27 “Guti vero similiter cum veniunt (in regnum Britanniæ) suscipi
debent, et protegi in regno isto sicut conjurati fratres, sicut
propinqui et proprii cives regni hujus. Exierunt enim quondam de
nobili sanguine Anglorum, scilicet de Engra civitate, et Angliei de
sanguine illorum, et semper efficiuntur populus unus et gens una.
Ita constituit optimus Ina Rex Anglorum.... Multi vero Angli
ceperunt uxores suas de sanguine et genere Anglorum Germaniæ, et
quidam Angli ceperunt uxores suas de sanguine et genere Scotorum;
proceres vero Scotorum, et Scoti fere omnes ceperunt uxores suas de
optimo genere et sanguine Anglorum Germaniæ, et itu fuerunt tunc
temporis per universum regnum Britanniæ duo in carne una....
Universi prædicti semper postea pro communi utilitate coronæ regni
in simul et in unum viriliter contra Danos et Norwegienses semper
steterunt; et atrocissime unanimi voluntate contra inimicos
pugnaverunt, et bella atrocissima in regno gesserunt.” (_Die Gesetze
der Angelsachsen_, ed. Schmid, p. 296.)
28 Klaus Groth writes: “The island of Friesian speech on the continent
of Schleswig between Husum and Tondern is a very riddle and miracle
in the history of language, which has not been sufficiently noticed
and considered. Why should the two extreme ends only of the whole
Friesian coast between Belgium and Jutland have retained their
mother-speech? For the Ost Friesians in Oldenburg speak simply
Platt-Deutsch like the Westphalians and ourselves. Cirk Hinrich
Stüremburg’s so called Ost-Friesian Dictionary has no more right to
call itself Friesian than the Bremen Dictionary. Unless the whole
coast has sunk into the sea, who can explain that close behind
Husum, in a flat country as monotonous as a Hungarian Pussta,
without any natural frontier or division, the traveller, on entering
the next inn, may indeed be understood if he speaks High or Low
German, nay, may receive to either an answer in pure German, but
hears the host and his servants speak in words that sound quite
strange to him? Equally strange is the frontier north of the
Wiede-au, where Danish takes the place of Friesian. Who can explain
by what process the language has maintained itself so far and no
farther, a language with which one cannot travel beyond eight or ten
square miles? Why should these few thousand people not have
surrendered long ago this ‘useless remnant of an unschooled
dialect,’ considering they learn at the same time Low and High
German, or Low-German and Danish? In the far-stretching, straggling
villages a Low-German house stands sometimes alone among Friesian
houses, and _vice versa_, and that has been going on for
generations. In the Saxon families they do not find it necessary to
learn Friesian, for all the neighbors can speak Low-German; but in
the Friesian families one does not hear German spoken except when
there are German visitors. Since the seventeenth century German has
hardly conquered a single house, certainly not a village.”
(_Illustrir__te__ Deutsche Monatshefte_, 1869, p. 330.)
_ 29 Histoire de St. Louis_, par Joinville. Texte rapproché du Français
Moderne par M. Natalis de Wailly, Membre de l’Institut. Paris, 1865.
_Œuvres de Jean Sire de Joinville_, avec un texte rapproché du
Français Moderne, par M. Natalis de Wailly. Paris, 1867. M. Natalis
de Wailly has since published a new edition of Joinville, _Histoire
de Saint Louis_, par Jean Sire de Joinville, suivie du Credo et de
la lettre à Louis X.; texte ramené à l’orthographe des Chartes du
Sire de Joinville. Paris, 1868. He has more fully explained the
principles according to which the text of Joinville has been
restored by him in his _Mémoire sur la Langue de Joinville_. Paris,
1868.