ANGLO-SAXON LEARNING AND PROSE.
Latin Among the Anglo-Saxons.
Books written on English soil in the Latin language are no part of
English literature. It is necessary, however, to notice them, because
they testify to the knowledge and taste of the educated; while the
ideas expressed in Latin reached the less instructed people through
sermons and in conversation, and through the translations into
Anglo-Saxon which were directed and in part executed by King Alfred.
Though written by a native of our island we may omit the Latin book
of Gildas, of about 516-570, for he was a Briton of the Romanized
sort, who fled to Brittany. His book, where it does not contain mere
lamentations, gives a kind of history, very vague, of events in the
country, and of the sins and crimes of the British princes down
to about 550. Such as the information was, Bede, the great early
Anglo-Saxon historian, used it, as did the author of "The History
of the Britons" attributed to Nennius (say 800), who, like Gildas,
mentions the battle of Badon hill, but, unlike Gildas, brings in King
Arthur. As we shall see later, Bede does not mention Arthur.
Leaving these vague British writers in Latin, we come to Bede.
Bede..
When we think of the time in which Bede, the greatest of our early
scholars, lived and worked, it seems amazing that he had such a wide
knowledge of books and so comparatively clear an idea of the way in
which history should be written. Born in 673 (died 735), he was in his
thirteenth year when his king, Egfrid of Northumbria, was killed by the
Piets (practically Gaelic-speaking Highlanders), in the great battle
of Nectan's mere (685), in Angus beyond the Tay, for so far into what
is now Scotland had English Northumbria pushed her conquests. Great
part of these was lost, and in the eighth century, there came an age of
anarchy and civil war, as fierce as the contests of the old times of
heathendom. To us the Anglo-Saxons of these ages seem barbarous enough,
but Bede speaks of the Piets of Scotland as "barbarians". He constantly
deplores the greed and ignorance of the clergy, in terms much like
those used by the Protestants before the Reformation. In an ignorant
age Bede wrote unceasingly and copiously about such natural science
as was within his reach, especially using that popular and fanciful
book of Pliny, mere fairy-tales of natural (or unnatural) history.
He wrote much and usefully on chronology in relation to history; and
on theology, of course, he wrote abundantly. Most important is his
"Church History of the Race of Angles," without which we should know
little indeed concerning the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain, and the
development of events both in England and Scotland. His tale of the
reception of Christianity by Edwin is very commonly quoted: it is of
much literary interest, and proves that the sense of the mystery and
melancholy of the world, so often expressed in Anglo-Saxon poetry,
weighed heavily on men who were not poets.
A council or _Witanagemot_ was held to consider the Christian doctrines
preached by Paulinus. One noble, Coifi, said, in jest or earnest, that
the heathen religion was useless, "for no man among your people does
more to please our gods than I, but many are more favoured by you
and by fortune". Coifi, therefore, voted that Christianity deserved
consideration. But another noble, agreeing so far, added, "Human life,
oh King,... seems to me to resemble the flight of a sparrow, which
flits into your warm hall at a feast in winter weather. The bird
flies into the bright hall by one door, and out by another, and after
a moment of quiet, slips from the wintry darkness into the wintry
darkness again. Such is the life of man, that is for a moment, but what
went before, and what comes after, as yet we know not." The practical
Coifi then proposed to destroy the old temples of the old gods; rode
off, and threw his spear into a shrine.
Coifi's idea was merely to "change the luck," and to enjoy the
pleasures of destruction; he was of a common type of reformers;
while the other speaker desired intellectual satisfaction, and the
understanding of the mystery of existence.
Latin and even Greek learning, we have seen, found footing in southern
England with the arrival of Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian at
Canterbury in 669. Latin had never been quite extinct. A non-English
writer in Latin, in Scotland, is Adamnan (died 704), author of a Life
of the Irish St. Columba, who brought Christianity to the Picts of
Scotland, while later from his little holy Isle of Iona missionaries
reached Northumbria. Adamnan's book may be read with more pleasure than
any other of the time; it is so rich in pictures of Highland life and
sport on sea and land, and in tales of magic and the second sight. This
was one of the works used by Bede in writing his "History".
The numerous books which were within the reach of Bede were brought,
in five journeys, by Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, from Rome to
Northumberland. Before Bede, such books had been studied by Aldhelm
(Bishop of Sherborne, died 709). He wrote poetry in the native
language, which King Alfred greatly admired, but none of the extant
poems are attributed to him. His Latin would have surprised Cicero; he
delighted in strange words, and in strings of alliterations. He wrote
edifying treatises on Christian virtues as exemplified by Biblical
characters and by saints, some of them rather fabulous personages. He
knew many early Christian authors, and Virgil, Cicero, Ovid, and Lucan,
but his own style was as absurdly bombastic as that of many of the
ancient Irish romances. He had disciples in style, who manufactured
acrostics in Latin verse.
The Latin literature of the southern Anglo-Saxons thus fell for a
time into full decadence; very different was the learning of the
northern Bede. His taste was uncorrupted by the sudden arrival of
ancient literature among a people almost barbarous. He wrote in plain
Latin without affectation concerning things worthy to be known and
remembered: he gave us a frank and charming picture of the great St.
Cuthbert; he had, no doubt, too great a love of miracles, and rather
exaggerated some which he found in earlier lives of early English
saints, such as the said Cuthbert, the saint of the Border, whose body
sleeps in Durham Cathedral. The authors whom he quotes are mainly
Christian, including many of the chief Fathers of the Church, and he
is not certain about the propriety of studying the heathen classics,
though he cannot abstain from Virgil, who, it was fancied, predicted
the coming of Christ. He had Greek enough to read the Greek New
Testament, but this learning was lost, in England, in later times. The
translation of Bede's "History" into Anglo-Saxon under King Alfred was
not the least of his gifts to his people.
Alcuin.
Alcuin (735-804), a pupil of the school of York, lived at the worst
period of the savage attacks made by the still heathen Danes on
England. What the Anglo-Saxons had done to the Britons, the Danes
after 780 did to the Anglo-Saxons, slaying, plundering, torturing, and
burning, wherever they came. Happily for Alcuin he passed most of his
life abroad, aiding the great Emperor Charlemagne in founding schools
and fostering education. Charlemagne collected the old war-songs of
his people, little dreaming that in three centuries he would become
as fabulous a hero, in the French epic poems of the eleventh to the
thirteenth century, as Beowulf or Alboin had been in Germanic lays.
Alcuin had far more influence as a lecturer and as a writer of letters
than as an author; in a poem he preserves the names of the books in the
libraries of York and Wearmouth, beautiful manuscripts that would now
be almost priceless, but the Danes burned them all. Other Latin writers
there were, they mainly dealt with religious themes, and their works
are of very little importance.
Alfred.
Not till the kingdom of the West Saxons, Wessex, became the most
powerful state in England, and made successful resistance to the
Scandinavian invaders, who had destroyed monasteries everywhere, were
learning and literature able to raise their heads again. It was the
most famous of English kings, Alfred (849-901), that, among all his
other labours as warrior and ruler, restored education.
It is unfortunate that so many matters of interest in Anglo-Saxon times
are veiled in obscurity. The "Life of Alfred," by Asser, a Welshman,
Bishop of Sherborne, is a confused record.
Alfred was certainly taken to Rome by his father at a very early age,
but all that is told on this subject is most perplexing. He is said to
have been untaught in the art of reading till he was 12 years old, but
he heard Anglo-Saxon poems repeated by others, and knew many of them by
heart. The famous tale that his mother offered a book of Anglo-Saxon
poems to the first of her sons who should "learn it," and that Alfred
was taken by the beauty of the illuminations, learned to read, and
won the prize, is absolutely unintelligible in Asser's Latin. But
Asser says, and Alfred, in his Preface to an Anglo-Saxon translation
of Pope Gregory's "Pastoral Care" himself avers, that learning was
almost or quite extinct south of the Humber, when his reign began,
while in Northumbria matters were little better. But his father's
second wife, Judith, was daughter to the Emperor, Charles the Bald, and
though Judith, a young girl, was far from being sedate and erudite,
the connexion with the Continent enabled Alfred to bring over Frankish
scholars, such as Grimbald, while from Wales came Asser, who, for part
of each year, lived with Alfred as his tutor.
The king wrote a Handbook, or commonplace book, of Latin extracts,
which he translated into his own native tongue; and later he
translated, or caused to be translated, the "Pastoral Care" of Pope
Gregory; the very popular work on "Consolation" by Boëthius, a
philosopher who was slain about 524; the "Church History" of Bede;
and a kind of "History of the World" by Orosius, a Christian writer
of the fifth century. Of these books, the "History" by Bede was of
the greatest value for Englishmen; the "Consolations" of Boëthius are
at least as consolatory as any others, and were long popular; while
whoever reads Orosius will learn many things, though he will learn
them wrong, about the whole history of the human race. Still, the
Anglo-Saxon reader became aware of the elements of geography, and
of the existence of the powers of ancient Assyria, Egypt, Crete, and
Athens, while much space is devoted to the empire of the Amazons.[1]
"It is shameful," says Orosius, nobly, "to speak of such a state of
things, when such miserable women, _and so foreign_, had subdued the
bravest men of all this earth," a conquest which the women repeated, he
says, during the Peloponnesian war!
When Orosius reaches Roman history he is much more copious, and
not so amusingly incorrect. Alfred, as a rule, paraphrased rather
than translated his originals, omitting and adding at pleasure, and
amplifying the geography of the North, by information received through
Otthere and Wulfstan, contemporary voyagers.
He found learning on its deathbed and he restored and revived it,
saving erudition from the natural contempt of men by the royal example
of a great statesman, sportsman, and warrior. It was plain to the world
that, in spite of the human tendency to despise books, learning was
not merely an affair for shavelings in cloisters, for the great king
himself loved reading and writing.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
To the influence of Alfred is attributed, with much probability, the
organization of the earlier parts of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," which
briefly tells the history of the country from year to year. There were
several versions of these annals, containing the most notable events
of each year. It seems that copies of one manuscript, containing the
remotest events, beginning with the invasion of Britain by Julius
Cæsar, and going on to Alfred's own age, were given to several
monasteries. In each the scribe afterwards continued to make, as it
were, a diary of the chief occurrences, and, later, various additions
about _past_ events would be inserted in various religious houses, so
that the dates are not always to be trusted. After the year of Alfred's
birth, the records become more full. In his "Life of Alfred," Asser
turned much of the "Chronicle" for Alfred's reign into Latin: the
materials of the "Chronicle," therefore, existed in his day (an early
part of it was by a Northumbrian writer). The "Chronicle" now exists
in several versions, done by various hands in various monasteries.
Some "Chronicles" are lost, such as that of Kent, whence much matter
has been borrowed by that of Peterborough, which is the longest, and
reaches the year 1154.
The early entries in the "Chronicle" are very short: here is the
history of the year 774.
"In this year a red Cross appeared in the heavens after sunset; and in
this year the Mercians and Kentish men fought at Otford, and wondrous
serpents were seen in the South Saxons' land."
This reads like a journal kept by a child. In later days events are
recorded at more length, such as fights with the Danes; meetings of
the _Witanagemot_, or great Council of the Wise; slayings of Kings and
Earls; even foreign facts of interest about Popes and Emperors. But
as late as 1066, the chronicler is brief enough, when he tells how
William, Count of Normandy, sailed to Pevensey on Michaelmas Eve.
"This was then made known to King Harold, and he gathered a great army,
and came to meet Count William at the hoar apple tree. And William came
against him unawares, ere his people were in battle order. But the
king, nevertheless, fought boldly against him with those men who would
follow him, and there was a great slaughter made on each side. There
were slain King Harold, and Earl Leofwine his brother, and Earl Gyrth
his brother, and many good men; and the French held possession of the
place of carnage, as to them God granted for the people's sins." We who
write long books about a single battle, such as Waterloo, are surprised
by the brevity of the "Chronicle".
Some seventy years later, just before it ends, the "Chronicle" has
a long and famous passage about the cruel oppressions in Stephen's
reign (1137). By that date the language has changed so much, that
the meaning can easily be made out, even by readers who do not know
Anglo-Saxon. The style of the "Chronicle" is always extremely simple,
and the good monks are usually more interested in events affecting
their own monasteries, than in matters which are of more importance to
the history of the country. Nevertheless, there are records of periods
in the "war-age" when the Danes were burning, plundering, and slaying
through England, and there are characters of great interest among the
kings, earls, and counsellors, lay or clerical, of whom we should know
little or nothing if the monks had ceased to make their entries in the
"Chronicle". To students of language, with its dialects and changes,
the "Chronicle" is priceless, and a few poems and ballads are contained
in its pages.
The most famous poem in the "Chronicle" is on the battle of Brunanburh
(937), when the English, under Æthelstan, defeated the Scots and Danes.
This song, translated by Tennyson, does not so much describe the
fighting as the triumph after the battle.
Five lay
On that battle-stead,
Young kings
By swords laid to sleep:
So seven eke
Of Olaf's earls,
Of the country countless
Shipmen and Scots.
Olaf fled in his ship over the barren sea, the aged Constantine, King
of the Scots, left his son dead on the field. As usual the raven, wolf,
and eagle have their share of the corpses: an Anglo-Saxon poet could
not omit these animals. This poet boasts that there has been no such
victory since first the Anglo-Saxons "the Welsh overcame". Perhaps the
enthusiasm of English students rather overrates the poetical merits of
this war-song.
There is more poetry, and more originality in "Byrhtnoth," a song of
a defeat at the hands of the Danes. The warrior entering the field of
battle
Let from his hands his lief hawk fly,
His hawk to the holt, and to battle he stepped.
He haughtily refuses to accept peace in exchange for tribute which the
Danes demand. The armies are divided from each other by a tidal river,
and Byrhtnoth chivalrously allows the heathen to cross, at low tide,
and meet him in fair field. There are descriptions of hand to hand
single combats; and of the wounds given and taken, and the boasts of
the slayers, who throw their spears, piercing iron mail, and shields
of linden wood; and strip the slain of their armour and jewels. The
friends of the fallen fight across the corpses. Byrhtnoth falls, some
of his company flee, the rest make a ring of spears about the hero, one
cries
The more the mood, as lessens our might,
that is,
The braver be we, as our strength fails.
The whole poem might be translated, almost without a change, into "the
strong-winged music of Homer," or the verse of the old French "Song of
Roland". The song is not conventional, it is a noble war-poem. For some
reason the best war-poems are inspired by glorious defeats, at Maldon,
at Flodden, at Bosworth, at Roncesvaux, at Culloden.
The Monks and Learning.
The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," running from Alfred's day to King
Stephen's, and thus surviving the Norman Conquest, is the earliest
historical writing in English prose. As we have seen, it was the work
of the monks, _regular_ soldiers of learning, living together under
strict rules. On the other hand the secular clergy, parish priests and
others, were the irregular levies against ignorance. The monks were
fallen on evil times for learning and literature.
During the long cruel wars against the Danish raiders and settlers
(900-960) many monasteries were overthrown; others, like Abingdon,
became poor neglected places; into others the kings and nobles placed
their younger children, to live comfortably on the rents and revenues
of the Church, and neglect prayer and books. Under Eadwig the Fair,
St. Dunstan (born 925) appeared as a reformer, making the rule of the
Church respected, and being therefore at feud with Eadwig, as Thomas à
Becket was with Henry II. Under Edgar (957-975), peace was restored,
and Dunstan could carry out reforms as Archbishop of Canterbury. He
brought back from Flanders the new rule-of the Order of St. Benedict
(which the monk in Chaucer despises as not up to date) for the strict
living of monks, and was backed by Bishops Oswald and Æthelwald, men of
learning and reformers of education.
New monasteries, which often had schools attached to them, were built,
and old monasteries were restored. Dunstan was an artist (a picture of
him as a monk is still preserved, and is said to have been drawn by
himself). He was skilled in music and metalworking, and fond of the old
Anglo-Saxon poetry. He has left no books of his own writing, but there
are curious early Lives of him in Latin. As a boy he climbed in his
sleep to the roof of a church; he used to see visions of people at the
time of their deaths; a large stone is said to have flown at him of its
own accord; and, before his death, his bed, with him in it, was slowly
raised up in air, and softly let down again. According to these tales,
Dunstan must have been a "medium"; there is nothing saintly in such
prodigies. Like many people of genius who were not saints, he was of a
visionary nature, though a thoroughly practical and energetic man.
Thus he, with Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, later Archbishop
of York; Abbo; Æthelwold; Byrthferth; and others, introduced
"regulars"--Benedictine monks--in place of married priests into the
cathedrals, and encouraged schools and learning of all kinds. Æthelwold
himself taught Latin to boys at Winchester, and had the Latin book
of the rules of the Benedictine monks done into Anglo-Saxon. A set
of Anglo-Saxon sermons survives from this age called "The Blickling
Homilies" (from Blickling, a house of Lord Lothian, where the
manuscript has been preserved). Homilies are simple statements of
Scriptural facts for simple hearers. The preacher already addresses the
congregation as "my dearest brethren" (_mine gebrothra tha leofostan_).
"Bethlehem," says the preacher, "means being interpreted, the House
of Bread, and in it was Christ, the true bread, brought forth." "The
Divine nature is not mingled with the human nature, nor is there any
separation: we might explain this to you by a little comparison, if
it were not too lowly; see an egg, the white is not mixed with the
yolk, yet it is _one_ egg." The sermons (these quoted are by Ælfric)
are all plain teaching for plain people, but there is a famous address
by Bishop Wulfstan, encouraging the English, by Biblical examples
of Hebrew fighting patriots, to defend themselves against the cruel
heathen Danes (1014).
Ælfric.
In the school at Winchester Ælfric was trained (born 955?) and thence
went to instruct the young monks in the abbey of Cerne in Dorset,
where he preached homilies; he wrote them both in English and in
Latin. His sermon on the "Holy Housel," that is the Holy Communion,
contained ideas which the Protestants, at the Reformation, thought
similar to their own, and they printed this homily. "All is to be
understood spiritually." "It skills not to ask how it is done, but to
believe firmly that done it is." The style of the prose is more or less
alliterative, and a kind of rhythm is detected in some of the sermons,
as if they were intended to be chanted.
The Latin grammars written by Ælfric do not concern English literature;
his Dialogue (_Colloquium_) between a priest and a number of persons
of various occupations, throws light on ways of living. He wrote
Latin "Lives of Saints," and edited part of an English translation or
paraphrase of the Bible, suitable as material for homilies. He produced
many other theological works, and died about 102-(?) being Abbot of
Eynsham in Oxfordshire.
The interest of Ælfric, Wulfstan, and the rest, for us, is that they
upheld a standard of learning and of godly living, in evil times of
fire and sword, and that English prose became a rather better literary
instrument in their hands.
The "Leechdoms," and works on herb-lore and medicine of the period,
partly derived from late Latin books, partly from popular charm songs,
are merely curious; they are full of folk-lore. After the Conquest,
Anglo-Saxon prose, save in the "Chronicle," was almost submerged,
though, in poetry, there were doubtless plenty of popular ballads, for
the most part lost or faintly traceable as translated into the Latin
prose of some of the writers of history. There would be songs chanted
among the country people about the deeds of Hereward the Wake and
other popular heroes; minstrels, now poor wanderers, would sing in the
farmhouses, and in the halls of the English squires, but not much of
their compositions remains.
We have, however, a few famous brief passages of verse, like the poem
of "The Grave," familiar through Longfellow's translation, and probably
earlier than the Conquest. It is written on the margin of a book of
sermons, and the author's mood is truly sepulchral. The "Rhymed Poem"
is celebrated only because it is in rhyme, which was a novelty with
a great future before it; it is older than 1046, its muse is that of
moral reflection.
The one verse of a song of King Canute is handed down by a monkish
chronicler who lived more than a century later. The king in a boat on
the Ouse, near a church, bids his men row near the shore to hear the
monks sing:--
Merie sungen the munaches binnen Ely,
Tha Cnut ching rew therby:
"Roweth cnihtes neer the land,
And here we thes munches sang."
This contains a kind of rhyme, or incomplete rhyme, of the vowel sounds
only (assonance) in Ely, ther_by_, "_land_", "_sang._"
St. Godric (died 1170) also left a hymn to Our Lady, in rhymed
couplets, with the music.
Of about the same period is a rhymed version of the Lord's Prayer; the
number of syllables to each line varies much, as in Anglo-Saxon poetry,
contrary to the rule in the poetry of France.
There are other examples all showing the untaught tendency of the songs
of the people towards rhyme and towards measures unknown to the early
Anglo-Saxons.
[1] The Amazons appear to have been the armed priestesses of the
Hittite empire in Asia Minor, about 1200 B.C.