Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune Part 41

xxiii See Preface.

xxiv Ruined British Cities.

The resistance of the Britons (or Welsh) to their Saxon (or English) foes was so determined, that, as in all similar cases, it increased the miseries of the conquered. In Gaul the conquered Celts united with the Franks to make one people; in Spain they united with the Goths; but the conquerors of Britain came from that portion of Germany which had been untouched by Roman valour or civilisation, and consequently there was no disposition to unite with their unhappy victims, but the war became one of extermination. Long and bravely did the unhappy Welsh struggle. After a hundred years of warfare they still possessed the whole extent of the western coast, from the wall of Autoninus to the extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the princ.i.p.al cities of the inland territory still maintained the resistance. The fields of battle, says Gibbon, might be traced in almost every district by the monuments of bones; the fragments of falling towers were stained by blood, the Britons were ma.s.sacred ruthlessly to the last man in the conquered towns, without distinction of age or s.e.x, as in Anderida. Whole territories returned to desolation; the district between the Tyne and Tees, for example, to the state of a savage and solitary forest. The wolves, which Roman authorities describe as nonexistent in England, again peopled those dreary wastes; and from the soft civilisation of Rome the inhabitants of the land fell back to the barbarous manners and customs of the shepherds and hunters of the German forests. Nor did the independent Britons, who had taken refuge finally in Wales, or Devon and Cornwall, fare much better. Separated by their foes from the rest of mankind, they returned to that state of barbarism from which they had emerged, and became a scandal at last to the growing civilisation of their English foes.

Under these circ.u.mstances the Saxons or English (the Saxons founded the kingdoms of Wess.e.x and Ess.e.x; the Jutes, Kent; the Angles all the others. The predominance of the latter caused the term English to become the general appellation.) cared little to inhabit the cities they conquered; they left them to utter desolation, as in the case described in the text, until a period came when, as in the case of the first English a.s.saults upon Exeter and the west country, they no longer destroyed, but appropriated, while they spared the conquered.

xxv Seaton in Devonshire.

xxvi Elgiva or Aelgifu, signifies fairy gift.

Xxvii

The gate of h.e.l.l stands open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the upper skies-- In this the toil, in this the labour lies.--Dryden.

xxviii Valhalla.

Valhalla or Waihalla was the mythical Scandinavian Olympus, the celestial locality where Odin and Edris dwelt with the happy dead who had fallen in battle, and who had been conducted thither by the fair Valkyries. Here they pa.s.sed the days in fighting and hunting alternately, being restored sound in body for the banquet each night, where they drank mead from the skulls of the foes they had vanquished in battle. Such was the heaven which commended itself to those fierce warriors.

xxix The parish priests were commonly called "Ma.s.s-Thanes"

x.x.x "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.

He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never die."

It was not the usual English custom, in those days, to bury the dead in coffins, still it was often done, in the case of the great, from the earliest days of Christianity. For instance, a stone coffin, supposed to contain the dust of the fierce Offa, who died A. D. 796, was dug up, when more than a thousand years had pa.s.sed away, in the year 1836, at Hemel-Hempstead, with the name Offa rudely carved upon it. The earliest mention of churchyards in English antiquities is in the canons called the "Excerptions of Ecgbriht," A.D. 740, when Cuthbert was Archbishop of Canterbury; and here the word "atria" is used, which may refer to the outbuildings or porticoes of a church.

x.x.xi The Greater and Lesser Excommunications.

The lesser excommunication excluded men from the partic.i.p.ation of the Eucharist and the prayers of the faithful, but did not necessarily expel them from the Church. The greater excommunication was far more dreadful in its operation. It was not lawful to pray, speak, or eat, with the excommunicate (Canons of Ecgbright). No meat might be given into their hands even in charity, although it might be laid before them on the ground. Those who sheltered them incurred a heavy "were gild," and endangered the loss of their estates; and finally, in case of obstinacy, outlawry and banishment followed.

--King Canute's Laws Ecclesiastical.

x.x.xii Disappearance of Elgiva.

The writer has already in the preface stated his reasons for rejecting the usual sad story about the fate of the hapless Elgiva. The other story, that she was seized by Archbishop Odo, branded on the face, and sent to Ireland, as Mr. Freeman observes, rests on no good authority; all that is certainly known is that she disappeared.

At the time commonly a.s.sigued to these events, Dunstan was still in Flanders; yet he is generally credited with the atrocities by modern writers, even as if he had been proved guilty after a formal trial. His return probably took place about the time occupied by the action of the last chapter, when the part.i.tion of the kingdom had already occurred.

x.x.xiii The last Anointing.

The priest shall also have oil hallowed, separately, for children, and for sick men; and solemnly anoint the sick in their beds. Some sick men are full of vain fears, so as not to consent to the being anointed. Now we will tell you how G.o.d's Apostle Jacob hath instructed us in this point; he thus speaks to the faithful: "If any of you be afflicted, let him pray for himself with an even mind, and praise his Lord. If any be sick among you, let him fetch the ma.s.s priests of the congregation, and let them sing over him, and pray for him, and anoint him with oil in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick; and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins they shall be forgiven him. Confess your sins among yourselves, pray for yourselves among yourselves, that ye be healed." Thus spake Jacob the Apostle concerning the unction of the sick. But the sick man, before his anointing, shall with inward heart confess his sins to the priest, if he hath any for which he hath not made satisfaction, according to what the Apostle before taught: and he must not be anointed, unless he request it, and make his confession. If he were before sinful and careless, let him then confess, and repent, and do alms before his death, that he may not be adjudged to h.e.l.l, but obtain the Divine mercy.

Such is Johnson's version of the 32d canon of Elfric, in which he has preserved closely Elfric's translation, or rather paraphrase, of the pa.s.sage in St. James. The name James was not then in use, the Latin Jacobus was rendered Jacob.--Johnson's English Canons, A.D. 957, 32.