A Literary History of the English People Part 5

I. _Poetry._--MS. of "Beowulf," preserved in the British Museum, Cotton.

Vitell. A. xv., written towards the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century. It contains also the fine poem of "Judith," &c.

A fragment of a poem on Waldhere, preserved in the Copenhagen Library.

The Exeter MS., "Codex Exoniensis," written in the tenth or eleventh century and given, in 1046, by Leofric, first bishop of Exeter, to the cathedral library of this town, where it is still preserved. It contains a variety of poetic pieces (Christ, St. Guthlac, Phenix, Wanderer, Seafarer, Widsith, Panther, Whale, Deor, Ruin, Riddles, &c.).

The "Codex Vercellensis," preserved at Vercelli in Lombardy, containing: Andreas, The Departed Soul's Address to the Body, Dream of the Holy Rood, Elene, &c., written in the eleventh century.

The Bodleian MS., Junius xi., containing a poetical version of part of the Bible, some of which is attributed to Caedmon, written in the tenth century.

The Paris Anglo-Saxon Psalter (Bibliotheque Nationale, Lat. 8824), written in the eleventh century, 50 psalms in prose, 100 in verse.

II. _Prose._--The Epinal MS. containing an Anglo-Saxon glossary (eighth century according to Mr. Sweet, ninth according to Mr. Maunde Thompson).

The Bodleian MS., Hatton 20, containing King Alfred's translation of St.

Gregory's "Regula Pastoralis" (the copy of Werferth, bishop of Worcester).

The MS. of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," the Winchester text, in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. lxxiii.

The MSS. of the homilies of aelfric and Wulfstan, Junius xxii. and Junius xcix., in the Bodleian, and the MS. of the Blickling homilies (Blickling Hall, Norfolk).

III. _Miniatures._--See especially, the Lindisfarne Gospels, MS. Cotton.

Nero, D. iv., in the British Museum, eighth-ninth century, in Latin with Anglo-Saxon glosses. Reproductions of these miniatures and other examples of the same art are to be found in J. O. Westwood, "Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS." London, Quaritch, 1868, fol., and "Palaeographia Sacro Pictoria," London, 1844, fol. See also the fine pen-and-ink drawings in the above-mentioned MS.

Junius xi., in the Bodleian Library.

[52] _Cf._ Tacitus, who says of the Germans: "Celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est)...." "De Moribus," i. Eginhard in the ninth century notices the same sort of songs among the Franks established in Gaul: "Item barbara et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur...." "Vita Karoli," cap. xxix. (ed. Ideler, "Leben und Wandel Karl des Grossen," Hamburg and Gotha, 1839, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 89).

[53] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (Rolls), i. p. 200; ii. p. 86; year 937.

The song on the battle of Brunanburh, won by the Anglo-Saxons over the Scotch and Danes, has been translated by Tennyson. Other war songs, a few out of a great many, have come down to us, some inserted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (like the song on the death of Byrhtnoth, defeated and killed by the Danes after a hard fight, at the battle of Maldon, 991), some in separate fragments. Among the more remarkable is the very old fragment on the "Battle of Finnsburg," discovered, like the Waldhere fragment, in the binding of a book. This battle is alluded to in "Beowulf." The fragment has been printed by Grein in his "Bibliothek,"

vol. i., and by Harrison and Sharp with their "Beowulf," Boston, third ed., 1888.

[54] G. Stephens, "Two leaves of King Waldere's lay," Copenhagen and London, 1860, 8vo; R. Peiper, "Ekkehardi primi Waltharius," Berlin, 1873, 8vo.

[55] "Autotypes of the unique Cotton MS. Vitellius, A. xv. in the British Museum," with transliteration and notes, by J. Zupitza, Early English Text Society, 1882, 8vo. "Beowulf" (Heyne's text), ed. Harrison and Sharp, Boston, third ed. 1888, 8vo. "Beowulf, a heroic Poem of the VIIIth Century, with a translation," by T. Arnold, London, 1876, 8vo.

"The deeds of Beowulf ... done into modern prose," ed. Earle, Oxford Clarendon Press, fifth ed., 1892, 8vo. On English place names recalling personages in "Beowulf," see D. H. Haigh, "Anglo-Saxon Sagas," London, 1861, 8vo (many doubtful conclusions). The poem consists of 3,183 long lines of alliterative verse, divided into 41 sections; it is not quite equal in length to a third of the aeneid.

[56] Such is the opinion of Mr. Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. ii., London, 1893, p. 1.

[57] This explains how we find them used in Scandinavian literature as part of the life of totally different heroes; the Icelandic saga of Gretti tells how Glam, another Grendel, is destroyed by Gretti, another Beowulf. On these resemblances, see Excursus iii. in the "Corpus Poetic.u.m Boreale," vol. ii. p. 501; and H. Gering, "Der Beowulf und die Islaendische Grettisaga," in "Anglia," vol. iii. p 74.

[58] In Gregory of Tours, book iii. chap. 3 ("Historia Ecclesiastica Francorum," Societe de l'histoire de France, vol. i. p. 270); in "Beowulf" II. 1202 _et seq._--

Gehwearf tha in Francna faethm feorh cynninges;--

"The life of the king [Higelac] became the prey of the Franks."

Grundtvig was the first to identify Higelac with the Chlochilaicus of Gregory of Tours. The battle took place about 515; the Scandinavians led by "Chlochilaicus" were plundering lands belonging to Thierri, king of Austrasia (511-534), eldest son of Clovis, when he sent against them his son Theodebert, famous since, who was to die on his way to Constantinople in an expedition against the Emperor Justinian.

Theodebert entirely routed the enemy, and took back their plunder, killing their chief, the Chlochilaicus of Gregory, the Huiglaucus "qui imperavit Getis, et a Francis occisus est" of an old "Liber monstrorum,"

the Higelac of our poem. See H. L. D. Ward, "Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum," vol. ii. 1893, pp. 6 ff.

[59] According to the poem, the line of succession was: Scyld, Beowulf (not our hero), Healfdene, Heorogar, Hrothgar.

[60] "Beowulf," 1876, T. Arnold's translation.

[61] This last opinion has been put forward with great force by Fahlbeck, and accepted by Vigfusson. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"

ii. p. 15, and Appendix.

[62] They are numerous especially in the province of Finmarken; they are to be found further south in winter.

[63] According to the account of a Scandinavian burial left by Ahmed Ibn Fozlan (tenth century, see above, p. 27), the custom was to bury with the dead ornaments and gold embroideries to the value of a third part of what he left.

[64] "Chanson de Roland," line 2804.

[65] "Talis mihi videtur, vita hominum praesens in terris ad comparationem ejus, quod n.o.bis incertum est, temporis, quale c.u.m te residente ad coenam c.u.m ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali, accenso quidem foco in medio et calido effecto coenaculo, furentibus autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium, adveniensque unus pa.s.serum, citissime pervolaverit; qui c.u.m per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore quo intus est, hiemis tempestati non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modic.u.m apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur."

"Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ii. cap. 13, year 627.

[66]

Je voudrais qu'a cet age, On sort.i.t de la vie ainsi que d'un banquet, Remerciant son hote. (viii. 1.)

[67] Ragnar Lodbrok, thrown among serpents in a pit, defies his enemies, and bids them beware of the revenge of Woden ("Corpus Poetic.u.m Boreale,"

vol. ii. pp. 341 ff.). In the prisons, at the time of the Terreur, the guillotine was a subject for _chansons_. The mail steamer _la France_ caught fire, part of the cargo being gunpowder; the ship is about to be blown up; a foreign witness writes thus: "Tous jusqu'aux pet.i.ts marmitons rivalisaient d'elan, de bravoure et de cette gaiete gauloise dans le peril qui forme un des beaux traits du caractere national."

Baron de Hubner, "Incendie du paquebot la France," Paris, 1887. This account was written, according to what the author told me, on the day after the fire was unexpectedly mastered.

[68] "Codex Exoniensis," "Seafarer," p. 306, "Wanderer," p. 291. See also "Deor the Scald's Complaint," one of the oldest poems in "Codex Exoniensis," the "Wife's Complaint," the "Ruin," also in "Codex Exoniensis"; the subject of this last poem has been shown by Earle to be probably the town of Bath.

[69] T. Arnold's "Beowulf," p. 118, l. 1820.

CHAPTER IV.

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

I.

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

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

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

The conversion was at first superficial, and limited to outward practices; the warrior bent the knee, but his heart remained the same.

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

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

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