A Handbook of the English Language, Robert Gordon Latham [some good books to read txt] 📗

[1] The immediate authority for these descents, dates, and localities is Sharon Turner. They are nearly the same as those which are noticed in Mr. Kemble's Saxons in England. In the former writer, however, they are given as historical facts; in the latter they are subjected to criticism, and considered as exceptionable.

[2] It is from Beda that the current opinions as to the details of the Anglo-Saxon invasion are taken; especially the threefold division into Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These migrations were so large and numerous that the original country of the Angles was left a desert. The distribution of the three divisions over the different parts of England was also Beda's.

The work of this important writer—the great luminary of early England—is the Historia Ecclesiastica, a title which prepares us for a great preponderance of the ecclesiastical over the secular history.

Now Beda's date was the middle of the eighth century.

And his locality was the monastery of Wearmouth, in the county of Durham.

Both of these facts must be borne in mind when we consider the value of his authority, i.e., his means of knowing, as determined by the conditions of time and place.

Christianity was introduced among the Anglo-Saxons of Kent A.D. 597. For the times between them and A.D. 740, we have in Mr. Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus eighty-five charters, all in Latin, and most of them of uncertain authenticity. They are chiefly grants of different kings of Kent, Wessex, the Hwiccas, Mercia, and Northumberland, a few being of Bishops.

[3] Gildas was a British ecclesiastic, as Beda was an English one. His locality was North Wales: his time earlier than Beda's by perhaps one hundred years.

He states that he was born the year of the pugna Badonica, currently called the Battle of Bath.

Now a chronological table called Annales Cambrenses, places that event within one hundred years of the supposed landing of Hengist.

But there is no reason for believing this to be a cotemporary entry. Hence, all that can be safely said of Gildas is that he was about as far removed from the seat of the Germanic invasions, in locality, as Beda, whilst in point of time he was nearer.

As a writer he is far inferior, being pre-eminently verbose, vague, and indefinite.

Gildas, as far as he states facts at all, gives the British account of the conquest.

No other documents have come down to our time.

Beda's own authorities—as we learn from his introduction—were certain of the most learned bishops and abbots of his cotemporaries, of whom he sought special information as to the antiquities of their own establishments. Of cotemporary writers, in the way of authority, there is no mention.

For the times between the "accredited date of Hengist and Horsa's landing (A.D. 449) and A.D. 597 (a period of about one hundred and fifty years) the only authorities are a few quotations from Solinus, Gildas, and a Legendary Life of St. Germanus."—Saxons in Engl. i. 27.

[4] This account is from Jornandes, who is generally considered as the chief repertory of the traditions respecting the Gothic populations. He lived about A.D. 530. The Gepidæ were said to be the laggards of the migration, and the vessel which carried them to have been left behind: and as gepanta in their language meant slow, their name is taken therefrom.

[5] Widukind was a monk of Corvey in Flanders, who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of his monastery.

[6] Geoffry of Monmouth, like Gildas, is a British authority. His date was the reign of Henry II. The Welsh traditions form the staple of Geoffry's work, for which it is the great repertory.

[7] The date of this was the reign of Marcus Antoninus. Its place, the Danubian provinces of Rhætia, and Pannonia. It was carried on by the Germans of the frontier or march—from whence the name—in alliance with the Jazyges, who were undoubtedly Slavonic, and the Quadi, who were probably so. Its details are obscure—the chief authority being Dio Cassius.

[8] The reign of Valentinian was from A.D. 365 to A.D. 375.

[9] The date of this has been variously placed in A.D. 438, and between A.D. 395 and A.D. 407. Either is earlier than A.D. 449.

[10] The Saxon Chronicle consists of a series of entries from the earliest times to the reign of King Stephen, each under its year: the year of the Anglo-Saxon invasion being the usual one, i.e., A.D. 449. The value of such a work depends upon the extent to which the chronological entries are cotemporaneous with the events noticed. Where this is the case, the statement is of the highest historical value; where, however, it is merely taken from some earlier authority, or from a tradition, it loses the character of a register, and becomes merely a series of dates—correct or incorrect as the case may be. Where the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle really begins to be a cotemporaneous register is uncertain—all that is certain being that it is so for the latest, and is not so for earliest entries. The notices in question come under the former class. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had been edited by the Master of Trinity College, Oxford (Dr. Ingram), and analyzed by Miss Gurney.

[11] Asserius was a learned Welsh ecclesiastic who was invited by King Alfred into Wessex, and employed by that king as one of his associates and assistants in civilizing and instructing his subjects. Several works are mentioned as having been written by Asserius, but the only one extant is his history of King Alfred, which is a chronicle of various events between the year of Alfred's birth, A.D. 849, to A.D. 889.

Asserius is supposed to have died Bishop of Sherborne, A.D. 910.

[12] The compounds of the Anglo-Saxon word ware = occupants, inhabitants, are too numerous to leave any doubt as to this, and several other, derivations. Cant-ware = Cant-icolæ = people