported, so to speak, but we have no means of as- certaining whether it exerted any strong direct influence 2 ANGLO-SAXON LITEEATURE. on the mass of the natives. Britain was for tlie Romans nothing more than a military outpost. The garrison consisted usually of 20,000 — 30,000 men, stationed at im- portant strategic points, which were connected by mili- tary roads. The children of the leading native families were probably educated at first in the city of Eome, as hostages, subseqaently at home in Roman schools under the supervision of the Roman governor. The interior population in and around the Roman towns and camps acquired from soldiers and public oflicials a knowl- edge of the Latin tongue sufficient for the ordinary inter- course of life. But the rural population, w^hich must have largel}' predominated, remained in all probability Keltic in habits, tastes, feelings, and speech. Roman administration, it is true, was as energetic and efficient in Britain as elsewhere. It suppressed, for instance, the savage rites and practices of Druidism, and secured to every man protection in the enjoyment of life and property. But we have no warrant for believing that Roman culture ^pervaded and transformed Britain as it pervaded Gaul and Spain. It was at best only an ex- otic, and it was swept away by the first breath of ad- versity. 2. In consequence of the dangers which threatened the continental and more vital parts of the empire, the Roman army was withdrawn from the island early in the 5th century, and the Britons were left to struggle unaided against their Keltic kinsmen, the Picts and Scots on the north, and the Irish on the west (the coast of Wales), and against the German tribes that came in ever-growing numbers from across the Korth Sea. Tra- dition tells us that these Germans were invited by the Britons to help them against the Picts and Scots ; after defeating the northern invaders in a series of bloody battles, the Germans then turned their arms against COMING OF THE GEKMANS. S their hosts, the Britons. The tradition is to be found in Bede, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth ; the story of Hengist and Horsa, Yortigern and Rowena, as it has been graphicall}- narrated by Geoffrey, is doubtless fa- miliar to most readers. But it is impossible at the j)res- ent day to unravel the true and the fabulous in the story. There is evidence going to show that Germanic tribes had settled in considerable numbers along the eastern and south-eastern coast, even before the end of the 4th century. The only fact which need concern the student of literature is that German-speaking tribes be- gan a conquest of the island in the course of the 5th century, and had finished it substantially by the end of the 6th century. This second conquest was in every re- spect unlike the first. It was not a iTiere military occu- pation, it was a settlement in mass. The invaders brought with them or sent for their families, and sought to make the land their lasting home. Hence the war be- tween them and the Britons could result only in the total subjection and dispossession of the weaker party . The Britons wem finally dispossesspd . Many were slain outright in battle, others kille;! off in petty feuds, others driven across the channel to the Armorican peninsula in France, still others hemmed in among the mountain fastnesses of Wales. B}^ the year GIO the eastern part of the island as far north as the Firth of Forth, all the southern and central parts, and the w^estern part (except Wales, Cornwall, and Devonshire) as far north as the river Mersey, were in the hands of the Germans. It is usually asserted that the war against the Britons was one of utter extermination. But it is more probable that •numerous small isolated communities of Britons sur- vived in the western and south-western portions of what is now England proper, and were only absorbed in the course of centuries, by the slow process of intermarriage. 4 ANGLO SAXON LITERATURE. Hencefortli the country is called by its German name of England. 3. The permanent vestiges of the British race in the land that was once their own may be bricflj^ summed up as follows. The Kelto-British tongue has disappeared wholly from England proper, and survives only in Welsh, now spoken by about a million of people. A dialectic variety known as Cornish became extinct early in the present century. According to some scholars, certain peculiarities in the pronunciation of the rural popuhition in the south-western and western counties of England are of Keltic origin. Tlie Britons, in disap- pearing, transmitted to their conquerors a few Latin words imposed upon them by tbe Komans, e.g., castrum, in early English eeaster,in modern English caster, Chester, cester, as in the name Chester, and in the compounds Dorchester, Winchester, Lancaster, Leicester, and the like. Also colonia, in Lincoln ; strata, in our word 'street;' 'porta, in J^ewport; milia in 'mile.' Proba- bly also onr words ' tile ' and ' pear ' were derived from the Romans thronsfh the Britons. Concernina: other words of Latin origin, e.g., ' candel,' ' bishop,' ' priest,' ' mass,' it is impossible to decide whether they were transmitted through the Britons, or were bor- rowed by the English directly from Rome. Further- more, the early English adopted and retained some Keltic words. These are not numerous. They are chiefly names of familiar household objects, or names of places, especially rivers. Among the latter are Thames, Trent, Tweed, Severn, Avon (which is Keltic for running water in general), and the group of names Usk, Ux, Wis (in Wisbec), Eske, Ouse — all modifications of the Keltic wise ' water,' which is also found in the High- land usquebagh, corrupted into ' whisky,' and standing for a primitive uisce vaha, meaning ' water of life ;' but SURVIVAL OF BRITISH WORDS. 5 this word usquebagh has been introduced into English in quite recent times. To the former class belong the words ' basket,' ' bran,' ' wicket,' ' clout,' ' crag.' An American will readily understand the fate of the Keltic language in England, bj^ comparing it with that of the Indian language in this country. Although the Indians themselves have disappeared from the greater part of the United States, their language survives in Susquehanna, Juniata, Potomac, Mississippi, Ohio, Ni- agara, etc., and in wigwam, wampum, squaw, toma- hawk, moccasin, succotash, etc. There are no traces of any influence exerted by the Britons upon early English literature. The invaders brought with them not only their own language, but also their own — still heathen — worship, and the germs and even the beginning of/a distiiifitly^Ly German p oetic lit erature . So long as the contest lasted, and for cen- turies afterward, literature in England was either dis- tinctly German, or was based upon the general Roman Catholic literature of the continent. It is not until the 12th century, after England had been conquered by the Kormans, that we observe a sudden and curious outgroAvth of British, i.e., Welsh literature. But this point can be treated only in connection wath the Arthur- ian cycle of romance. CHAPTER II. THE GERMAN CONQUERORS. 4. The Germans who settled in England came from Jutland, Schleswig, and Holstein, and from the coast to the west of the Elbe, known as Friesland. Tlievwere a sturdy, warlike race, inured from childhood to privation and danger. Their home was preeminently a trai ning- b AXGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. school for sailors. Thev and their successors, the Danes and Xorsemeu, were as sea-robbers the terror of Europe. The 5th century was a turning point in history ; it marked the prostration of the "Western Eoman empire. ISTorthern Gaul was seized by the Franks, Southern Gaul by the Goths, Eastern Gaul by the Burgundians. The Langobards established themselves even in IN^orthern Italy. The Cliristian church itself, which had inspired the noblest hopes and efforts of humanity, appeared in danger of an eclipse. Culture and knowledge were scarcely safe in the refuge of the cloister. Everywhere was to be seen the foot-print of a ruthless heathen in- vader. IsTo wonder, then, that the Latin writers (chiefly ecclesiastics) of the 5th and 6th centuries indulged in bitter lamentations. The Frank and the Saxon, the Goth and the Dane, were in their sight devils sent by an angry God to punish the world for sin. Their sufferings were too recent, their imaginations too heated, for them to think clearly. Yet it is from them that we derive our knowledge of the great Germanic Migration. The Ger- mans themselves were too busy fighting and plundering to think of recording their deeds autobiographicallj^ even had they possessed the literary ability. It is neces- sary, therefore, to receive with caution the statements of Latin writers concerning the character of the German conquerors. That these latter were fierce in battle and eager for booty, is unquestionable. They were further- more given to immoderate eating and drinking, and their seasons of warlike exertion were followed by long spells of idle revelry. But thej^ can not possibly have been the monsters or savages that we read of in early chronicles or even in some modern histories. In comparison with modern civilized man, they were quick to shed blood; but by the side of the Romans of the Republic, they ap- pear almost humane. "We may well doubt if the so- called barbarian Germans during the whole period of the JUTES, ANGLES, SAXONS. 7 5th and 6th centuries inflicted in all Europe as mnch misery as was wrought by Julius Csesar alone in the eio-ht vears that he was eno;aged in subduino- Gaul. We can trace the movements and study the features of the German migration on the continent with tolerable accurac3\ The records, although sparse and vitiated by prejudice, are in the main intelligible. But the con- quest of England is hopelessly obscure. We do not pos- sess a single contemporary record, nor indeed any record that is self-consistent or even plausible. All that we can do is to note here and there a point in the light afforded by the study of general European history. The invaders of England were all of the same race, yet there was diversity enough among them to lead us to es- tablish a threefold grouping into the Jutes (from Jut- land), the Angles (from Schleswig-Holstein), and the Saxons, an offshoot of the great family of that name then occupying the regions along the middle and lower Elbe. The Jutes are said to have seized upon Kent ; the Angles occupied the eastern, the Saxons the western and southern parts of the island. All three groups spoke the same language, but in forms that differeil enough to be called dialects. These main dialects subsist to the present day, and are called the northern, the southern, and the Kentish. Each has its sub-varieties. In general we may say that at no time in the history of England have the inhabitants of one county had much ditheulty in under- standing the inhabitants of any other. There has never been such a dividing line between north and south as ex- ists for instance in continental Germany between High German and Low. The fitting title to be given to the common speech of England in these early days before the Norman Conquest is a question which has been much discussed of late. One set of scholars, including Mr. Sweet, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Morris, Prof, ten Brink, assert that the only rightful title is ' Old-English.' Another 8 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. and more numerous set prefer to call it, for the sake of exactness, ' Anglo-Saxon,' reserving the term ' Old-Eng- lish ' for the period after the Norman Conquest. Each terminology has its advantages and its disadvantages. In the following pages ' Anglo-Saxon ' will be employed wherever it seems desirable. 5. Anglo-Saxon was an offshoot of Low, i.e. !N"orth- Gcrman speech, and resembled very closely the so-called Old-Saxon, the language which was spoken between the Lower Rhine and the Elbe and of which we possess con- siderable literary remains of the 9th century. Anglo- Saxon and Old-Saxon, in fact, resemble each other so closely that an English monk of those days, removing from Winchester to Padcrborn, must have been able to make himself at home almost immediately. As a matter of history we know that many English monks did emi- grate to this Rhine-Elbe region in the 8th and 9th centuries, to labor as missionaries, and that they exerted a perceptible influence in shaping the ecclesiastical prose form of Old-Saxon. One single fact will be enough to illustrate the kinship of the two lano-uaffes. The Ans-lo- Saxon poem on the creation and fall of man, commonly called Genesis and once attributed to Caedmon,was pub- lished by Franciscus Junius in 1655. Until 1875 it was supposed, as a matter of course, to be perfectly pure Anglo-Saxon. But in 1875 Professor Sievers showed conclusively that about one fifth of the poem is inter- polated, and that this interpolation is a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon version of an earlier Old-Saxon poem on the same subject. Whoever converted the Old-Saxon poem into Anglo-Saxon suffered inadvertently a few words and phrases to remain, that are peculiar to Old- Saxon and are not found elsewhere in Eno-lish literature. Yet the general resemblance of the two languages is so great that these un-English elements escaped the notice ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE AND INSTITUTIONS. 9 of scholars and editors for upwards of two centiiries. See § 21. A few remarks upon the more general features of Anglo-Saxon speech will not be out of phice. It is rich in Avords for weapons, such as the sword, the shield, the spear, in words descriptive of combat, and in words re- lating to ships and the sea. It impresses us immediately as the speech of a fighting, sea-faring folk. On the other hand it is rich in words expressive of moods and emotions of the mind. We have lost many of these latter terms, having substituted for them words of Nor- man-French or Latin or Greek ori2:in. Those which re- main represent the subtler and more mysterious side of our nature. There is one feature of Anglo-Saxon which does not seem to liave attracted the notice of scholars in England, although German scholars have laid much stress on it. ]Namely, its tendency toward introspection, and the favoring of a sad or at least plaintive dispos- ition. This trait, it may be remarked in passing, still subsists in our modern speech. With all its robustness, its common-sense power of adapting itself to the realities of the world, English, contrasted with the Romance languages and with continental German, still moves with an undercurrent of sadness. See § 18. 6, Our knowledge of the institutions and the religion of the Angles and Saxons at the time of their settlement has been obtained almost altogether from a studj^ of kin- dred relations on the continent. The people were divided into three classes : the nobles, cor^as; the simple freemen, ccorlas; and the slaves. The chief among the nobles, the princes, gathered around them a retinue of devoted personal adherents, the thegnas, or ' thanes.' As the princes grew in power and dignity, and — by reason ot greater familiarity with Roman institutions — assumed more and more of the prerogatives of the Roman em- 10 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. perors, these thegnas attained to the position of a court- iiobility, outranking the elder hereditary nobility of the eorlas. They were enriched by gifts of land conquered in war, and held their possessions upon condition of ren- dering military service. We thus lind the outlines of the feudal system clearly marked in England in the Anglo-Saxon period, although the S3'Stem reached its full development only after and in consequence of the Norman Conquest. This feudal or semi-feudal spirit is worthy of especial note, for it pervades all the early poetry of England. In the poetry of heathen origin it is of course conspicuous. The prince is constantly de- scribed as the giver of rings and gold bracelets, of costly helmets and trusty swords. A right-minded prince is a free ^iver ; an ignoble prince is grasping and miserly. On the other hand, a loyal thane is one who sliows him- self worthy of his lord's munificence, standing by him in danger and perishing with him in battle. This notion of giving and receiving, of generosity and personal attach- ment, is the key-note of all early German heroic poetry. In Anglo-Saxon literature we fi.nd it almost as pro- nounced in Christian as in heathen poetr}^ God is the giver of life and health ; life is a loan from the Maker, and death a calUng-iii of the loan. Christ is the prince of glory, and the apostles are his faithful thanes. Satan and his companions are faithless thanes, and their rebel- lion is an ungrateful breach of allegiance. 7. We know even less of the religion of the Angles and Saxons than of their political institutions. Several quite recent discoveries have shaken the confidence of scholars in former theories based upon the Edda. It is at best doubtful whether the subject of Old-German heathen be- lief can be mad« intelligible to any one not familiar with the general processes and results of comparative mythol- ogy. Only a few of the striking features will be given here, ANGLO-SAXON MYTHOLOGY. 11 and even these will be of a negative rather than of a pos- itive character. The Angles and Saxons, like their con- tinental kinsmen, worshi[)ped certain so-called divinities, Othin, Thor, Loki, Freya, &c. These divinities were originally natnre-myths, that is, forces or phenomena of natnre, such as the wind, thunder, fire, the fertility of the earth, personified and invested with human attributes, male or female. There is an unquestionable similarity, or parallelism, between the German divinities, and those of Greece and of India, so much so that scholars are agreed in assigning all three groups to one common prim- itive Indo-European conception of natnre. The difier- ences among the three are due in general to the greater or less thoroughness with which a nature-force or phe- nomenon has been reduced to purely human shape and proportions, or — to use the technical term — has been «n- thro-pomorpliized. In this respect the German group stands midAvay between the Indian and the Greek. The Vedic divinities, e.g. Agni, the god of fire, Vaya, the god of the wind, Indra, the god of the clear sky, Usha, the goddess of the dawn, are still unmistakable nature- forces ; they can scarcely be called ' persons ' at all. On the other hand Jupiter, ISTeptune, Apollo, Yenus, &c., have lost almost every trace of their origin and have be- come mere men and women of extraordinary powers. Whereas the German Othin, Thor and their associates, although no longer mere myths, are not yet mere men and women. Tliej^ lack that sharpness of outline and that perfect intelligibility which constitute the charm of the Olympic gods in Homer. They come down and move among men, they fight side by side with heroes, but they never cease to be misty, supernatural, phantas- magoric. We know far less of the Germanic system than of the Greek or the Indian, and the explanation is obvious enough. Both Greeks and Ilindoos developed their 12 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATUKE. systems naturally and fully, not onlj' in literature but in painting and sculpture, before coming in contact with Christianity. The Germans, on the contrary, were con- verted to Christianity before they had fairly begun the literary or pictorial expression of their heathen concep- tion. In accepting Christian doctrines they gave up de- liberately their early beliefs. It became a matter of con- science with them to ignore everything anterior to Chris- tianity as crude and barbarous. The priests of the Ro- man Catholic church were inflexible in their efibrts to eradicate whatever savored of heathenism in manners, customs, and even speech. There is more than one pas- ;8age in the poem of Beowulf, for instance, which has ievidently been altered to suit ecclesiastical requirements. jit is not surprising, then, that the remains we possess of early heathen literature should be so fragmentary and confused. The wonder is rather that so much should have escaped the general destruction. Concerning the religion of the heathen Germans, we should not be safe in asserting more than the following : it had no priesthood, no distinct order to mediate be- tween men and gods ; it exacted no sacrihce of human blood, although victims, usually captives, were occa- sionally slain upon the altar; it paid great respect to women, investing them with a quasi-prophetic sacred character; it looked upon cowardice and treachery as the basest of vices ; it held out the hope of a future life re- producing the main features of life on earth ; its service consisted chiefly of warlike hymns or chants. HYMNIC AND HEROIC POETRY. 13 CHAPTER III. GENERAL FEATURES OF THE EARLY POETRY. 8. The earliest poetry among the Germans was of a religious kind, in the shape of hymns to the gods upon solemn occasions. Being addressed directly to the gods, it was necessaril}^ an expression of mythological con- ceptions. And as the hymns were sung, or at least chanted, they were composed in short strophes or stanzas. Remains of such hymnic poetry are quite evident in the Edda. In Anglo-Saxon literature tliey are barely dis- cernible. In Germany proper and in England, hymnic poetry was superseded by heroic verse. To understand the growth of this latter system, we must keep in view the general tendencies of European history. The fifth cen- tury was a turning-point not only for tlie Roman world but for the German conquerors themselves. It was the beginning of their ' heroic age.' To us, who study the events of the great Migration in a critical spirit, with the aid of contemporary Latin records, such leaders as Theoderic, King of the Goths, are actual men like our- selves, without a trace of tlie supernatural. But it was quite otherwise with the illiterate but imaginative de- scendants of the Goths, the Franks, or the Burgundians, in the 6th and subsequent centuries. Popular imag- ination, stimulated bj- oral tradition, endowed the great chieftains of the 5th century with superhuman strength and courage, and crowned their deeds with the halo of romance. Great men became, in a word, ' heroes,' and their deeds became the theme of popular poetry. This secular poetry, in supplanting the elder hymns, retained not a few of their mythological elements. Attributes 14 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. and actions of the gods were transferred to the heroes, thereb}' making them semi-mythicaL The process will be treated more fully in the remarks upon the Beowulf poem, § 12. For the present it will be enough to say that the new heroic poetry first found expression in short pieces, commemorating a single exploit of some well known hero. The poem places us, without any prelude, in the very midst of the action, and the actors reveal their character and antecedents by what they do and say. A striking instance is the Hildebrands-lied, in Old-German of the 8th century. It begins : " I heard tell that Ililde- brand and Hadabrand, in between the two armies, made ready their armor, girded on their swords. And Eilde- brand, he was the elder, inquired of the other, in few words, who his father might be, &c." He himself is the father; he had fled from home twenty years before, on account of political troubles, and had taken refuge with Dietrich (i.e., Theoderic), at the court of Attila, King ot the Huns. Now he is returning home at the head of an army, to recover his possessions, but is stopped by his son, who has in the meanwhile grown to manhood. By dint of questioning, the father finds out that his foe is his son, and declares himself. But the sou refuses to believe, reviles him for 'an old Hun,' and insists upon fig-htino-. Tlie father's lament at being thus forced to an unnatural combat is extremely touching. The poem breaks ofi" at the first encounter, so that what we have is only a fragment. Most scholars are of the opinion that it ended tragically, with the death of the son. The strophe or stanza of the elder hymnic poetry was unsuited to these new heroic poems, which were not sung but recited. It was therefore discarded, except in the literature of Scandinavia, and for it was substituted a continuous flow of verse. The difference between stanza-verse and continuous verse may be readily felt by comparing the Faery Queen with Paradise Lost. In a FORMATION OF HEROIC POETRY. 15 narrative piece of any length, it is impossible for the poet to express each successive thought or action in a fixed number of lines. Either he will have too little to say, and consequently will eke out the stanza with a superfluous line or two; or he will have too much to say, and will carry over the sentence into the succeeding stanza, thereby occasioning an awkward enjambement, or 'straddling.' In the course of time the short episodic poems grouped themselves into longer poems, commemorating a series of deeds by a certain hero, or the fortunes of a hero and his com})anions, or a long chain of events in which many members of a familj' or leaders of a tribe partici- pated. Such longer pieces may be called 'epics.' An instance of a modern poem in imitation of a medieval epic is Tennyson's Enid; on the other hand the Lady of Shalotf, like the HiUlehrands-lied, is episodic. The Iliad and the Odyssey are examples of epic poetry in its perfec- tion. Finally, all the poems, episodic and epic, and all the scattered traditions relatins^ to one set of heroes and events constitute what is called a 'cycle' of fable. Thus, Tennyson's Lady of Shaloii, Sir Galahad, Idylls of the King, &c., are parts of the great medieval cycle of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. 9. There was not among the early Germans a sepa- rate class of singers or poets. All, from the King down to the simple ccod, had the right to sing in public assem- blies. It was even expected of every one present at the board, wdien the mead-cup and the harp were passed around, that he should contribute his share to the even- ing's entertainment. The custom, which still lingers in the Rundgesang of modern Germany, is well illustrated by the story told of Caedmon, see § 20. These old Ger- man and English ' songs ' were not songs in the modern sense; they were ' recitals' of the great deeds of popu- 16 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. lar heroes. Botli speaker and listener were familiar, through long practice, with the leading events in the histor}' of the tribe or the nation, and wirh the ancestry, life, character, and habits of each hero. Hence the abruptness of such poetry. The singer has a right to take for granted that his hearers are as familiar as him- self with the substance of the story he is to narrate. He not only plunges boldly in medias res, e.g., in the BU- debrands-lied above mentioned, but he interrupts the course of the main narrative with allusions to persons and events indirectly connected with it. Such allusions are often quite brief. Tliey can not in strictness be called obscure, for doubtless they were understood at once by the original hearers. But to a modern reader they are extremely ditficult. The substance of the stories handed down to ns in Anglo-Saxon and other Old-German is eminently a pro- duct of the popular mind. Generation after generation labored upon the stories before they assumed the shape in which we have them. 'No less popular is the form of verse. It is at once simple, powerful, and flexible. It was not too difficult for the common man to use, yet in the mouth of an accomplished narrator it was capable of expressing all that the mind of those early days was capable of conceiving. This Old-German verse is usually called, after its most striking feature, ' alliterative.' The number of syllables in the verse is not fixed exactly ; nor can we say that the verse is divided into ' feet.' There is no terminal rime. Each fall verse (line), as printed in recent editions, is to be read in two sections nearly but not quite equal. In early editions the sections were printed as separate lines. The two sections produce an effect not unlike that of a modern ' couplet,' for they are coupled together by cer- tain words beginning with the same sound, i.e., they are £iiid to ' alliterate.' Thus : ALLITERATIVE VERSE. 17 flota famighals fugle gelicost the ship foamy-necked, to a fowl most like The three /-soniids alliterate. Any vowel may allit- erate with any other vowel, e.g. Tha com in gan ealdor thegna Then came in-going the prince of the thanes The verb c6m. with the dependent compound infinitive in-gdn is equivalent to the modern ' entered.' The i of the prefix in alliterates with the ea of ealdor. Strictly a consonant can alliterate only with itself; l)ut there are some licenses. In the most correct verse there are two alliterative sounds in the first section of the line and one in the second. But very frequently there is only one in each, and sometimes we find two in each, although not often in Anglo-Saxon poetry. It has been stated above that there is no terminal rime in alliterative verse. This is strictly true of the heathen poetry, and also in general of the Christian poetry until a comparatively late period, when we find rimes creeping in. They are an imitation of the Latin hymns of the Catholic church, and the forerunners of our modern system. Hence they are nearly always to be considered as symptoms of a decline of the early alliterative system. See § 30. The alliteration rests usually on the emphatic words of the sentence. Sound and sense, therefore, go hand in hand and help each other. When properly read, an alliterative poem is ensy, flowing, and dignified. It has moreover a peculiar power which the scholar alone will appreciate and which can not be reproduced in any modern imitation. One reason is that our early speech abounded in standing epithets, and set phrases and form- ulae, which have ceased to exist. Besides, modern imi- tators fail to perceive that alliteration is something more than the mere recurrence of a certain sound two or three times in the course of the line. The line itself has a / 18 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. structure of its own ; it is, as already stated, a couplet in which the first part is balanced by the second. We need only compare a line from the Beowulf-poem with a line from Tennyson. The Anglo-Saxon poet says : Gewat tha ofer waegholm wipde gefysed Flota famighals fugle gelicost Went then over the wave-top, by the wind urged, The ship &c. The ge in gewdt is unaccented and the following lo al- literates with those in icdeg and winde. The whole line makes upon the ear a very difierent etiect from Tenny- son's: They wept and wailed but led the way Tennyson also gives us, it is true, three w's, but we feel that the phrase 'but led the way' does not 'balance' the preceding, and we wait instinctively for the next line : To where a little shallop lay to complete the effect, by means of its rime 'way : lay.' But this rime is no alliteration. 10. Anglo-Saxon poetry differs from modern English in its style also. The language is synthetic, i.e., it de- notes grammatical relations bj' varying the forms of words. It is not tied dow^i to the modern losjical order: subject, copula, predicate. The poet is, in general, free to arrange the Avords with a view to their effect upon the ear and the imagination. Hence inversions are quite common. There is also a marked tendency to amplifi- ' cation. An object is described, an action narrated by suc- cessive sets of phrases, that are not to be taken as repe- '^ titions but as shiftings of the view-point. Thus, in the passage cited, § 9, the ship is spoken of as 'the floating thing,' then as ' the twining or curved stem.' The ap- proach to land is given in three phrases; they (the mari- STYLE OF HEROIC POETRY. 19 ners) saw ' the strand-el ift's,' ' the steep hills,' ' the broad sea-promontories.' In modern speech such amplification might be wearisome ; but in primitive poetry it adds life and variety. The poet seems to be reproducing from memory his impressions in the order in which they were made upon his mind. Finallj^ the language is rich in '^' plain and obvious similies, but not in formal comparisons. The body is called bdn-loca, the 'bone-case;' to make a speech is ' to unlock the treasure of words in one's breast.' The scream of the ravens gathering around the corpses after the fight is called the ' evening-song;' the hissing of the sword in battle is also a 'song.' The battle itself is called ecga geldc, the ' play of edges.' It was stated, § 9 beginning, tiiat there was no sepa- rate class of poets. Song-craft was the common posses- sion of all. Nevertheless certain men must have been more richly endowed than others with p.oetic gifts. They were sweet singers by eminence. Some few excepted, tliey have not left a record of their names, nor can we identify their names with any of the poems that we possess. But the tradition of such poets was preserved * until late in the Middle Ages. A notable instance is Horant, who figures in the great German epic of Gudrun, and of whom the poem tells us that when he sang, the birds ceased to warble, the sick forgot their pains, the workman stopped, the beasts of the wood, the fish in the water, the very insects in the grass, paused to listen. Horant, then, is the counterpart to Orpheus. Both name and works of at least one poet among the Angles and / Saxons, namely Cynewulf, have been preserved. See § 24. In estimating our early heathen poetry, we should never forget that we have only disjoinjted_reranants af-/^'' what was once a large body of literature. Had we all the popular narrative poems current in England in the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, our knowledge would be en- hanced a hundred-fold. We must also learn to discrim- 20 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. inate carefully between the part plaj^ed by the folk at large and that played by the individual in the composition of such poetry. The substance of the poem, i.e., the story, the heroes, their character and exploits, were the common tradition of the people. In these respects there was no room for poetic 'invention' in our modern sense. Whoever in Old England undertook to tell in verse of the deeds of the forefathers was not at liberty to add or to change a name, an incident, or a trait of char- acter. All that he could call his own was the maimer of telling. And, as Lowell has put it: — He tells it last, who tells it best. We can imagine a favorite story passed along from gen- eration to generation, until some one poet arises, Avho succeeds in telling it so well that his version becomes the final one. Plenceforth all that remains to be done is to preserve it in this shape. The name of the poet may disappear utterly; the story itself never was his; but the version is his, even although it bear no name. 11. One more general feature of our early poetry must be introduced in this place, although it obliges us to anticipate somewhat the course of political events. It was stated, §4, that three varieties of speech, called dia- alects, were spoken in England, viz., the northern dSTorth - umbrian), the southern (West-Saxon., ^ r WegBQ:?^ ) . and the Kentis h. We learn from history that Korthumbri a first rose to eminence in e cclesiastica l . politicaL and lit- erary matters. It took the lead throus'liout the 7th and 8th centuries. Most of the conspicuous men of England prior to the 9th century were Northumbrians by birth or by residence and education. Thus B ed e, Caedmon, Cynewulf, &c. It is highly probable, also, that the poem of Beowulf was composed in North umbria. We should expect, therefore, to find the earliest literary remains NORTHUMBIIIA AND WESSEX. 21 written in the Nortlmmbrian dialect. But this is not the case. A ll the early poetry, heathen as well as (Jliristian , and ahiiost all the early prose, are in ti^e Wessex dialect- The only specimen of yerse in the Northumbrian dia- lect of this period is a fragment of nine lines at the end of a Latin manuscript of Bede's Historia, see § 19, 20. If the earliest literature in England was composed in Northumbria, how can we account for the phenomenon that it has all been transmitted to us in the speech of Wessex? The explanation usually given is this. From the beginning of the 9th century J ^ orthumbria was rav^ aged more and more by the Danes. At one time it was completel}^ in their power. Being heathens, the}^ acted as the Ano'les and Saxons themselyes had acted three centuries before. They plundered the monasteries, which were the seats of learning and the libraries of those days, and scattered or destroyed the manuscripts. Even Wes- sex was in danger, and was saved only through the genius and energy of King Alfred. It is commonly be- lieved by scholars that in or before the reign of King Alfred a great part of early !N" orthumbrian poetry wa s transcribed and recast in Wessex forms , and that these Wessex vers ions have been handed down to us, wiiile the. ISTorthumbrian originals perishecL In consequence of the Danish invasions, the centre of political and literary activity was shifted from l^orthnmbria to Wessex. The capital of King Alfred and his successors, Winchester, became the seat of learning. And it was here, in and around Winchester , that the lirst English prose literature originated. As will be shown in a subsequent place, King Alfred himself labored indefatigably in shaping this prose. Comparing the two great divisions of the island, then, we may say that Northumbria is entitled to the credit of creating our earliest poetry, Wessex to the two-fold credit of preserving that poetry and of creating our earliest prose. 22 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. CHAPTEK IV. BEOWULF AND OTHER HEATHEN POETRY. 13, The poem of Beowulf is by far the most import- ant and interesting monument of early German poetry, not only by virtue of its length and the variety of inci- dent it aftbrds, but by its vigor of style and the light it throws upon manners and customs. The substance of the story is a blending of myth and history, and aptly illustrates what was stated § 8. The germ of the story is mythical. Before the con- querors of England left their continental home, there had sprung up among them the myth of a divine being, Beowi^ . who overcomes a sea-monster, CTrende l. and then a lire-drago n ; in the latter encounter he loses his own life. This Beowa is only another form of Frea, the god of warmth and fertility, and his death symbolizes the disappearance of summer at the approach of winter. The Germans brought the myth with them to Britain, and the names of Beowa and Grendcl became attached to certain hills and lakes, e.g., Beowanham, Grendlcs- mere. Around this mythical germ, or kernel, clustered subsequently the following historical incidents. In the early part of th e 6th century , about 515 , Hy- _gelac. King of the Geats (inhabiting the modern Gota- land in s outhern Swede n), made an incursion upon the Frankish lands along the lower Ehine. The Frankish prince Theudebert met him in desperate battle, and routed him utterly by sea and by land. Ilygelac and most of his followers perished, and the booty they were carrying off was retaken. Among the Geats Vv^as a you ng ncyihew of Ilvgelac. name rl Boownlf, n. man of extraordi nary strength and skill in swimming, whc POEM OF BEOWULF. 23 made his escape. The story is well authenticated ; it is narrated by Gregory of Tours in his great work, the Gesta Francorum. The fame of the battle and of its hero, Beowulf, must have spread not only among the Danes and Swedes but also to England, where it was probably commemorated in popuhir songs. In the course of time the p erson of the historic Beowulf be- came mers^ed in that of the fiod Beow^aj_and out of this. merging: ot mvth a nd history, tlieiy has issued onr Bpo^ ?ult poem. The theme was undoubtedly a favorite among the Angles and Saxons. Even after they were converted to Christianity, they preserved the substance of the Beowulf stories intact. But expressions savoring too strongly of heathenism were expunged one by one, and phrases and passages of a distinctively Christian or monkish character were interpolated. It is believed that the Beowulf poem, in very nearly the shape in which we now tind it, was committed to WM'iting, proba- bly i n yorthnml^ria, about the beginning of the 8th cen- tury. The only existino- T^inmiscriiit of it ia ono of tliA 10th century, now in the British Museum. It is illegi- ble in several places, having been injured by lire in 1731. The language is West-Saxon. 7* 13, As now printed, the poem contains 3,184 full verses (lines). It reads at first sight like one homo- geneous piece; but on closer examination it reveals nu- merous inconsistencies and interpolations. According to the searching investigations of Professor Miillenhotf, it may be reduced to two primitive and independent stories: first, the fight between Beowulf and Grendel; second, the fight between Beowulf and the fire-dragon. These two stories are of equally ancient origin; but whether composed b}^ one and the same poet, can not be made out with certainty. The first of the primitive stories is contained in verses 24 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. 194-836; the second, in verses 2200-3184. All the rest of the poem is, in Mtillenhofi''s judgment,. nothing but secondary matter. Even those sections of the poem which embody the primitive stories themselves are not free from interpolation. Out of a total of 3184 verses, onl}^ 930 can rightfully be called ' original,' namely, 490 verses for the first story, 440 for the second. Thus, the introduction, 1-193, is evidently a late ad- dition, and is a rather clumsy attempt on the part of some secondary verse-maker to set forih the pedigrees, &c., of the chief personages who figure subsequently. The first primitive story begins v. 194. Beowulf, thane of Hygelac, King of the Geats, learns of the troubles of Hrothgar, King of the Danes, and resolves to go to his relief. Hrothgar, namel}', having built him a great hall, called Heorot, is grievously molested there by the nightly attacks of a water-monster, Grendel, who kills many of his best knights and carries oft' others. The description of tlie voyage of Beowulf and his com- panions from Geataland to tlie Danish land, although brief, is spirited. They are graciously received by Hrothgar. When the evening banquet is at an end, Hrothgar and his men retire to the inner rooms, leaving the great hall, Avhich is the scene of Grendel's ravages,- in charge of the new-comers. They all fall asleep, ex- cept the leader. Grendel sallies forth as usual from his den in the moor, and coming to the hall tears open the door. Light flashes like fire from his eyes. He laughs to himself at the prospect of gratifying his greed of hu- man flesh. But Fate, the ' weird' sister, no longer de- crees, literally 'weaves,' that he shall carry oft' one of human kind after this night. Beowulf, awake, watches him. Quickly the monster falls upon a sleeping Geat and in an instant has torn him to pieces. The next to be attacked is Beowulf. But the hero, bracing himself on his (left) elbow, clutches Grendel with his right hand. POEM OF BEOWULF. 25 The giant finds to his dismay that he has never yet en- countered a man with such a grip. He tries to flee, but can not; he is held too firmly. Then Beowulf remem- bers his promise to King Hrothgar. Eising to his fuil lieight, he takes still firmer hold. The giant's claw is crushed; again he tries to flee. The hall resounds with the din, the ale-cups of tbe Danes clatter to the ground. It is a w^onder that the hall does not shake to pieces ; but it is fastened too strongly within and without wdth iron bands wrought with cunning art. Many a bench is overturned in the desperate fray. The listening Danes are tilled with terror, when they hear the evil one utter his cry of defeat; in the naive wording of the original, he yells his dreary death-song. Many a fol- lower of Beowulf hastens to aid with his sword. But the best of swords would be of no avail against Gren- del's enchanted mail. The combatants close in a su- preme effort; the giant's shoulder is wrenched open, the sinews torn asunder. Victory is with Beowulf. -Grende], leaving his arm behind, flees mortally wounded to his den. And Beowulf, in token of victory, hangs up the giant's arm and claws under the broad roof. Here the first story ended, according to Mullenhoff". It lias all the characteristics of an episodic poem ; it is abrupt, concise, straightforward, and intensely vivid. For power, it is worthy of a place among the treasures of any people, ancient or modern. It is followed in the poem by a number of incidents and digressions, the chief of which are these. The next night there is a grand banquet, at which costly gifts are bestowed upon Beowulf by the grateful Hrothgar. The Danes being left in charge of the hall over night, are attacked by a second raonstei', Grendel's mother, who has come to avensre lier son. She carries off Ilroth gar's favorite councillor, Aschere. Once more Hrothgar is disconso- late. But Beowulf comforts him by promising to attack 26 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. the she-monster in her den. He does so, and — after an even more desperate encounter — kills the mother and cnts off and brings back the gigantic head of the dead Grendel himself. Beowulf then returns to his home and is welcomed by Hygelae. All this, even including the fight between Beowulf and Grendel's mother, is pronounced by Mlillenhotf to be mere secondary amplification. Bat certain discov- eries, made since the publication of Miillenhoff's essay, put the episode with Grendel's mother in a new light. It has been found that the story of Beowulf's victory over the two water-demons is contained i n Icelandic, in the G-rettis-saqa , composed not much later than the year 1250. The hero of the saga^ Grettir Asmundarson, is a historical personage of the 11th century, an outlaw noted for his stren^cth and coura2,-e. To him has been transferred, by the imagination of the Icelandic saga- men, the entire Beowa-myth in the following shape. Grettir, in requital for hospitality shown him, un- dertakes to defend a certain house against the night- attack of ' trolls' by whom it had been disturbed. At midnight a gigantic woman makes her appearance ; the fight which ensues ends in his cutting off her right arm with his sword, and the giantess throws herself over a water-fall near the house and disappears. Some time afterwards Grettir takes with him the village priest, to help in exploring this water-fall. The priest fastens a long rope firmly in the bank, so that the end reaches to the water at the foot of the fall. Grettir plunges ofi" the bank into the Avater, swims up to the fall, and climbing up some rocks succeeds in making his way into a cavern behind the sheet of falling water. Here he espies a huge giant sitting by the fire. A desperate fight ensues, of course, in which Grettir is again victorious. He kills the giant, and finds much treasure in the cave, which he POEM OF BEOWULF. 27 carries off, together with the bones of two men, the giant's victims. The resembhmce between this saga and the Old-English poem is too great to be a mere coincidence. We may even say that the story of Grettir exphiins one or two points in the description of Beowulf's encounter with Grendel's mother, Avhich have been quite obscure until now. And both the Icelandic and the English texts employ one peculiar word which occurs nowhere else in the two languages. Everything indicates that the Ice- landic and the English stor}' proceeded from a common original which contained both encounters. All readers of the Beowulf-poem will probably be glad to have the claims of this part to 'originality' successfully vindi- cated, for it embodies one of the most thrilling episodes — namel}", where Beowulf, weary, stumbles and falls. The poet says, simply but powerfully : ' Then sat shf upon the hall-guest and drew her short sword, broad brown-edged ; she purposed avenging her bairn, her onl} oft'spring. But on his shoulder lay the woven breast- net, protecting the body, refusing an entrance to point and to edge.' Beowulf's armor is woven of links ol steel, without any joints or seams through which a sword or a dagger might be thrust. 14. The second primitive story, v. 2200—3184, con- tained in its original shape about 440 verses, i.e., was about equal in length to the first. It was probably equally vivid. But the interpolations and corruptions of the text are so numerous that it is difficult to give a satisfactory statement of it without going into intricate details. The chief points seem to be these. After the fall of Ilygelac and his immediate family in battle, Beowulf becomes king. This total destruction of the direct line of succession is evidently a reminiscence of the overthrow and death of the historic Ilygelac. 28 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. Beowulf reigns fifty years with great renown. One of his servants, having incnrred his anger, flees and liides himself in a cave that he accidentally discovers. The cave proves to he the den of a fire-dragon, who is absent for the moment, and is filled w-ith rare treasures. Hop- ing to propitiate his master, the servant takes one of them, a costly drinking-cup, and returns home, Beow^nlf with eleven companions sets out to attack and plunder the cave. But this time he is less successful. On the one hand, the monster is a j/ire-dragon, and therefore more formidable than Grendel ; on the other, Beowulf is well on in years and less vigorous. All his followers except one, ."W"^"'^^^? desert their master. "Wiglaf and Beowulf together succeed at last in killing the dragon, but not until Beowulf has been mortally wounded. Un- able to explore the cave himself, he sends Wiglaf in, who comes back loaded wdth vessels of gold and silver. Making his dying speech, Beowmlf nominates Wiglaf his successor. The other knights returning, Wiglaf up- braids them bitterly wnth cowardice, and bids them pre- pare for troublous times. Now that their great king is gone, their enemies, the Franks and the Frisians, will not spare them. This passage is doubtless a post-factum prophecy of the breaking-up of the power of the historic Geat s. The wdiole folk is then convened. The corpse of the hero is laid upon a stately pyre, the smoke of wliich ascends to heaven amid universal weeping and wailins:. ISText to the Nibelun gen-lied, the poem of Beowulf has received the most attention from scholars. Editions of it are numerous; it has been translated into English prose by Kemble, and into modern German alliteration by Grein. Yet despite all such efforts, much of the poem still remains and will probably always remain ob- scure. Purely descriptive and narrative passages do not offer serious difficulty. But the genealogies, the epic FINNSBURG, WALDERE, WiDSlTH. 29 'asides,' and the passages where an originally heathen conception or allusion has been effaced to make room for some monkish moralizing, are enough to puzzle the wits and weary the patience of the best scholars. 15. Three other heroic poems (or fragments) remain to be mentioned. The Fkiht of Finnsburq commemorates an episode wdi'ich is alluded to in the Beowulf-ipoem . sixty Danes with their leaders, Hnaef and Ilengcst, while lodged in the castle of Finn, King of the Frisians, are treacherously attacked by their host. Hnaef falls, but the Danes hold out for Hve days, when a truce is made. But it is not kept long. The fighting is renewed and Heugest and Finn both perish. The beginning of the piece is very graphic in its abruptness; it describes the first onslaught. Then exclaimed the king (Ilengest), young in battle : That is not the dawn coming from the east, neither is it the flight of a dragon, nor the blaze of the horns of the hall. Thev are coming to surnrise us. The birds are singing, the cricket chirps, the shields ring, shield answers to arrow. IsTow the full moonshineth be- hind clouds, now start up deeds of woe that the hate of this folk is minded to do. But arouse you, my warriors, lift up your hands, be mindful of your might, figiit in the front, be heroes ! The fragment called Waldere, in High German ' "Wal- ter,' is connected with the well known continental epic of Walther of Acpiitaine, preserved in a Latin-hexameter version of the 10th century. Waltlier is eloping with his bride, Hiklegund, from the court of Attila, King of the Huns, when he is intercepted and attacked by Hagen and Gunther (characters that reappear in another form in the Nibelangenliecl). The English Waldere proves that the conquerors of Britain were familiar with the cycle of Theodcric of Bern (Verona). The most interesting of these minor pieces is the one called Widstth, or 'Traveler' (literally ' wide-farer '). 30 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. 'HCn composition it is probably the oldest extant specimen Lof Anglo-Saxon verse. The chief person, Widsith, is a type of the restless, roaming poet-knight of those early days, singing of his wanderings. He tells of Angles and Saxons, Goths, Swabians, Langobards, and Biirgundians. What makes the poem peculiarly interesting is that it speaks of many of these peoples, notably the Angles, as still in their early homes before setting out on their mi- gration over the Roman empire. Of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry in general it is to be observed that its personages and events all antedate the conquest of Britain. JSTowhere do we iind an allusion to this great event, or to the exploits by which it must have been attended. In other words, although the poems themselves were put into shape on English soil, the themes must have been brougjit from the continent. This phenomenon has not yet been sufficiently accounted for. Probably we shall never be able to account for it, unless manuscripts be discovered containing poems now unknown. CHAPTER y. CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY — BEDE, ALDHELM, BONIFACE. 16. The conversion of the Angles and Saxons to Christianity is the first great event in their history, our knowledge of which rests on a satisfactory basis. It is the office of the political and ecclesiastical histo- rian to discuss this movement in its details. But the his- torian of our literature is called upon to show at least liow the conversion affected the habits of thou2:ht of the people, and gave to it new motives, new hopes and fears, new standards of right and wrong, and new forms of ex- pression. BRITISH, IRISH, SCOTCH CHURCH. 31 The Keltic inhabitants of England had accepted Chris- tianity in the times of the Romans. Ireland was con- verted in the 5tli century. The chnrch of Ireland be- came in the course of the 6th and 7th centuries conspic- uous for zeal and learning. Among its leaders maj' be mentioned Columba, founder of the celebrated monastery of lona (one of the Hebrides) ; Gallus, founder of the still more celebrated monastery of St. Gall (Switzerland), and Colambanus, founder of Bobbio (Piedmont). But the Irish church was viewed with some jealousy and mistrust by the general Western church. It was charged with certain quasi heretical tenets, and with want of suf- ficient deference to the supremacy of the pope. As to the Britains, although they had been converted as early as the 3d century, we know but little of their church, and that little does not inspire respect. It seems to have been, a prey to ecclesiastical and political dissensions; the British rulers were given up to intrigues and degrad- ing vices. Yet, feeble as it was, the British church might have developed a healthier life, had it not been hopelessly ruined, together with the British people, by the Anglo-Saxon conquest. At the end of the 6th cen- tury a line drawn due south from Abercorn (near Edin- burgh) to "Weymouth (in Dorsetshire), would have repre- sented not unfairly the two great divisions of the island. All to the east, Germanic and heathen ; all to the west, Keltic and Christian, in name at least. The Keltic in- habitants of the greater part of Scotland had been con- verted in the 6th century by missionaries from Ireland. The mission of converting the Angles and Saxons was conducted from two sides simultaneously: from the north, by Irish-Scotch missionaries ; from the south, by missionaries sent direct from Rome. In the early part of the year 597, Augustine and his companions landed on the shores of Kent. They had been sent by the then pope, Gregory the Great. Ethelberht, ruler of Kent, accepted 32 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. the new doctrine. Canterbury became the center of the Roman Catholic propaganda, and Augustine was conse- crated first archbishop. On the north the district of Northumbria was overrun by missionaries from lona, chief among whom was the celebrated Aidan. The monastery of Lindisfarn (subsequently called Holy Isle), not far from the mouth of the Tweed, became the centre of the northern propaganda. The middle portion of the countr}^, Mercia, under King Penda, held out the longest. But Penda's defeat by Oswi, King of l^orthumbria, in 655, sealed the fate of heathenism. -Henceforth there was but one God acknowledged in England, Scotland, "Wales, and Ireland, but one church, and but one faith. The worship of Thor and of Othin once broken, its frag- ments were soon swept away, or lingered only as idle, harmless superstitions among the uneducated h^wer classes. The conversion was not only rapid, but thor- ough ; so thorough, indeed, that in little more than a hundred years, say about the beginning of the 8th cen- tury, England became the foremost branch of the church in western Europe. The prestige and influence of the Irish church was already on the decline. For this there were several reasons. The Irish princes were at odds among themselves, and the island became a prey to Kor- wegian and Danish pirates. 17. During the 8th and 9th centuries the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church became more and more sys- tematized and its organization perfected. In fact it ceased to be for the most part a missionary church, and assumed gradually the character of a highly organized corporation for the management of public and private morals, not infrequently also of politics. The aim of the church, at least in western Europe, was steadily fixed upon the concentration of its power in the hands of the pope, ajid upon the obliteration of everything that sa- POLICY OF THE CHURCH. 83 vorecl of heresj^, schism, and national or local dissent. Italy, Spain, France, Western Germany, and the British Isles were made distinctively i^o»?rt?i-Catholic. ISTot even the power of the church could eradicate race- hatred. In Great Britain, for instance, the Saxon and the Kelt continued to look upon each other as foes. The process of conquering and Germanizing the surviving Britons in western and southwestern England and in Wales went on for centuries. In the north the Gaels were crowded farther and farther back into the High- lands. Yet, as Christians, all the races and inhabitants of the British Isles acknowledged allegiance to Rome and in so far were on a footing of equality. Moreover, they were united by at least one bond, viz., the Latin church-ritual. To us in the 19th century this may not seem much. But it behooves us to do justice to the past. Whatever views we may hold of the church of Rome as it now is, we must not forget that it was the mainstay of society and of culture from the 3d century to the 13th. It did what no other power could have done, it taught the peoples of Europe that they were brothers before God. Its methods and practices may not seem to us per- fectly proper. But it never for an instant lost sight of its mission, it never forgot that it was the divinely ap- pointed arbiter between king and king, between nation and nation. It summoned rulers and subjects before its tribunal and made them understand that there were such things as international justice and international sympa- thies. From the 3d century to the 13th, then, the work of the church was one of beneficence. But from the 13th century on, we observe symptoms of discontent, which culminated in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. It does not seem to have cost the Anglo-Saxon people much of a struggle to give up their heathen gods. What opposition there was, came chiefly from a few 34 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. princes who distrusted the missionaries because they were foreigners. The gods of Germanic mythok^gy were too crude and vague to maintain themselves before the simplicity and unity of the Christian creed. Be- sides, the old mythology oiFered no well developed sys- tem of ethics. It recognized little virtue beyond brute force and brute valor. It was incapable of suggesting high ideals of daily life. To abjure Othin and worship Christ, then, was a comparatively slight task. The diihculty lay on the other side, in adopting the ritual. The early Britons had accepted Roman })riests and a Latin ritual as a matter of course, for Latin was the language of their military rulers. But the Angles and Saxons recognized no such supremacy. Latin was to them a wholly foreign tongue, and — unlike the Britons — they had never had a separate class of priests. They were called upon not only to worship a new God, but to worship him publicly in a language which they could not speak nor even understand, and to consent to the establishment of a close corporation of priests, of whom many, if not most, were at the outset foreigners. Yet hierarchy and ritual were matters in which the church could not aftbrd to make concessions. They were estab- lished. Precisely in what way and with what prompt- ness, we are unable to ascertain. All we can say is that through the adoption of Christianity Latin became once more a language of England. It was the sole acknowl- edged and official language of the church in all matters of doctrine and ritual, and in intercourse between Eng- land and the papal see. As the church was in those days the sole depository of learning, Latin became also the vehicle of imparting knowledge. All the teachers were members of the clergy or of religious orders, and all the schools were cathedral or cloister-schools. Text- books were in Latin, and most of the pupils were candi- dates for the priesthood. Throughout the Middle Ages LATIN RE-ESTABLISHED IN ENGLAND. 85 the cliiircli claimed jurisdiction in cases relating to mar- riage and divorce, parentage, church property, and the validity of oaths. Bishops exercised the functions of judges, and in their courts, officers and counsel were ec- clesiastics. Bulls of the pope aud decrees of the ecu- menical councils, together with the decisions of the pope's court of appeals, supplied the largest share of the ecclesiastical law and rule of procedure. As a matter of course, Latin was the language used in these episco- pal courts. What has been said of England will apply with even greater force to the rest of Europe. We can watch this building-up of an elaborate system of church jurisprudence simultaneously all over Europe, until it assumed definite shape in the Corpus Juris Canonici. An example being thus set by the church, we need not be surprised to see the political rulers of England enact- ing and codifying their secular laws — purely Germanic in character — in a Latin form. Deeds for the convey- ance and leasing of property, royal edicts, municipal charters, and other private and public documents were drawn up in Latin. The details of this change may be left to the political historian ; its general significance for the history of our literature may be summed up in a few words. Such wholesale use of a foreign idiom drew a sharp dividing line, which had never before existed, between the learned and the unlearned. On the one side there was a small class of secular and clerical dignitaries and officials ; on the other, the great mass of peasants and artizans. Both classes spoke, in every-day matters, the vernacular. But the former class had a jargon all to itself, a monkish book-Latin, of which the latter class had no understand- ing. Thus Latin came to be regarded as more learned, more elegant, more literary. The folk-speech, even at its best, could not claim equality ; it was always more or less open to the charge of being vulgar. This state 36 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. of opinion lasted in England until tlie Reformation in the 16th century, and even later. Whoever wished to write as a scholar for scholars must perfoi'oe write in Latin. English might he good enough for peasants, v.orking-men, soldiers, even for writers of verse and popular tales, but it was not good enough for science. Lord Bacon evidently thought that it was not in the 17th century. This prevalence of Latin was not an unmixed evil. It established an international language, as the church had established an international code of manners and morals. Men of letters of different countries could converse and correspond with one another. The evil lay chiefly in its retarding the growth of the popular tongue. The church everywhere absorbed the best talents, and the folk-speech was left to be cultivated by men of inferior ability. Herein England will compare most favorably with continental nations, at least in the times anterior to the N^orman Conquest. Kings and bishops in England encouraged the translation of useful works from Latin into English, and also the composition of religious pieces in English. The result was that the vernacular literature of Eugland from 750 to 1050 exceeded in vol- ume and imjoortance that of France and that of Ger- -jinany. 18. It was stated, near the close of § 5, that English thought and speech, even in the earlier heathen period, was marked by a tone of soberness or sadness. This tone was confirmed and deepened by the conversion to Christianity. In becoming Christians, the Angles and Saxons, it is true, did not immediately cease to be pug- nacious. There were still feuds enough between neigh- bor and neighbor, between prince and prince. The so- called Heptarchy might almost be called a period of an- archy. But as time wore on, the supreme power was GENERAL FEATURES OF CHRISTIAN POETRY. 37 gradually concenti-ated in the royal family of Wessex. The habits of the folk became peaceful ; so peaceful, in fact, that the laud was barely able to defend itself from the Danes. In |>roportion, then, as the primitive war- like zeal of the folk abated, its tendency to melancholy manifested itself more strongly in its literature. The disposition assumes so many shapes that it is impossible to characterize it in a sinarle word. 'Melancholy' is perhaps too strong. We may call it 'brooding,' or ' yearning,' or ' plaintive.' A musician would probably speak of the religious poetry (about to be mentioned) as composed in the minor key. Not only is its aim didactic — religious poetry can scarcely be otherwise — but it dwells upon the gentle and contemplative moods of the soul, rather than upon the impassioned. Hence it prefers sentiments and reflections to deeds. If we compare, for instance, our early versions of the legends of the saints with the Latin originals from which they were adapted, we shall perceive that the English poet has usually abridged the action of the story and sketched to exces- sive lengtli those passages in which the saint gives vent to his feelings. The earliest poems, e.r/., the metrical paraphrase of Genesis, § 21, are comparatively free from such diffuseness. But the later we come down, the more of it we shall find. And hand in hand with sentiment- ality of tone goes a fondness for such rhetorical forms as Visions, Dreams, Allegories, and the like. Medieval literature in general exhibits a great variety of visions and allegories, written by ecclesiastics of all nations. But nowhere does this sort of writing a[>pear to have taken such firm hold of the popular imagination as in England. Other European nations, e.g., France and Germany, have produced allegorical and diffusely didactic poets ; but England alone pays them peculiar honor. The taste, once acquired, has withstood the Norman Conquest, the Italian Renaissance, and the Protestant 158892 38 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. Reformation, aucl subsists at the present day. We find, in the 14th century, the author of Piers Plowman divid- ing the honors with Chaucer; in the IGth, the Faery Queen overshadows every rival ; in the ITth, Pilgrim's Progress has no rival but Paradise Lost. In the 18th century no one poet predominates; and the acknowl- edged autocrat of letters is Dr. Johnson, not a poet at all but a moral philosopher. In our own time we ob- serve no less a critic than Matthew Arnold asserting that our greatest [)oet after Shakespeare and Milton is Words- worth. Many, perhaps most, of us will dissent from this. Yet the mere utterance of the opinion is signifi- cant; it reveals the innate bias of the English mind, in- fluencing, some of us would say, warping the judgment of our most cultured critic. Extreme soberness of tone was not the only fault of our pre-Norman literature. It was Jacking in color, in grace, in ability to catch the more delicate play of thouo:ht and character. And it was also lacking in what is called the ' historic sense.' Having led for cen- turies a life of comparative isolation, the irJiabitants of England were, by the middle of the 11th century, in danger of vegetating in insular exclusiveness. They took no direct active part in the general movement of continental politics. They were absorbed in domestic affairs, and seemed to be disengaging themselves little by little from the great family ot nations. In these two respects the changes wrought by the Korman Conquest were not merely salutary but even necessary. For the iN'ormans brought with them from France a fondness for light literature, and also a disposition to enter into for- eign politics and to treat the facts and phases of politi- cal life in a spirit of philosophic inquiry. 19, The chief seat of the activity of the church in the 8th century was in Korthumbria, although the BEDE. S9 archbisllop of Canterbury was primate of England. Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian founded the celebrated cloister-school of Canterbury near the end of the 7th century. One of the pupils of the school, Aid- helm, subsequently bishop of Sherborn, directed the studies in the school of Malmesbury, in Wessex. About this time Benedict Biscop established the schools of Wearmouth and Yarrow, in Northumbria, which were soon to overshadow all the others. Bede, the most illus- trious name in the annals of the early English church, was born at Wearmouth in 672, and was educated partly there, partly at Yarrow. His whole life was passed in these two schools, in learning, teaching, and preaching. He never rose to a higher rank than that of simple priest. He died, 735, at the age of 62, with the well earned reputation of being the most learned man of his times. His life was in the ordinary sense uneventful. To quote his own words : " I spent my whole life in the same monastery, and while attentive to the rules of my order and the service of the church, my constant pleas- ure lay in teaching, in learning, or in writing." Yet his fame was European ; more than any other one man probabl}' did he influence the literature of the church. His scholars numbered upwards of 600, yet he found time to compose forty-five treatises. The founders of the monastery having provided a tolerably good li- brary of Latin manuscripts, he had an opportunity of acquiring a taste for Cicero and Seneca, Ovid and Lucre- tius. From the followers of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, who was a Greek of Tarsos, he even ac- quired some knowledge of the Greek language, which was a very rare accomplishment in those days. The en- cyclopedic knowledge which he concentrated in himself and imparted freely to his pupils, or else stored up in his writings, is justly regarded as the foundation of scholarship in England. 40 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. No less conspicuous than his learning was his per- sonal character. It was so honorable and so attractive that it won for him the designation of "Venerable Bede." There is nothing brighter in the early history of England than the sight of this simple, sweet-tempered priest, filled with love for his fellow-men, gifted with an intelligence far ahead of his times, toiling on patiently and modestly, 3^ear after year, in the least obtrusive of vocations. Bede was fond of his mother-tongue and its verse. Lying on his death-bed he ejaculated, in alliterative lines : Before the inevitable journey no thought can there be more prudent than that man must consider, before his departure, what of good or of evil may be adjudged to his soul after the day of death. Whether the lines were of his own composition or not, is left un- decided in the account of his death, written by his friend and disciple, Cuthbert. The same account adds that on the very day of his death he was at work upon a trans- lation of the gospel of John into English, dictating to an amanuensis. Towards evening the young scribe said: -"There is yet one more sentence." "Write quickly," replied the dying man. "It is finished now, at last." "You speak truth," said the master, "all is finished." And his spirit passed away, singing the Glo- ria in Excelsis. None of Bede's writings in the vernacular have been preserved ; at least, none in an independent shape, foi* it is possible that the above-mentioned rendering of the fourth gospel may have been recast subsequently and merged in the general collection of gospel-translations, see § 28. The works of Bede that we possess are in Latin. Those which treat of biblical exeo;esis and dos^- matic theology may be passed over here. But there is one of his works which will interest directly every English-speaking man, viz., his Historia Ecclesiae Gcntis bede's historia. 41 Anglorum, a moderate-sized volume narrating the story of the conversion of the Angles and Saxons. Its style 1 is clear, concise, forcible, and remarkably elegant for the 8th century. It is the chief, almost the only, source of our knowledge of the period to which it relates, and it is to this day a very readable book. The simplicity and earnestness of the author are stamped on every page. But not all the parts of the work are of equal value. It is divided into five books. The first twenty-two chap- ters of Book I give a brief resume of the history of the island from the invasion by Julius Caesar down to the .^coming of Augustine in 597. They are a mixture of fact and fable, the latter element predominating. The facts they contain are of no value to us, because our knowledge of them is now derived from independent and better sources. Bede borrowed most of his state- ments concerning the Romans from Orosius, see § 26. His account of the Britons and the Anglo-Saxon con- quest is based upon a Latin treatise, usually called Gil- das, after its supposed author. This Gildas is of such questionable antecedents that we can put no faith in it. Bede's real work begins with the twenty-third chapterif His account of the mission of Aua-ustine and all that follows is undoubtedly authentic. It was based upon documents then existing in England, and upon copies of papal documents, made for him by one of his friends in the archives at Rome. The work ends with a survey off the organization of the Englisli church in the year 731, and a list of the author's writings. A later hand has appended a meagre list of church events, names of bish- ops, &c., year by year, from 731-766. At the end of one \ of the manuscripts of the Historia are to be found the Northumbrian verses by Caedmon, mentioned § 11, 20. Although Bede's work is in the main genuine history, it is not wholly free from the superstitions in vogue in the Middle Ages. Even Books IV and V, which treat 42 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. • of persons and events contemporary with or just prior to Bede himself, are not wanting in 'visions' and 'won- ders.' It is worthy of note that the story of Caedmon, see § 20, is preceded and followed in Book IV by other stories equally marvelous. One of Bede's contemporaries has been already men- tioned, Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborn and teacher in the school at Malmesbury. Aldhelm lived from about 650 to 709. His reputation for learning was inferior only to that of Bede. Some of his works are in prose, others in verse ; they are all of a religious nature except one, a collection of one hundred riddles, imitated from the rid- dles of Symposius, a late Latin writer of the 4th or 5th ceutur3^ Although composed chiefly for entertainment, Aldhelm's riddles are rather serious in tone. They are written in various metres, having been designed by their author to serve as illustrations of Latin prosodv. For the connection between them and the English riddles of Cynewulf, see § 23. Aldhelm is said to have been an excellent poet in his mother-tongue, but none of his English pieces have been preserved. By way of compensation we find allitera- tion in many of his Latin verses. He was also fond of dis- jdaying his knowledge of Greek by interlarding his Latin with phrases evidently reproduced from Greek idioms. This trait of pedantry is worth noting; it shows how zealously Greek was studied at that early day in England, and it will moreover prepare us for recognizing the phe- nomenon that some of the legendary poems of the 8th, 9th, or 10th centuries, in the vernacular of England, see § 25, were based upon primitive Greek versions and not upon secondary Latin ones. Besides the great schools already mentioned, there was one scarcely less noted, at York. Among the teachers here w^as Bede'syoungfriend Ecgberht. And in this school was trained the celebrated AJouin, who afterwards removed BONIFACE. 43 to France and became the bosom friend and adviser of Charlemagne, and his assistant in the great plan of re- forming education throughout Europe. Another famous Englishman was Winfrid, better known by his Latin name of St. Boniface. After teaching in several schools in his native country, he entered upon his missionary labors in Bavaria, Thuringia, Ilesse, Saxony, and Fries- land. In 732 he was consecrated archbishop and primate of Germany. lie established the bishoprics of Ratisbon, Erfurt, Paderborn, Wiirzburg, Salzburg, and others, and also the famous abbey of Fulda. It was lie who, in 752, at the deposition of Chilperic, the last of the Merowings, consecrated his deposer, Pepin the Short, King of the Franks. The subsequent development of the English church is a matter of general history. Enough has been said in this place to illustrate the promptness and thor- oughness of the conversion. CHAPTER YI. CHRISTIAN POETRY — CAEDMON — GENESIS, EXODUS, DANIEL. 30, The Christian poetry of early England is scarcely less interesting than the heathen ; it is much more abund- ant, and is easier to interpret. Like the heathen poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. For the survival of heathen notions, see § 6. For the creeping-in of rime, see § 9, § 30. The poets were sometimes monks, some- times laymen. We have grounds for suspecting that more than one worldly singer, growing weary of wander- ing and fighting, found refuge and rest within the cloister-walls and sang there of Moses and Abraham as he had formerly sung of Theoderic and Wieland. First in interest, probably also in time, is the poem 44 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. called Genesis. It is contained in the Ms. Junian XL, of the Bodleian library, Oxford, together with three others, called respectively Exodus., Daniel, and Christ and Satan. All four poems were formerly ascribed to one author, namely Caedmon. But at present scholars are agreed upon the following points. First, that Christ and Satan is much later, both in penmanship and style, than the other three, and mnst be assigned to a different era. Second, that Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, althongh writ- ten in the manuscript by one and the same scribe, ex- hibit too much diversity of style and language to be the work of the same author. The authorship of Exodus and Daniel is generally conceded to be unknown. The only point not yet detinitively settled is the authorship of Genesis. The following story is told by Bede, in his Historia, Bk. IV, ch. 24. In the latter part of the 7th century (not many years, therefore, before the birth of Bede him- self) there lived near the cloister of Streoneshalh (better known by the subsequent Danish name Whitby) in ITorthumbria, a man, well on in years, named Caedmon. The gift of song had been denied him, so that, when at table the harp Avas passed to him in turn, he was wont to retire in shame. One evening, after being thus dis- graced, he fell asleep in the stable of wdiich lie had charge. Then appeared to him in his dream a vision, and a voice called upon him to sing of the beginning of created things. So he sang in his dream a song in praise of the Lord, thus: JSTow shall we laud the author of heaven, the might of the creator and his counsel, the deeds of the father of glory, how he, the eternal God, was the author of all wonders, who first made for the children of men her.ven for a roof, he the holy creator, and afterwards established the middle region, the earth, for men, the almighty Lord. Upon awaking, Caedmon repeated this and added much thereto. The news of the CAEDMON. 45 wonder soon spread to the cloister, where he was called upon to give specimens of his newlj acquired gift. Ths abbess Hild received him into the cloister and made her learned men recite the bible story to him. Whatever they told him, he elaborated in his mind and turned it into glorious songs, so that his teachers soon became his Hsteners And thus, says Bede, he sang of the creation of the world and the origin of the human race, and the whole story of Genesis; of the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt and their entry into the promised land; of many other sacred stories; of the incarnation of our Lord, his sufferings, resurrection, and ascension ; of the coming of the Holy Ghost and the preaching of the apostles; of the terrors of the last judgment and the pangs of hell and the bliss of heaven. Also many other songs of God's grace and God's judgments, and in them all he strove to lead men from sin and incite them to virtue. Professor ten Brink, one of the soundest judges of our early literature, is disposed to concede some basis of fact to this story, but observes shrewdly that it implies an extraordinarily wide range of poetic powers and ac- tivity. If we take Bede's words literally, this Caedmon must have been not only an epic but a lyric and a di- dactic poet of the highest order, and his productions must have comprised every subject and style of compo- sition in the whole range of our religious poetry. Per- haps we are to regard Bede's Caedmon (like Widsith, § 15) as a typical rather than a real character. He seems to stand for the entire class of humble but zealous con- verts. Besides, we must remember that the story of Caedmon is not the only wonder that Bede tells in this connection, see § 19. Bede says that^ he gives only the ' substance' of Caed- mon's dream-song, in Latin prose, beginning thus: Nunc laudare debemus auctorem regni coelestis, &c. King 46 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. Alfred, in his "West-Saxon translation of Bede's Historia, see § 26, when he comes to this point, uses the following language : Then he (Caedraon) began straightway to sing these words and verses, which he had never heard, the ' order ' of which is : - Kii we sceolon herian heofonrices weard, Metodes mihte ond his modgethonc, &c., &G. In all, nine alliterative full lines, corresponding exactly to Bede's Latin prose. At the end of one of the Latin MSS. of Bede are found nine lines in the vernacular, beginning thus : Nu scylun liergan hefaenricaes uard, Metudaes maecti end his modgedanc, &c., &c. The diiFerence between the two sets of verse is merely one of dialect. King Alfred's passage is in Wessex, the other in Northumbrian, but otherwise the two passages agree absolutely. But the beginning of the Junian Genesis (which is also iu Wessex dialect) is different, and is worded thus : Us is riht micel thaet wp rodera weard, Wereda wuldorcining wordum herigen Modum lufien : he is maegna sped, &c., &c. Which may be rendered : It is our bounden duty that we the lord of glory, the wonder-king of peoples, with our words should praise, with our hearts should love ; he is the promoter of strength, &c. The question naturally suggests itself: In what rela- tion do the Latin prose lines in the text of Bede, the Northumbrian verses appended to Bede, and King Al- fred's verses stand to one another, and how are they all three related to the poem of Genesis ? The problem is complicated, and some of the points GENESIS. 47 are still in dispute. But opinion seems to be gradually settling down to tliese conclusions: 1. That the Latin MS. of Bede is of the early part of the 8th century, say 737. Consequently it was penned almost immediately after Bedc's death. 2. That the metrical fragment in Northumbrian appended to this MS. is of the same date as the body of the MS. 3. That Bede's Latin '■ninie laudare debemus,' &c., is translated from the Northum- brian. 4. That King Alfred's verses are merely a later Wessex form of the same Northumbrian. We have in this Northumbrian fragment, then, the remains of a very old poem of the 7th century, which nothing prevents us from ascribino; to the Caedmon of whom Bede writes. The further point, viz., the relation between the North- umbrian fragment and the Junian Genesis is not yet fully cleared up. Probably w^e shall be safe in taking a middle position. We may assert, on the one hand, that the Junian Genesis is not a direct Wessex version of the Northumbriam poem of which the Bede MS. has pre- served a fragment. On the other hand, we may admit that the substance of the early Northumbrian poem has been embodied in the Junian Genesis. According to Professor ten Brink, the style of Genesis gives unmis- takable evidence of high antiquity. It suggests an art of versification in its infancy, not on the decline. 21, Genesis, as we have it in the Junian MS., is a poem of 2935 full verses. Originally it must have been much longer, for there are six large gaps in the MS., and the narrative ends abruptly at the sacrifice of L=;aac. The MS. is of the 10th centur}^, but the language is that of the 9th, if not earlier. We have to distinguish in the poem two portions of unequal length and dissimilar character. Namely, verses 245 to 851 are an interpolation. See § 5. Pro- fessor Sievers, who established this fact in the year 1875, 48 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. regards the interpolated passage as an English transla- tion from an Old-Suxon poem on the same subject, now lost, and composed in the latter half of the 9th century, probably by the author of the famous Old-Saxon He- liand. Professor ten Brink has given to the interpolated passage the title of Younger Genesis, and to the older and main portion the title of Elder Genesis. The poem opens with an invocation to God, and pro- ceeds to sing of the bliss of the angels in heaven and tlie rebellion and fall of the angels. These notions concern- ing the ten orders of angels and the rebellion of Lucifer are wholly foreign to the bible-text, and are derived from the writings of Gregory the Great and the compendium made by Isidor from the writings of Gregory and St. Augustine. Tliej recur with endless variation all through medieval literature, see § 24. The poem goes on to state that after the bad angels have been thrust out of heaven and peace restored, the Lord is moved with sorrow at the sight of so many vacant seats. By way of compensation he proceeds to create earth and man. The description of the creation conforms strictly to the bible, except that the two accounts of man's crea- tion (Gen. i. 26 ; ii. 7) are thrown into one. Some of the passages are extremely forcible. In describing the creation of light, the poet bursts forth : The earth was yet, The grass all imgreen; the sea covered By swarthy night far and wide, The wan waves. Then came beaming in glory The spirit of heaven's warder borne o'er the waves With mighty blessing. The lord of the angels, The giver of life, bade the light come forth Over the wide ground; quickly was obeyed The high king's behest. Holy light Was oyer the wastes, as the worker commanded. The iirsi: part of the Elder Genesis stops at v. 245, with the naming of the four rivers of Paradise, Gen. ii. 14. YOUNGER GENESIS. 49 Passing over the Younger- Genesis interpolation for the present, we iind the ekler poem resuming the story at the point where the Lord calls to Adam in Paradise just after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit, Gen. ill. 9, The poet adheres closely to the text. Occa- sionally he abridges a pedigree; occasionally, on the other hand, he amplifies a passage in accordance with Old-German notions. Thus his description of the flood, although not much longer than that in the original, creates the impression that it must have been adapted to the experience of a sea-faring people. The flood be- comes more of a tempest. The Younger- Genesis interpolation is interesting in more than one respect. It repeats, but in a much fuller form, the fall of the angels, and introduces the tempta- tion and fall of man. It describes the fallen angels as they lie bound in the fire of the bottomless pit. Their leader, Satan, delivers a speech in which he declares his unconqnered hate and announces his intention to ruin the newly created race of man. The resemblance be- tween this Old-English Satan and Milton's archfiend is striking. But the most significant trait in the interpo- lated passage is the peculiar character it gives to the temptation. In the bible and in all the ecclesiastical literature of the middle ages Adam and Eve are repre- sented as overcome by the evil spirit's appeal to their idle cariosity or some such improper feeling. Here, the tempter is a veritable father of lies. He an- nounces himself as a messenger sent from God to com- mand them to eat of the tree of knowledge, and threatens them with divine wrath if they refuse. This of course places the conduct of our first parents in a better light; it diminishes their guilt, if it does not remove it alto- gether. It is contrary to the rigorous doctrine of the medieval church, which sought to enhance its own efficacy by deepening man's sinfulness. The only work 50 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. in whicli we find a like disposition to touch lis^htly upon sin and the fall is in the Old-Saxon poem of the Heliand, above mentioned. We may account for such a disposi- tion by assuming that the Old-Saxons, who had just been forcibly converted to Christianity by Charlemagne, were unwilling to acceftt the doctrine of total depravity be- cause it seemed to them an unmanly belief. 22. The next poem in the Junian Ms. is called Exodus. This title is too extensive for the matter, which does not include all the events in the biblical Exodus, but merely the march of the children of Israel through the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian army. It is only 589 verses long; at verse 445 there is a gap of two pages in the ms. According to Professor ten Brink, the author must have been an epic singer turned bible-poet and retaining his old love for heroes and weapons. J^owhere in the Christian poetry is the love of fighting so marked. This is all the more striking as the narrative does not have any battle to describe, but can merely tell of preparations for battle and the great danger threatening the Hebrews. The descriptions are more detailed than in Genesis, more imaginative, and more poetical. The third poem, Daniel, contains 765 verses ; there is one considerable gap in the ms. Like Exodus, it does not give all the contents of the biblical book ; it ends abruptly at Dan v. 22, in the midst of the prophet's interpretation of Belshazzar's dream. It selects only important incidents, especially such as inculcate submis- sion to God and trust in him, and distrust of one's own powers. The style is simpler and less graphic than that of Exodus. The last poem of this ms., usually called Christ and Satan, is not one homogeneous piece, but is a mere col- lection, carelessly put together, of fragments of three MINOR POEMS. 51 separate poems, treating respectively of the pangs of the Fallen Angels, Christ's Descent into Hell and Ascension, and Christ's Temptation. All three fragments are evi- dently much later in date than Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, and also much inferior. Not much if any later than Exodus and Daniel are various short pieces, e.g. a metrical paraphrase of the 50th psalm (in the Kentish dialect), a poem on the Day of Judgment, descriptions of Hell and Heaven, and the speeches of the Soul to the Body after Death. These last mentioned pieces, one for the condemned soul, one for the blessed soul, exemplify the curious medieval belief that the soul after death, see § 26, visits the body every week, until the two shall be reunited at the judgment-day and consigned together to final bliss or final woe. There is no lack of similar pieces, prose and verse, in the medieval literature of every European nation. Equally curious are the traces of so-called 'animal svmbolism.' In the earlier centuries of the Christian era it became a custom among Christians to regard cer- tain animals as symbolizing certain mysteries of the faith. Compendiums were made for ready reference ; such a compendium was called a physiologus. We possess re- mains of an Anglo-Saxon yhysiologas in the short poems which treat of the panther and the whale, and in the fragment of a poem on a curious bird entitled by Grein * The Partridge.' The Panther, who retires to a se- cluded spot in the mountain-valley, sleeps three days, and on awaking utters sweet cries and exhales a delicious odor, symbolizes Christ, the risen Lord. The Whale, who beguiles unwary mariners into mistaking him for an island and climbing on his back, only to open his jaws and devour them, symbolizes Hell. We find rem- iniscences of superstitious belief in such treacherous floating islands even in modern literature. , 52 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. CHAPTER VII. CTNEWULF — RIDDLES, CHRIST, ELENE, &C. 33. The person and writings of Caeclmon, see § 20, are involved in uncertainty. But our knowledge of an- other of the great poets of early England is somewhat more definite. Cynewulf was born about the middle of the 8th century. He is usually held to be a native of Northumbria. He belonged in early life to the class of singers who wandered from court to court. His educa- tion had been got at a convent-school ; at all events he had some knowledge of Latin. Only one of his secular works has been preserved, viz., a collection of riddles in alliterate verse. The suo-^'es- tions for these riddles he borrowed partly from Aldhelm, see § 19, partly from oral traditions of the folk. The Angles and Saxons, like the other Germans, had an in- born liking for oracular utterances and plays on w^ords. One of the most celebrated encounters of wit is that narrated in the Vafthrudnismal of the elder Edda. Here the god Othin, assuming the form of a man and the name Gangradr, visits the giant Vafthrudnir in his hall. The two propound to each other the most difficult rid- dles, until at last Gangradr asks the giant what Othin had whispered in the ear of Balder when the latter was as- cending the funeral pile. At this the giant perceives that his antagonist is none other than the father of the gods and acknowledges himself overcome. His head is the forfeit. In this respect the Eddaic story resembles the Greek myth of Oedipus and the Sphinx. Cynewulf 's riddles are marked by imagination, a close observation of nature and the realities of life, and also a RIDDLES POEM OF CHRIST. 53 relish for social enjoyment. Tlie following may serve as a specimen : Me a while ago for dead gave up My father and mother; 1 had no body as yet, Nor life within. Then a woman began, Well disposed, to cover me with garments, Kept and cherished me, enfolded me As faithfully as she did her own bairns, Until, under her lap, as my nature was. Under her foster lap I waxed in spirit. Me the jprotectress fed then Until I grew and was able To fly afar. She had the less Of sons and daughters of her own for thus doing. [Answer: A Cuckoo. Cynewulf, it is believed, passed the latter part of his life in a convent. His subsequent writings are all of a religious character. The poem called Chrid, containing 1690 verses, is composed in three parts : tirst, the Birth of Christ; second, the Ascension; thii^d, the Coming at the Last Day. (Of part first the beginning is lost.) According to Professor ten Brink the substance of the poem is taken from Latin homilies, especially from those of Gregoi'y the Great. The effect of the whole is that of a cycle of hymns, but liberally intermixed with epic and dramatic elements. In form it passes back and forth from narration to dialogue, from dialogue to ejaculations of praise. To quote Professor ten Brink's words, it is a majestic monument of deep religions feel- ing and keen, lofty intellect. The feeling of love and adoration for Christ and the Virgin reaches the highest pitch of expression, but without breaking into that sentimental strain which the later Christian poets of the 12th and IStli centuries caught from the Ilinneswger. Nowhere is the love of Christ described more earnestly, more touchingly, nowhere are the terrors of the last judgment depicted more forcibly. Among all our early 54 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. English poems of religion, Cj'newulf s Christ is the one ill which the spirit of the Latin church is exliibited at its best. On the other hand the Old-German conception of the comitatus, retinueship, or vassalage, is conspicu- ous, and we even seem to detect here and there a faint echo of those old pagan hymns that once must have celebrated the glories of Othin's Walhalla. 34. The best known and most popular of Cynewulf 's works is the Elene, a legendary story of the expedition sent by the emperor Constantine to recover from the Holy Land the cross upon wdiich Christ was put to death. The poem contains 1321 verses; the last 85 are personal. In them the poet speaks of himself as having been troubled in spirit at the recollection of a misspent life, until he is comforted by the contemplation of the Cross and its glory. He then introduces a passage in which, line by line, the runic names of the single letters composing his name are made to bear the alliteration and tlius reveal the author. The passage has the effect of an acrostich. The story of the Finding of the Cross is one of the most interesting and characteristic legends of the early church, and has been preserved in a great variety of ver- sions in many languages. In Cynewulf's version the main points are these. In the year 233 Constantine, still a heathen, is attacked by his enemies, chiefly the Huns. (The date 233 is, of course, impossible. By slightly changing the order of words in Anglo-Saxon, we can get 332, which would come much nearer to the probable date of the emperor's conversion. But the Latin original followed by Cynewulf has the same fig- ures, 233.) In his sleep, on the eve of the battle which is to decide the fate of his empire, an angel of the Lord appears and bids him shake off fear and look aloft for a sign of victory. He looks and beholds in the sky a glit- ELENE. 55 tering cross bearing the inscription : With this sign shalt thou conquer thy enemies. (A translation of the familiar ill hoc signo vinces.) Awaking, tlie emperor or- ders a cross to be made immediately and carried before him. Wherever tliis cross is borne in tlie fight, tlie enemy is dismayed and routed. Having gained a com- plete victory, Constantino summons his wise men and bids them interpret this unknown symbol. They are at a loss for an answer. But at last some Christain sokliers venture to tell the story of Christ's life and death. The emperor accepts joyfully the new doctrine and is bap- tized. Being furtlier instructed in bible-histor}^, he learns that Christ was put to death in Judea. There- upon he fits out an expedition, at the head of which he puts his mother Helena, to find if possible where the Cross had been hid. As soon as the empress reaches Jerusalem, she convenes the wise men learned in the law of Moses. They evade in various ways her persist- ent questionings. After meeting them thus four times without success, she throws one of their number, Judas, into prison and keeps him tliere six days without food. On the seventh day his resolution gives way and he promises to aid in the search. He guides the Christians to Calvary, but is unable to find the spot where the Cross has been hid. In his emergency he prays to God. This prayer, says Pro- fessor ten Brink, is a curious blending of Old-Hebrew fervor and Old-German pathos, tinged with Talmudic ideas of a hierarchy of angels surrounding the glory of the Father, § 21. He begs that the spot may be indi- cated by a cloud of smoke. His prayer is granted. He returns thanks, and they dig down twenty feet, when they discover three crosses. That is, they have found also the two on which the thieves were put to death. Returning to the city, they lay the three before the em- press, who rejoices with them but wishes to know which 56 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. is the Savior's, Judas is completely at fault. Tliey sing hymns to God until the ninth hour, when a company of mourners pass by, carrying to the grave the body of a young man. Judas orders them to stop and set the bier down. He holds, one after the other, two of the crosses over the corpse ; but it remains motionless as before. He then holds the third cross; instantly the dead man arises, body and soul re-united. Messengers are sent to Constantine to inform him of the discovery. He returns word to erect a church on the spot where the cross was found. The cross is set in gold and precious stones and deposited in the church, in a silver casket. Judas is baptized. By order of the em- press. Bishop (Pope) Eusebius of Rome visits Jerusalem and consecrates Judas bishop of the new diocese. Henceforth Judas is known as Cyriacus. But Helena is not yet satisfied. She wishes to have the nails with which the feet and hands of the Savior were pierced. Once more Cyriacus proceeds to Calvary and prays. A bright flame shoots out of the ground. The nails are dug up and brought to the empress. Cy- riacus advises her to have them made into a bit for the emperor's bridle ; so long as the emperor shall guide his horse with this bit, so long shall he be victorious. The empress remains a while longer in Jerusalem, helping to build up the new Christian community. Cyriacus per- forms many miracles of healing. At her departure the empress bestows rich gifts on him and enjoins the church to celebrate the anniversary of the day on which the cross was found. It was the last day but six of spring. As summer began on the 9th of May, according to the Anglo-Saxon calendar, this day would be the 3d of May. 25, Another of Cynevvulf's poems, Juliana^ narrates the martyrdom of a noble Christian woman of that name, supposed to have lived in the reign of the Roman PHOENIX. 57 emperor Maximinian. Juliana refuses to wed a heathen husband, and for her steadfast resistance is frightfully tortured and put to death. Cynewult's version is adapted from the Latin. The metrical Life of St. Gathlac is only in part the work of Cynewulf. It tells of the trials and tempta- tions of Gutlilac, a hermit of Eng-land, who died 714. Cynewulf 8 share, the latter part, follows closely a Latin life of the saint by the monk Felix of Croyland. These four works, viz., the Biddies, Christ, Elene, and Juliana, with the portion of Guthlac, are all that can be safely claimed for Cynewulf. Several other works were formerly ascribed io him, which are now disputed, viz : Andreas, The Phoenix, The Vision of the Hood, and vari- ous shorter pieces. Ihe Vision of the Hood is rather a fee- ble copy of the conclusion of Cynewulf's Christ (see be- ginning of § 24) than a work by the same author. It is monotonous and verbose. Andreas is the legendary (and extremely fabulous) story of the adventures and suffer- ing of St. Andrew, who is sent by God to rescue St. Matthew from captivity in the land of the Mermedons, The poet, whoever he may have been, followed a Greek, not a Latin, version, as is shown by certain peculiar lo- cutions. The Phoenix, a poem of 677 verses, is a metri- cal rendering of a Latin poem ascribed to Lactantius, a church-father of the 4tli century. Herodotus, who got the fable from the Egyptians, was the first to tell of this wonderful bird. The next writer of importance was Ovid. During the first century of the Christian era two slightly different versions sprang up. According to one, when the phoenix dies, a new bird arises from the dead body and buries it. According to the other, the phoenix burns liimself, and a new bird arises from the ashes. The latter version is more usual, and is the one followed by Lactantius in his De Phoenice and by our early Eng- lish poet. -But the English poem, from v. 380 on, de- 58 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. velops an idea which is not in the Latin original at all, i.e., it applies the phoenix-myth to the Christian doc- trine of the resurrection. Tlie new-born phoenix is made to symbolize the risen Lord and the elect. This added part is of course the most interesting. Among the minor poems of this period, although not to be connected with Cynewulf, are Tke Liament of Deor, remarkable for its being the only poem composed in strophes (or stanzas), The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Ruin, The llessage of the Husband to his Wife, and a col- lection of pithy sayings, usually called 'gnomic' verses. All except the gnomic verses are marked by a strong undercurrent of sadness. It is impossible to discover their authors, or even to determine accurately the times when they were composed. But in all probability they are anterior to the reign of King Alfred. CHAPTER VIIL KING ALFRED — OROSIUS, BOETHIUS, PASTORAL CARE — CHRONICLE. 26. Mention has been made in § 11 of the troubles caused in the early part of Alfred's reign by the Danish invasions. Li 878 a treaty was concluded at Wedmore, which practically divided England into a northeastern portion under Danish overrule, and a southwestern, Wessex, under Alfred. Having conquered peace, Alfred bent his energies to the task of repairing the terrible damages that had been wrought. He paid as much attention to restoring pnety and learning as to political and military reform. Not content with rebuilding and endowing schools and churches, he set in his own person an extraordinary ex- ORosius. 69 ample of unceasing literary activity. Late in life he be- gan the study of Latin and translated numerous works into the vernacular. Nearly all his writings have been preserved. They fully establish his claim to be regarded as the father of our English prose. The first work that he translated was a Latin history of the world, composed about 418 by a Spanish monk named Orosius. The Latin original is a mere compila- tion, immethodical and uncritical. But it has one merit; it is the first attempt to write history from an interna- tional point of view. Its spirit is orthodox-christian, but its tone, we might say, is cosmopolitan. It is cer- taiidy not exclusively Greek or exclusively Latin. The seven books of Orosius were a favorite work throughout the early middle ages. We have seen, § 19, that Bede consulted them. In translating the first chapter of the first book, Alfred inserted some materials of his own, viz., a description prepared by himself of all the coun- tries that were then occupied by German-speaking tribes, and tAvo reports of exploring voyages, written dow-n by him from the dictation of the men who had made the voyages. Ohthere, starting from his home on the western coast of Norway, had doubled the North Ca[)e and ex- plored the AYhite Sea as far as the mouth of the river Dwina. He was undoubtedly the first man of Germanic descent to discover those regions. The other traveler, Wulfstan, starting from what is now the town of Sles- wig, explored the coast of the Baltic as far as Danzig and Konigsberg. These two reports and Alfred's de- scription are the most interesting and valuable contribu- tions that we possess to the ethnography of the times. Alfred's next translation was from Bede's Historia, see § 19. This was followed by a free rendering of the celebrated work by Boethius, De Consolatione Philoso- phiae. Boethius, often called the ' Last of the Romans,^ was a prominent statesman and philosopher of the 6th 60 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. century. Being charged, unjustly it is now believed, with complicity in a conspiracy against the Gothic king, Theoderic, hewasthrowninto prison andfinally executed, 525. It was during his imprisonment that he composed his Consolatio. The work is in the main an embodiment of Neo-Platonic doctrines, but with a considerable ad- mixture of Stoicism. Its Christianity is rather superfi- cial, for Boethius was only a Christian in name. But by reason of its clear and elegant style and the good sense of its teachings, it became almost immediately a popular work among churchmen and exerted a wonderful influ- ence upon all medieval writers, lay no less than clerical. Chaucer, for instance, never wearies of citing Boethius, and for several centuries after Chaucer we may observe the Consolatio still maintaining its hold upon men of learning. Alfred's translation, or rather paraphrase, can make no pretense to the elegance of the original. The work upon which Alfred bestowed most pains is the translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, a treatise by the great pope upon the true nature of the priestly vocation and the proper way of fullilling its duties. Gregory's teachings were peculiarly applicable to the English clergy in Alfred's reign, who were very imperfectly trained. Hence the King ordered a copy of his translation to be kept in every cathedral church of his realm. Two of these very manuscripts still remain ; one is much injured, the other is entire except a single leaf at the end. They exhibit the actual language of the south of England in the 9th century, as it was written down under the eyes of the King, and are consequently of the highest philological value. Alfred's Preface, in the form of a letter to Bishop "Werferth, gives a forcible account of the disorganization and ignorance of the country during the early part of his reign, and the ener- getic measures he employed to disseminate knowledge. Another work of Gregory's, the so-called Dialogues, Gregory's dialogues. 61 was not translated by Alfred himself, but by his friend Werferth, bishop of Worcester. These Dialogues era- body the views of the pope upon the lives and miracles of the early Italian saints. They owe their title to the circumstance that they are put into the shape of a series of imaginary conversations between Gregory and his archdeacon Peter. The fourth (last) book exerted a re- markable influence upon medieval literature. It treats of the life of the soul after death, see § 22, and recounts many of the 'visions' of spiritual and supernatural things vouchsafed to holy men in the early church. Closely connected with the visions was the doctrine of 'purgatory,' which was in process of establishment in Gregory's day. From Gregory's Latin Dialogues these visions and purgatorial wonders passed into early Irish literature, where they were developed freely and trans- fused with Keltic superstition, forming a department by themselves. The doctrine of purgatory became perma- nently associated with the name of Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. As retold and modified by Irish monks, the literature of visions spread over all Europe, assum- ing a more popular shape in the Arthurian romances. 37, For a statement of the general relations between Wessex and ISTorthumbria, in the matter of prose and poetrj^, see § 11. Wessex is entitled to the additional credit of having originated the beginnings of national historiography in the vernacular. It had long been a custom among monks throughout Europe to jot down, in Latin, year by year, brief notices of important events, such as royal births, deaths, marriages, great battles, and other changes, especially in the monastic order itself and in the church. These notices are usually as meagre and matter-of-fact as memoranda entered in a private diary. But it seems that the monk-s of Canterbury and Winchester must have 62 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. begun at an early date to write their notices, not in Latin but in the vernacular. During the reign of Ethelwulf, \ Alfred's father, the first attempt was made to work up ' these scattered items into somethiug like a continuous narrative. The history of the Angles and Saxons was carried back to the days of Hengist and Ilorsa, and King Ethelwulf's pedigree traced through Othin to Noah and Adam. All that part of this first Winchester redac- tion which deals with persons and events anterior to the 7th century is of <(uestionable value, and is probably, to a large extent, mere popular tradition. Passages here and there read like scraps of ancient poetry turned into prose. But the part dealing with the 7th century and j 8th century is authentic, being probably taken in sub- 1 stance from early monkisli records. Towards the end of Alfred's reign the annals under- went a second redaction, which continued the thread of narrative down to 891. The new matter consists chiefly of the events of Alfred's wars with the Danes, and has therefore all the valne of a contemporary record. But those who had the second redaction in charge interpo- lated a good many passages in the preceding part, i.e., in the fabulous history of early Britain. They carried the narrative back as far as 60 B. C. These interpolations are not taken from popular tradition but from Bede's Historia. Probably the respect thus shown to Bede was due to Kins' Alfred's wishes. After Alfred's death the record was resumed — we can not say where or by whom — and continued to 924, the year in which Alfred's son, Edward, was at the height of his power and rnler over nearly all England. Professor ten Brink ascribes this entire section of thirty years, 891-924, to the pen of a single writer, who mnst have been a man of great ability and the best prosaist of Old- England. His style is unusually clear and vigorous. Tlie annals for the next half century, 924-975, are CHRONICLE. 63 meagre and dry. They are enlivened only by the inser- tion of four episodes, narrated in alliterative verse. First, the victory of Athelstan over the Scotch and Northmen, at Brunanburh; second, the annexation of the five Danish 'boroughs' of Leicester, Lincoln, IsTot- tinghara, Stamford, Derby, 924; third, Edgar's corona- tion at Bath, 973; fourth, Edgar's death, 975. About 1000 the annals seem to have been trans- ferred from Winchester to Canterbury, Worcester, and Abingdon. In Worcester, about 1016, a further redaction was made, by interpolating many facts and dates relating to Northumbria and Mercia, which had been collected in the course of the 9th and lOtli centuries. Another re- daction was made in Abingdon, about 1046. The two versions, the Worcester and the Abingdon, then con- tinue, between them, the story of England under the Danish king Knut, under Edward the Confessor, Good- win, and Harold, down to the battle of Hastings. After the J^orman Conquest, composition of every sort in the language of the conquered was neglected. The annals merely shared in the general decay, until at last they died a natural death, 1154, when Henry IL ascended the throne. The additions made from 1066-1154 are meagre enough. Some were made at Canterbury ; a few more at Worcester. The principal redaction of this pe- riod was made at Peterborough. In 1116 the cathedral and nearly all the adjacent buildings, with their books and other documents, were destroyed by fire. This fur- nished the occasion for rewriting the entire record. The writers consulted the earlier records of Winchester, Worcester, Canterbury, and Abingdon ; also the local records of Peterborough. They interpolated some forged charters purporting to convey gifts to the abbey, and brought the story down to 1121. From 1121-1131 this Peterborough record was kept up year by year. 64 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. The section from 1132-1154, as it now stands, was prob- ably added by a single scribe, in 1154. The entire record, wiiether. early or late, whether pre- pared at Winchester, Canterbury, Worcester, Abingdon, or Peterborough, is usually entitled the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is in the main dry and tedious reading, imperfect, abrupt, not always intelligible or accurate. Yet it is a most valuable document to the historian and to the grammarian ; it is moreover worthy of honor for being the first great and sustained effort on the part of a modern folk to tell its own history in its own speech. CHAPTEIi IX. ALFRIC — SOLOMON & SATURN, &C. — DECLINE OF POETRY. 28. For the sake of unity, all the parts of the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle have been mentioned in § 27, although many of them belong in point of time to the present chapter. The literature of England from the death of Alfred to the Norman Conquest is more abundant than the earlier literature, but is in general much less interesting. It is almost altogether a prose literature, and is dry and didatic in style. It bears witness to the dying out of the great creative impulse in poetry. Among the more curious productions of the period is the Laece Boc (Leech Book), a compilation of rales and prescriptions for the treatment of various diseases. As might be expected from the low state of medical study in the middle ages, the compilation swarms with fantastic notions. Many forms of disease are attributed to evil spirits, for which the cure consists in incantations and ex- orcisms. Some of the formulas are in verse, and date ALFRIC. 65 perhaps from Leathen times. N'ot a few of the supersti- tions still survive among English rustics. The Lacce jBoc is based upon a Latin compilation, supposed to be the work of one Apulejus, a Roman physician of the last days of the Empire. The chief prose writings are of a religious character, and may be regarded as a continuation of the work of instruction begun by Alfred. The great reformer of the 10th century was St. Dunstan, Arclibishop of Cantor- bury, whose eftbrts were directed to winning back the priests from worldly amusements, to enforcing celibacy among them, and to establishing the strict rule of St. Benedict in the monasteries. But St. Dunstan has left no writings in English. What he neglected to do, was more than made good by Alfric, Abbot of Enshani. Alfric, who died about 1020, was a pupil of the celebrated school at Winchester and the most indefatigable writer of his times. The more important of his works are: 1. A collection of 80 and more homilies, entitled Catholi- cae. 2. An interlinear version of selections from Pris- cian's Latin grammar, and an intev\meiir' CoUoqidum, or dialogue between teacher and pupil, so planned as to facilitate the learning of Latin words and phrases. 3. A collection of homilies on the lives of the saints, entitled Passiones Sanctorum. 4. A translation of the Pentateuch (omitting passages here and there), of Joshua, Judges, and Job. 5. An Introduction to the Study of the Old and New Testament. Several of these writings are in alliteration, e.g., the greater part of the Passiones, and the books of Numbers, Joshua, and Judges. The allit- eration is, to say the least, a mistake on the author's part. It has not the power of the old heathen poetry nor the grace of C3'ne\vulf 's poetry. It does not con- form to the rules of alliterative verse; in fact it is little more than slightly versified prose, and is much inferior to his regular prose. But, notwithstanding this weak- 66 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. ness, Alfrie was the model of an industrious scholar, and indisputably the most influential writer of English after King Alfred. The above list gives but a fraction of his numerous writings. Somewhat earlier in time than Alfrie is the Northum- brian interlinear version of the gospels, made in Lindis- farn and transferred to Durham when that city became the seat of the bisliopric. Also earlier than Alfrie by a few years is a collection of homilies preserved in the Blickling MS. Later probably than Alfrie, certainly not by him, is the Wessex translation of the gospels. 29. An interesting poem of this period is one entitled Solomon and Saturn. Solomon symbolizes Christian, Saturn heathen wisdom ; the poem is in the form of a dialoswe or encounter of wits, in Avhich — as mis^ht be expected — Solomon comes oii" victorious. The theme was a favorite one in the middle ages ; but, although it must have originated in the east, we have no version, Latin, Greek, or otherwise, earlier than the Anglo-Saxon. Solomon as representative of christian doctrine calls for no explanation. But it is not so easy to account for the introduction of Saturn. It is believed that there was a Jewish tradition according to which Solomon figured as the champion of Jewish wisdom against Marcolis, an oriental divinity corresponding to the classic god Mer- cury. Among German-speaking nations the oriental name Marcolis was converted into Marculf; and this form is still retained in the continental-German versions of the story. But in England the name Marcolis seems to have been confounded with Malcol (Milcol), i.e., Moloch, the name of another oriental divinity corres- ponding to Saturn. Thus the word Saturn came to be substituted in England for Marculf. The old English version is quite fragmentary, and — like all mystical writ- ings — is obscure. A large part of it consists in Solo- BATTLE OF MALDON. 67 moil's going through the Fater Nosier for Saturn's edifi- Ccition, interpreting each letter as if it were a rune. The continental versions, notably the French, diifer from the Eno-lisli in giving to the dialogue a burlesque tone, and the wit not infrequently becomes profane and scurrilous. Another and more important production is the metri- : cal paraphrase of the book of Psalms, made not later i than the middle of the 10th century. (An earlier ver-^ sion of the 50th Psalm has been mentioned, § 22). For the songs inserted in the Chronicle, see § 27. Superior in every way to these chi'onicle-songs is one composed near the end of the 10th century. It is a poem of 325 verses, (both introduction and conclusion are wanting), in commemoration of Bvrhtnoth, and is called either Byrhtnoth'' s Death or The Battle of 3Ialdon. In the year 991 a band of Northmen landed on the eastern coast of England. The}^ were attacked near Maldon by Byrht- noth at the head of a few hastily gathered troops. The contest was long and desperate. Byrhtnoth fell, but the invaders were checked. The poem is one of the most spirited in the language and fully worthy of a place beside Beowulf and the Battle of Fiiinshurh. It must have been composed immediately after the battle, for the author appears not to have known the name of the Danish leader, which is given as Anlaf in the Chronicle. 80. The poetry of the 11th centuiw exhibits unmis- ; takable signs of a transition period. It is the business of the grammarian to examine these changes in detail. All that can be attempted in this p>lace is to mention some of the most marked. 1. The alliteration becomes ( more and more careless ; almost any similarit}^ of sound is regarded as sufficient. 2. Less care is taken to let the alliteration rest on the emphatic words in the line. 3. There is a tendency to make the transitions of uicniiiiig coincide with the end of the fnll line. This is in direct 68 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. opposition to the style of the earlier poetry, which usually carries the syntactic meaning over from one line to the next. Inasmuch as the caesura, or half-way pause, is still kept u[), the full line is thus divided mo- notonously into two halves. 4. These halves are fre- quently made to rime. This is a decisive step towards the riming eight-syllable or ten-syllable ' couplets ' which were the predominant metre of France and Germany from the 10th to the 14th century. The following pas- sage, taken from the Chronicle, sub anno 1036, will make all these points clear. It describes the fate of Alfred, son of Ethelrcd. Sona swa he lende, on scype mon hine blende And hine swa blindne " bvohte to tham munecon, And he thaei" wunode tha hwile the he leofode. Syththan hine man byrigde, swa him wel gebyrde, Aet tham westende . tham stypele ful-gehende On tham suthportice ; seo sawul is mid Christe. As soon as he landed, on the ship they him blinded, And hina tlius blind brought (they) to the monks And there he dwelt (all) the while he lived. Afterwards they him buried, as him well befitted, At the west end, the steeple (tower) hard by, In the south portal ; his soul is with Christ. Rimes like lende: blende, wunode : lufode, byrigde: gebyrde, ende: gehende, portice: Christe, are nnmis- takable, and the two halves of each line make a couplet. It is important to note these symptoms. They show how erroneous it would be to attribute the disintegra- tion of the- early language and literature solely to the ISTorman Conquest. The truth is that tendencies to chancre had lonsr been at work in Ens^land, no less than in Germany. Thus there are several riming pas- sages in Cynewulfs p'oems and in the Phoenix. But the English maintained their primitive system longer than the GcrniMus, for the victoi-y of rime over allit- SIGNS OF TRANSITION'. 69 eration was complete in German}' by the end of the 9th century. Even had the Normans never invaded England, the English would have developed eight and ten-syllable riming couplets in imitation of the French, just as the Germans did. And they would also have patterned their literature after the Frencli romances that were then fast becoming the fashion. The Nor--' man Conquest accelerated the substitution of rime for alliteration, and the importation of romance-literature.- But the process would have gone on, more slowly, it is true, without the Normans. In evidence that literary taste in England was chang- ing, it will sutRce to cite the fact that the story of ApoUoniiis of Tyre and the Letters of Alexander the Great to Aristotle, fabulous subjects taken from the later Greek prose romances, were translated into English before the Conquest. The Old-German heroic spirit and heroic verse were doomed .to pass away before the new era of sentimentality and adventure. 3 1158 00561 2147 HirnirHL".^,t?.^J£9J0M.LIBRARYFACILITy m AA nnn nr\-7 en i PLEA«^ DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARD^ ^:zi ^^lUBRARY^?/. ^ 1 ii^^ ^ University Research Library ZJ rx IV This book is DUE on the last date stamped below ,_^ \ W.a ^^C 1 4 I; ' Am ^ UM! tv. |ECyRL.a| 7 198 ft NO^ X i^44 1^ qC^ ^^^^ 0(\R 2 3 WSd fff V ^^ r'^i l^ftY 1 2 per 2 4 B /IPP IS>.URL FEB 3 s t^O URL'LD 1 11968 /" -J