Early Britain - Grant Allen (the best e book reader txt) 📗

the rude pirates and farmers of Sleswick and East Anglia. Thus, in later days, a rich vernacular literature grew up with many distinct branches. But, in the earlier period, the use of a civilised idiom for all purposes connected with the higher civilisation introduced by the missionaries was absolutely necessary; and so we find the codes of laws, the penitentials of the Church, the charters, and the prose literature generally, almost all written at first in Latin alone. Gradually, as the English tongue grew fuller, we find it creeping into use for one after another of these purposes; but to the last an educated Anglo-Saxon could express himself far more accurately and philosophically in the cultivated tongue of Rome than in the rough dialect of his Teutonic countrymen. We have only to contrast the bald and meagre style of the "English Chronicle," written in the mother-tongue, with the fulness and ease of Bæda's "Ecclesiastical History," written two centuries earlier in Latin, in order to see how great an advantage the rough Northumbrians of the early Christian period obtained in the gift of an old and polished instrument for conveying to one another their higher thoughts.

Of this new literature (which began with the Latin biography of Wilfrith by Æddi or Eddius, and the Latin verses of Ealdhelm) the great representative is, in fact, Bæda, whose life has already been sufficiently described in an earlier chapter. Living at Jarrow, a Benedictine monastery of the strictest type, in close connection with Rome, and supplied with Roman works in abundance, Bæda had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the southern culture, and his books reflect for us a true picture of the English barbarian toned down and almost obliterated in all distinctive features by receptivity for Italian civilisation. The Northumbrian kingdom had just passed its prime in his days; and he was able to record the early history of the English Church and People with something like Roman breadth of view. His scientific knowledge was up to that of his contemporaries abroad; while his somewhat childish tales of miracles and visions, though they often betray traces of the old heathen spirit, were not below the average level of European thought in his own day. Altogether, Bæda may be taken as a fair specimen of the Romanised Englishman, alike in his strength and in his weakness. The samples of his historical style already given will suffice for illustration of his Latin works; but it must not be forgotten that he was also one of the first writers to try his hand at regular English prose in his translation of St. John's Gospel. A few English verses from his lips have also come down to us, breathing the old Teutonic spirit more deeply than might be expected from his other works.

During the interval between the Northumbrian and West Saxon supremacies–the interval embraced by the eighth century, and covered by the greatness of Mercia under Æthelbald and Offa–we have few remains of English literature. The laws of Ine the West Saxon, and of Offa the Mercian, with the Penitentials of the Church, and the Charters, form the chief documents. But England gained no little credit for learning from the works of two Englishmen who had taken up their abode in the old Germanic kingdom: Boniface or Winfrith, the apostle of the heathen Teutons subjugated by the Franks, and Alcuin (Ealhwine), the famous friend and secretary of Karl the Great. Many devotional Anglo-Saxon poems, of various dates, are kept for us in the two books preserved at Exeter, and at Vercelli in North Italy. Amongst them are some by Cynewulf, perhaps the most genuinely poetical of all the early minstrels after Cædmon. The following lines, taken from the beginning of his poem "The Ph½nix" (a transcript from Lactantius), will sufficiently illustrate his style:–


I have heard that hidden Afar from hence
On the east of earth Is a fairest isle,
Lovely and famous. The lap of that land
May not be reached By many mortals,
Dwellers on earth; But it is divided
Through the might of the Maker From all misdoers.
Fair is the field, Full happy and glad,
Filled with the sweetest Scented flowers.
Unique is that island, Almighty the worker
Mickle of might Who moulded that land.
There oft lieth open To the eyes of the blest,
With happiest harmony, The gate of heaven.
Winsome its woods And its fair green wolds,
Roomy with reaches. No rain there nor snow,
Nor breath of frost, Nor fiery blast,
Nor summer's heat, Nor scattered sleet,
Nor fall of hail, Nor hoary rime,
Nor weltering weather, Nor wintry shower,
Falleth on any; But the field resteth
Ever in peace, And the princely land
Bloometh with blossoms. Berg there nor mount
Standeth not steep, Nor stony crag
High lifteth the head, As here with us,
Nor vale, nor dale, Nor deep-caverned down,
Hollows or hills; Nor hangeth aloft
Aught of unsmooth; But ever the plain,
Basks in the beam, Joyfully blooming.
Twelve fathoms taller Towereth that land
(As quoth in their writs Many wise men)
Than ever a berg That bright among mortals
High lifteth the head Among heaven's stars.

Two noteworthy points may be marked in this extract. Its feeling for natural scenery is quite different from the wild sublimity of the descriptions of nature in _Beowulf_. Cynewulf's verse is essentially the verse of an agriculturist; it looks with disfavour upon mountains and rugged scenes, while its ideal is one of peaceful tillage. The monk speaks out in it as cultivator and dreamer. Its tone is wholly different from that of the Brunanburh ballad or the other fierce war-songs. Moreover, it contains one or two rimes, preserved in this translation, whose full significance will be pointed out hereafter.

The anarchy of Northumbria, and still more the Danish inroads, put an end to the literary movement in the North and the Midlands; but the struggle in Wessex gave new life to the West Saxon people. Under Ælfred, Winchester became the centre of English thought. But the West Saxon literature is almost entirely written in English, not in Latin; a fact which marks the progressive development of vocabulary and idiom in the native tongue. Ælfred himself did much to encourage literature, inviting over learned men from the continent, and founding schools for the West Saxon youth in his dwarfed dominions. Most of the Winchester works are attributed to his own pen, though doubtless he was largely aided by his advisers, and amongst others by Asser, his Welsh secretary and Bishop of Sherborne. They comprise translations into the Anglo-Saxon of Boëthius _de Consolatione_, the Universal History of Orosius, Bæda's Ecclesiastical History, and Pope Gregory's _Regula Pastoralis_. But the fact that Ælfred still has recourse to Roman originals, marks the stage of civilisation as yet mainly imitative; while the interesting passages intercalated by the king himself show that the beginnings of a really native prose literature were already taking shape in English hands.

The chief monument of this truly Anglo-Saxon literature, begun and completed by English writers in the English tongue alone, is the Chronicle. That invaluable document, the oldest history of any Teutonic race in its own language, was probably first compiled at the court of Ælfred. Its earlier part consists of mere royal genealogies of the first West Saxon kings, together with a few traditions of the colonisation, and some excerpts from Bæda. But with the reign of Æthelwulf, Ælfred's father, it becomes comparatively copious, though its records still remain dry and matter-of-fact, a bare statement of facts, without comment or emotional display. The following extract, giving the account of Ælfred's death, will show its meagre nature. The passage has been modernised as little as is consistent with its intelligibility at the present day:–

An. 901. Here died Ælfred Æthulfing [Æthelwulfing–the son
of Æthelwulf], six nights ere All Hallow Mass. He was king
over all English-kin, bar that deal that was under Danish
weald [dominion]; and he held that kingdom three half-years
less than thirty winters. There came Eadward his son to the
rule. And there seized Æthelwold ætheling, his father's
brother's son, the ham [villa] at Winburne [Wimbourne], and
at Tweoxneam [Christchurch], by the king's unthank and his
witan's [without leave from the king]. There rode the king
with his fyrd till he reached Badbury against Winburne. And
Æthelwold sat within the ham, with the men that to him had
bowed, and he had forwrought [obstructed] all the gates in,