THE SCHOOLS OF KENT.
§ 1.
It is a debatable question whether any Roman culture lived through the
Saxon conquest.
The Saxon conquest of Britain was certainly, on the whole, a destructive
one, and it has been justly contrasted with the Frankish conquest of
Gaul; where the conquerors quickly assimilated with the conquered. The
relics of Roman civilisation which the Saxons adopted, were indeed few.
This is true, as a general statement. But there is some ground for
regarding Kent as a case apart. Here all accounts seem to indicate a
gradual and less violent intrusion of the new race, and to suggest the
possibility that there was not for that area a complete break in the
traditions and customs of life. The capital city itself, Dorobernia
(Canterbury), whatever revolution it may have suffered, was at least not
destroyed. There is nothing that requires us to assume the extinction of
the schools of grammar which existed presumably in Kent as in Gaul.
The foundation of schools by the Roman mission is not recorded, nor does
Bede say anything to imply it when thirty years later he describes the
foundation of schools in East Anglia. These were founded by king
Sigberct because he desired to have good institutions such as he had
seen in Gaul, and his wishes were carried into effect by bishop Felix,
after the pattern of the schools of Kent.[57] Whether it would be
possible to trace the study of Roman law as a scholastic exercise
through these obscure times, is very doubtful.[58] But certainly there
is something about the Latinity of our earliest legal documents, that
has a local and even a vernacular aspect. Slight as these traces may be,
they are interesting enough to merit consideration.
In the Kentish laws are preserved our oldest extant relics of ancestral
custom. The first code is that of Æthelberht, with this title:--"This be
the Dooms that Æthelbriht, king, ordained in Augustine's days." It is
much concerned with penalties for personal injuries. These are some of
the "Dooms":--
Cap. 40. If an ear be smitten off, 6 shillings amends (bôt).
" 41. If the ear be pierced through, 3 shillings.
" 43. If an eye is lost, 50 shillings.
" 44. If mouth or eye be damaged, 12 shillings.
" 45. If the nose be pierced, 9 shillings.
" 51. For the four front teeth, 6 shillings each; the tooth
that stands next, 4 shillings; the next to that, 3
shillings; and thenceforth, each, 1 shilling.
Penalties for theft are graduated according to the quality of the person
injured, _i.e._, according to the different orders of men in the body
politic, each of whom has a separate value: king, noble, freeman, serf,
slave. Such we may suppose to have been the primitive institutes of the
tribes in the old mother country on the Continent. But the code is
headed by a captel, in which the property of the Church is valued beyond
that of the king, and the same applies to the higher clergy. "Cap. 1.
The property of God and the Church, 12 fold; Bishop's property, 11 fold;
Priest's, 9 fold [the same as the King's]; Deacon's, 6 fold; Clerk's, 3
fold." Next follows one that we may well suppose might have been the
first of the pre-Christian code: "Cap. 2. If the king summon his people
to him, and one there do them evil--double bôt, and 50 shillings to the
king." Bede mentions (ii., 5) these laws of Æthelberht, and especially
this feature of them, that they began with the protection of Church
property. He also says, that the king constituted these laws according
to Roman precedent (_juxta exempla Romanorum_), by which some have been
led to expect that there would be an element of Roman law in them. The
imitation consisted only in committing the laws to writing.
Æthelberht died in 616, and then came a heathen reaction under his son
Eadbald; but he was converted to Christianity in 618 by Bishop
Laurentius. His son Erconbriht, who succeeded in 640, was the first
king who dared to demolish the heathen fanes. Bede informs us that this
king made a law for the observance of the Lenten fast; but no law of the
kind appears until we come to the laws of Wihtred. Ecgbriht succeeded
his father in 664, under whom the waning power of Kent reasserted its
former sway. To him succeeded first Hlothære in 673, and then Eadric.
These two reigns were short, and the names of both the kings stand at
the head of the next Kentish code.
The introductory sentence of this code was this:--"Hlothhære and Eadric,
kings of the men of Kent, enlarged the laws which their predecessors had
made aforetime, with these dooms following":--
Cap. 8. If one man implead another in a matter, and he cite the man
to a 'Methel' or a 'Thing', let the man always give security to the
other, and do him such right, as the Kentish judges prescribe to
them.
This code has a little series of laws concerning offences to the sense
of honour, and consequent danger to the king's peace:--
Cap. 11. If in another's house one man calleth another man a
perjurer, or assail him offensively with injurious words; let him
pay a shilling to the owner of the house, and 6 shillings to the
insulted man, and forfeit 12 shillings to the king.
Cap. 12. If a man remove another's stoup where men drink without
offence, by old right he pays a shilling to him who owns the house,
and 6 shillings to him whose stoop was taken away, and 12 shillings
to the king.
Cap. 13. If weapon be drawn where men drink, and no harm be done; a
shilling to the owner of the house, and 12 shillings to the king.
After a troublous time of encroachment from the side of Wessex, the
kingdom of Kent had again a time of honour, if not of absolute
independence, under king Wihtred (691-725), who, in the preamble to his
laws, is called the most gracious king of the Kentish folk (_se mildesta
cyning Cantwara_). His laws are mostly ecclesiastical. The rights of the
Church and of her ministers, the keeping of the Sunday, manumission of
slaves at the altar, penalties for heathen rites, these subjects make
the bulk of a code of 28 captels, of which the last four are about
theft. The closing provision is characteristic of the state of society:
Cap. 28. If a man from a distance, or a stranger, go off the road,
and he neither shout nor blow a horn, as a thief he is liable to be
examined, or slain, or redeemed.
In the preamble this code is precisely dated on the 6th day of August in
Wihtred's fifth year, which is 696. Also it mentions Berghamstyde, which
seems to mean Berkhamstead (Herts), as the place of enactment, and
Gybmund, bishop of Rochester, as having been present. Doubts have been
cast upon the genuineness of this code, but it is defended in Schmid's
introduction. This is the last of the laws of Kent.
The Kentish laws are found in a register of the twelfth century, which
has a high character for fidelity. No doubt the substance of them is
faithfully preserved. But they are not in the original Kentish dialect;
they have been translated into West Saxon. The translation has not,
however, obliterated all traces of the original; there are some
peculiarities which survive, and which enable us to see through the
present form those traces of a higher antiquity, which strengthen that
confidence which the contents are calculated to inspire.
The Kentish dialect was the first literary form of the language of our
Saxon ancestors. It has been thought that in the Epinal Gloss, of which
a specimen will be given below, we have the best extant representation
of this ancient dialect. Early in the ninth century we have some
original documents in the Kentish dialect, and these are our surest
guides in judging of other specimens.[59]
The following extract is from a legal document of the year 832. Luba had
made a deed of gift from her estate to the fraternity of Christ Church
at Canterbury, and the following sanction was appended:
✠ Ic luba eaðmod godes ðiwen ðas forecwedenan god ⁊ ðas
elmessan gesette ⁊ gefestnie ob minem erfelande et
mundlingham ðem hiium to cristes cirican ⁊ ic bidde ⁊ an
godes libgendes naman bebiade ðæm men ðe ðis land ⁊ ðis
erbe hebbe et mundlingham ðet he ðas god forðleste oð
wiaralde ende se man se ðis healdan wille ⁊ lestan ðet ic
beboden hebbe an ðisem gewrite se him seald ⁊ gehealden sia
hiabenlice bledsung se his ferwerne oððe hit agele se him
seald ⁊ gehealden helle wite bute he to fulre bote gecerran
wille gode ⁊ mannum uene ualete.
I, Luba, the humble handmaid of God, appoint and establish
these foresaid benefactions and alms from my heritable land
at Mundlingham to the brethren at Christ Church; and I
entreat, and in the name of the living God I command, the
man who may have this land and this inheritance at
Mundlingham, that he continue these benefactions to the
world's end. The man who will keep and discharge this that
I have commanded in this writing, to him be given and kept
the heavenly blessing; he who hinders or neglects it, to
him be given and kept the punishment of hell, unless he
will repent with full amends to God and to men. Fare ye
well.
§ 2.
The middle of the seventh century was a very dark period throughout the
West. The lingering rays of ancient culture had grown very faint in
France, Italy, and Spain. Literary production had ceased in France since
Gregory of Tours and his friend Venantius Fortunatus, the poet; in
Spain, soon after Isidore of Seville, the Christian area had been
narrowed by the Moslem invasion; in Italy, though the tradition of
learning was never extinguished, yet no writer of eminence appeared for
a long time after Gregory the Great. At such a time it was that the seed
of learning found a new and fruitful soil among the Anglo-Saxon people;
and they who had been the latest receivers of the civilising element,
quickly took the lead in religion and learning.
In the year 668 three remarkable men came into Britain, These were
Theodore, a Greek of Tarsus, who came as Archbishop of Canterbury;
Hadrian, an African monk who had deprecated his own appointment to that
office; and Biscop Baducing (called Benedict Biscop), an Angle of
Northumbria, who had left his retreat in the monastery of Lerins, to
guide and accompany the travellers into his native country.
This had risen out of an unforeseen event, and had almost the appearance
of accident. But the consequences were great and far-reaching. Theodore
organised the English Church upon lines that proved permanent. A new era
was also inaugurated for literature and art. Literature was represented
by Hadrian, who set up education at St. Augustine's upon an improved
plan; and art, especially in relation to religious and educational
institutions--books, buildings, ritual--was the province of Benedict
Biscop.
Up to this time education and literature had two rival sources, the old
schools of Kent, and the schools of the Irish teachers. But from
Hadrian's coming a new literary era commences. For more than a hundred
years our island was the seat of learning beyond any other country in
the world of the West. Even Greek learning, extinct elsewhere, was
revived for a time; and Bede, whose childhood had corresponded to the
opening of this new activity, looked back on it when he was old as a
glorious time, and he put it on record that he had known many scholars
to whom both the Latin and Greek languages were as their mother tongue.
Of those who were formed in the school of Hadrian, the first and most
conspicuous is Aldhelm. His rudimentary education must have been over
before he knew Hadrian. The school of Maidulf gave him his boyish
training at the monastery which was called after the Irish founder, and
which has given name to the town of Malmesbury (Maidulfes burh). So
Aldhelm stands between the two systems, the old Irish and the new
Kentish. His preference was for the latter, but his works retain the
characteristics of both. He has a love of grandiloquence which is both
Keltic and Saxon, and a delight in alliteration which is more especially
Saxon. His familiarity with the national poetry looms often through his
Latin. But his proper characteristics, those whereby he fills a position
altogether his own, are apart from these peculiarities. He is the
scholar of the age, the type of that set whom Bede delighted to recall,
who knew Latin and Greek like their mother tongue. He is the father of
Anglo-Latin poetry. He made a zealous study of the Latin metres, and he
commended the pursuit to other scholars. His Greek knowledge manifests
itself everywhere: not always with a good effect, according to present
taste; but in a manner which is of historical value as demonstrating his
real familiarity with the Greek language.
Aldhelm's great work, and the work which most conveys his interpretation
of the spiritual conditions of his time, is his book, "De Laude
Virginitatis," in praise of Celibacy. But for the purposes of literary
history, his artistic studies are of more importance than those which
are strictly religious and ecclesiastical. Of the greatest interest for
us are his Riddles. These are short Latin poems somewhat after the model
of Symphosius, whose work he describes,[60] and whom he seems ambitious
to outstrip. The riddles of Symphosius are uniformly of three hexameter
lines, those of Aldhelm vary in length from four lines to sixteen;
rarely more. The external structure is that of the Epigram, with the
object speaking in the first person. The riddles both of Symphosius and
Aldhelm are so closely identified with the vernacular riddles of the
famous Exeter Song Book, that the reader may be glad of a specimen from
each author. It should be premised that in each collection the subject
stands as a title at the head of each piece. The subject of the
sixteenth in Symphosius is the book-moth:--
DE TINEA.
Litera me pavit, nec quid sit litera novi,
In libris vixi nec sum studiosior inde,
Exedi musas nec adhuc tamen ipse profeci.
I have fed upon literature, yet know not what it is; I have
lived among books, yet am not the more studious for it; I have
devoured the Muses, yet up to the present time I have made no
progress.
One of Aldhelm's riddles is on the Alphabet; and this will be a fit
specimen here, as containing something that is germane to the history of
literature:--
Nos denæ et septem genitæ sine voce sorores,
Sex alias nothas non dicimus adnumerandas,
Nascimur ex ferro rursus ferro moribundæ,
Necnon et volucris pennâ volitantis ad æthram;
Terni nos fratres incertâ matre crearunt;
Qui cupit instanter sitiens audire, docemus,
Turn cito prompta damus rogitanti verba silenter.
We are seventeen sisters voiceless born; six others,
half-sisters, we exclude from our set; children of iron by
iron we die, but children too of the bird's wing that flies so
high; three brethren our sires, be our mother as may; if any
one is very eager to hear, we tell him, and quickly give
answer without any sound.[61]
Aldhelm is the first of the Anglo-Latin poets, and he was a classical
scholar at a time when to be so was a great distinction. Both in prose
and verse, his style has the faults which belong to an age of revived
study. His love of learning, his keen appreciation of its beauty and its
value, have tended to inflate his sentences with an appearance of
display. His poetic diction is simpler than that of his prose; but here,
too, he is habitually over-elevated, whence he becomes sometimes
stilted, and oftentimes he drops below pitch with an inadequate and
disappointing close. But we must honour him in the position which he
holds. He is the leader of that noble series of English scholars who
represent the first endeavouring stage of recovery after the great
eclipse of European culture.
There is nothing of his remaining in the vernacular; but that he was an
English poet we have testimony which, though late, is not to be
disregarded. William of Malmesbury quotes a book of King Alfred's, which
said that Aldhelm had been a peerless writer of English poetry: and he
adds, moreover, that a popular song, which had been mentioned by Alfred
as Aldhelm's, was still commonly sung in his own time--that is, in the
twelfth century.
Attempts have been made to identify some of our extant Anglo-Saxon
literature with a name so eminent. In 1835 the Anglo-Saxon Psalter of
the Paris manuscript was first printed at Oxford, and as this book gives
a hundred of the Psalms in vernacular poetry, the suggestion that they
might be Aldhelm's, though modernised, had rhetorical attractions for
the editor (Thorpe), and supplied him with material for a few rather
idle sentences of his Latin preface. In 1840 Jacob Grimm edited (from
Thorpe's editio princeps) two poems of the Vercelli book, the "Andreas"
and the "Elene;" and in his preface he sought to fix this poetry upon
Aldhelm by a line of argument altogether fallacious, as was afterwards
shown by Mr. Kemble in his edition of the "Andreas" for the Ælfric
Society.
That which we have to show for this period in the native Kentish dialect
is less ambitious, but it will not be despised by the considerate
reader. In the beginnings of learning, when students had not the
apparatus of grammars and dictionaries, which now, being common, are
almost as much a matter of course as any gift of nature, it was
necessary for students to make lists of words and phrases for
themselves, and after a while a few of these would be thrown together,
and would be reduced to alphabetical order for facility of reference. It
is to such a process as this that we owe the Glossaries which form an
interesting branch of Anglo-Saxon literature. The Epinal Gloss is the
oldest of these, and it is very valuable because of the archaic forms of
many of the words. A selection is here given by way of specimen:--[62]
EPINAL GLOSS.
(_Cooper, Appendix B, p. 153._)
_Alba spina_, haegu thorn (hawthorn).
_Aesculus_, boecae (beech).
_Achalantis, luscina_ netigalæ (nightingale).
_Acrifolus_, holegn (holly).
_Alnus_, alaer (alder).
_Abies_, saeppae (fir).
_Argella_, laam (loam).
_Accitulium_, geacaes surae (sorrel).
_Absintium_, uuermod (wormwood).
_Alacris_, snel (swift, German _schnell_).
_Alveus_, stream rad (stream-road = channel).
_Aquilæ_, segnas (military standards).
_Anser_, goos (goose).
_Beta_, berc, _arbor_ (birch).
_Ballena_, hran (whale).
_Buculus_, rand beag (buckler).
_Berruca_, uueartæ (wart).
_Cados_, ambras (casks).
_Chaos_, duolma (confusion, error).
_Cicuta_, hymblicae (hemlock).
_Cofinus_, mand (hamper).
_Fulix_, ganot, dop aenid (gannet, dip-chick).
_Filix_, fearn (fern).
_Fasianus_, uuor hana (pheasant).
_Fungus_, suamm (German _schwamm_).
_Fragor_, suoeg (swough, sough).
_Finiculus_, finugl (fennel).
_Follis_, blest baeelg (blast-bellows).
_Glarea_, cisil (pebble, cf. Chesil Bank).
_Hibiscum_, biscop uuyrt (marsh mallow).
_Horodius_, uualh hebuc (foreign hawk).
_Hirundo_, sualuuae (swallow).
_Intestinum_, thearm (German _Darm_).
_Jungetum_, risc thyfil (jungle).
_Inprobus_, gimach (troublesome).
_Iners_, asolcaen (lazy).
_Inter primores_, bituien aeldrum (among the chief men).
_Juris periti_, red boran (counsellors).
_Invisus_, laath (loath).
_Iuuar_ (= _jubar_), leoma, earendil (gleam, beacon, crest).
_Ignarium_, al giuueorc (fire-work).
_Ibices_, firgen gaett (mountain goats, chamois).
_Lunules_, mene scillingas (coins or bracteates on a necklace).
_Lucius_, haecid (hake, German _Hecht_).
_Lolium_, atae (oats).
_Limax_, snel (snail).
_Ligustrum_, hunaeg sugae (honeysuckle).
_Manipulatim_, threatmelum (in bands).
_Manica_, gloob (glove).
_Mascus_, grima (mask).
_Malva_, cotuc, geormant lab (mallow).
_Mars_, Tiig (cf. Tuesday).
_Ninguit_, hsniuuith (snoweth).
_Nigra spina_, slach thorn (sloe-thorn).
_Nanus_, duerg (dwarf).
_Olor_, aelbitu (the elk, wild swan).
_Piraticum_, uuicing sceadan (pirates).
_Pares_, uuyrdae (Fates).
_Perna_, flicci (flitch).
_Pictus acu_, mið naeðlae sasiuuid (embroidered).
_Pronus_, nihol (perpendicular).
_Pollux_, thuma (thumb).
_Quoquomodo_, aengiþinga (anyhow).
_Rumex_, edroc.
_Ramnus_, theban (thorn).
_Salix_, salch (sallow).
_Sturnus_, staer (starling).
_Titio_, brand (firebrand).
_Tignarius_, hrofuuyrcta (roofwright).
_Vadimonium_, borg (pledge, security).
In this glossary we see the preparation for our modern Latin-English
dictionaries. Already, as early as the reign of Augustus, the foundation
of the Latin dictionary was laid by Verrius Flaccus, but his dictionary
would naturally consist of Latin words with Latin explanations. But in
the seventh century there was a demand for Latin vocabularies, with
equivalents in the vernacular languages; and here, in the Epinal
Glossary, we have the earliest known example of such a work. At first
such glossaries would be merely lists of words formed in the course of
studying some one or two Latin texts, and in process of time would
follow the compilation of several such glossaries into one, until, in
the tenth and eleventh centuries, we find vocabularies of some compass
(as Ælfric's), and by the fifteenth century we have such bulky
dictionaries as the "Catholicon" and the "Promptorium Parvulorum."
We will close this chapter with specimens of the "Psalter of St.
Augustine," which received an Anglo-Saxon gloss (dialect Kentish[63])
at the end of the ninth, or early in the tenth century. The book has
been already described above, p. 33.
PSALM XLIX. (L.), 7:--"Hear, O my people," &c.
geher folc min ond sprecu to israhela folce ond
7. Audi populus meus et loquar Israhel et
ic cythu the thætte god god thin ic eam
testificabor tibi quoniam Deus Deus tuus ego sum
na les ofer onsegdnisse thine ic dregu the onsegdnisse
8. Non super sacrificia tua arguam te holocausta
soth thine in gesihthe minre sind aa
autem tua in conspectu meo sunt semper
ic ne on foo of huse thinum calferu ne of eowdum
9. Non accipiam de domo tua vitulos neque de gregibus
thinum buccan
tuis hircos
for thon min sind all wildeor wuda neat in
10. Quoniam meæ sunt omnes feræ silvarum jumenta in
muntum ond oexen
montibus et boves
ic on cneow all tha flegendan heofenes ond hiow
11. Cognovi omnia volatilia cæli et species
londes mid mec is
agri mecum est
gif ic hyngriu ne cweothu ic to the min is sothlice
12. Si esuriero non dicam tibi, meus est enim
ymb hwerft eorthan ond fylnis his
orbis terræ et plenitudo ejus
ah ic eotu flæsc ferra oththe blod
13. Numquid manducabo carnes taurorum aut sanguinem
buccena ic drinco
hircorum potabo
ageld gode onsegdnisse lofes ond geld tham hestan
14. Immola Deo sacrificium laudis et redde Altissimo
gehat thin
vota tua
gece mec in dege geswinces thines thæt ic genere
15. Invoca me in die tribulationis tuæ ut eripiam
thec ond thu miclas mec
te et magnificabis me
D I A P S A L M A.
to thæm synfullan sothlice cweth god for hwon thu
16. Peccatori autem dixit Deus Quare tu
asagas rehtwisnisse mine ond genimes cythnisse mine
enarras justitias meas et adsumes testamentum meum
thorh muth thinne
per os tuum
thu sothlice thu fiodes theodscipe ond thu awurpe
17. Tu vero odisti disciplinam et projecisti
word min efter the
sermones meos post te
gif thu gesege theof somud thu urne mid hine ond
18. Si videbas furem simul currebas cum eo et
mid unreht hæmderum dæl thinne thu settes
cum adulteris portionem tuam ponebas
muth thin genihtsumath mid nithe ond tunge thin
19. Os tuum abundavit nequitia et lingua tua
hleothrade facen
concinnavit dolum
sittende with broether thinum thu teldes ond
20. Sedens adversus fratrem tuum detrahebas et
with suna moeder thinre thu settes eswic
adversus filium matris tuæ ponebas scandalum
thas thu dydes ond ic swigade thu gewoendes on unrehtwisnisse
21. Hæc fecisti et tacui existimasti iniquitatem
thæt ic wære the gelic
quod ero tibi similis
ic threu thec ond ic setto tha ongegn onsiene
Arguam te et statuam illa contra faciem
thinre Ongeotath thas alle tha ofer geoteliath
tuam (22.) intelligite hæc omnes qui obliviscimini
dryhten ne hwonne gereafie ond ne sie se generge
Dominum ne quando rapiat et non sit qui eripiat
onsegdnis lofes gearath mec ond ther
23. Sacrificium laudis honorificabit me et illic
sithfet is thider ic oteawu him haelu godes
iter est in quo ostendam illi salutare Dei
PSALM LXXVI. (LXXVII.)
Ond smegende ic eam in allum wercum thinum ond
13. Et meditatus sum in omnibus operibus tuis et
in gehaeldum thinum ic bieode
in observationibus tuis exercebor
god in halgum weg thin hwelc god micel
14. Deus in sancto via tua quis Deus magnus
swe swe god ur thu earth god thu the doest
sicut Deus noster (15.) tu es Deus qui facis
wundur ana cuthe thu dydes in folcum megen
mirabilia solus notam fecisti in populis virtutem
thin gefreodes in earme thinum folc thin
tuam (16.) liberasti in brachio tuo populum tuum
bearn
filios Israhel et Joseph
gesegun thec weter god gesegun thec weter ond
17. Viderunt te aquæ Deus viderunt te aquæ et
on dreordun gedroefde werun niolnisse mengu
timuerunt turbati sunt abyssi (18.) multitudo
swoeges wetre stefne saldun wolcen ond sothlice
sonitus aquarum Vocem dederunt nubes et enim
strelas thine thorh leordun stefn thunurrade thinre
sagittæ tuæ pertransierunt (19.) vox tonitrui tui
in hweole
in rota
in lihton bliccetunge thine eorthan ymbhwyrfte gesaeh
Inluxerunt coruscationes tuæ orbi terræ vidit
ond onstyred wes eorthe
et commota est terra
in sae wegas thine ond stige thine in wetrum miclum
20. In mari viæ tuæ et semitæ tuæ in aquis multis
ond swethe thine ne bioth oncnawen
et vestigia tua non cognoscentur
thu gelaeddes swe swe scep folc thin in honda
21. Deduxisti sicut oves populum tuum in manu
mosi ond aaron
Moysi et Aaron
These specimens of the Kentish dialect (with the exception of the Epinal
Gloss) are of much later date than the times which our narrative has yet
reached; and they are only offered as a proximate representation of that
which was the first of English dialects to receive literary culture.
This dialect is peculiarly interesting as being that from which the West
Saxon was developed; in other words, it is the earliest form of that
imperial dialect in which the great body of extant Saxon literature is
preserved. But the Kentish did not ripen into the maturer outlines of
the West Saxon without the intervention of a third dialect; and in order
to appreciate this it is necessary for us to review that more spacious
culture of which the scene was laid in the country of the Northern
Angles.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] "Ecclesiastical History," iii., 18.
[58] Aldhelm speaks of the study of Roman law in connexion with other
scholastic studies, as Latin verses and music. But then that was after
the new start given to education by Theodore and Hadrian. A century
later, Alcuin described the studies at V York in this order,--grammar,
rhetoric, law.--Wharton, "Anglia Sacra," ii. 6; Alcuin's poem, "De
Pontificibus &c."
[59] They are in Kemble, "Codex Diplomaticus," Nos. 226, 228, 229, 231,
235, 238.
[60] Aldhelm's "Works," ed. Giles, p. 228.
[61] Seventeen consonants and six vowels; made with iron style and
erased with the same, or else made with a bird's quill; whatever the
instrument, three fingers are the agents; and we can convey answer
without delay even in situations where it would be inconvenient to
speak.
[62] I have given the _th_, or þ, or ð, as in the manuscript. This is
done in the present instance because a peculiar interest attaches to it
in the earliest specimens of writing. The frequency of _th_, and the
rarity of the monograms, is itself a distinguishing feature. Speaking in
general terms of Anglo-Saxon literature, as it appears in manuscripts,
it might be fairly said that there is no _th_; this sound is represented
by ð or þ. And of these two, the modified Roman character, Ð ð, is found
to prevail over the native Rune (þ) in the oldest extant writings.
Throughout this little book the _th_ is commonly used, as being most
convenient for the general reader.
[63] Transactions of the Philological Society for 1875-6.