VALUE OF THE EARLY BRITISH RECORDS.--TRUE AND GENUINE TRADITIONS
RARE.--GILDAS.--BEDA.--NENNIUS.--ANNALES CAMBRENSES.--DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN CHRONICLES AND REGISTERS.--ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--IRISH
ANNALS.--VALUE OF THE ACCOUNTS OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH
CENTURIES.--QUESTIONS TO WHICH THEY APPLY.
Not one word has hitherto been said about the early traditions of either
Briton or Gael. No word, either, about their early records. Nothing
about the Triads, Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hen, and Merlin on the
side of the Welsh; nothing about the Milesian and other legends of the
Irish. Why this silence? Have the preceding investigations been so
superabundantly clear as to lead us to dispense with all rays of light
except those of the most unexceptionable kind?
It is an unusual piece of good fortune when this happens anywhere; and
assuredly it has not happened on British or Irish ground as yet. Or has
the evidence of such early records and traditions been incompatible with
the doctrines of the previous chapters, and, on the strength of its
inconvenience, been kept back? If so, there has been a foul piece of
disingenuousness on the part of the writer. But he does not plead guilty
to this. He attaches but little weight to the evidence of the early
British records; and the contents of the present chapter are intended to
justify his depreciation of them.
The writer who asserts that the oldest work in any language is of such
antiquity as to be separated from the next oldest by any very long
interval--by an interval which leaves a wide chasm between the first and
second specimens of the literature which no fragments and no traces of
any lost compositions are found to fill up--makes an assertion which he
is bound to support by evidence of the most cogent kind. For it is not
always enough to shew that no intrinsic objections lie against the
antiquity of the work in question. It may be so short, or so general in
respect to its subject as to leave no room for contradictory and
impossible sentences or expressions. It is not enough to shew that there
were no reasons against such a literature being developed; since it is
difficult to say what conditions absolutely forbid the production of a
work stamped by no very definite characteristics. Nor yet will it
suffice to say that the preservation of such a work is probable. All
that can be got from all this is a presumption in its favour. The great
fact of a work existing without giving this impulse to the production of
others like it, and the fact of the same means of preservation being
wholly neglected in other instances, still stand over. They are not
conclusive against certain positions; but they are circumstances which
must be fairly met; circumstances which if one writer overlook, others
will not; circumstances which the critic will insist on; and
circumstances which, if the dazzle of a paradox, or the appeal to the
innate and universal sympathy for antiquity keep them in the background
for a while, will, sooner or later, rise against the author who
overlooked them.
Neither are arguments from the antiquity of language conclusive. When
two works differ from each other in respect to the signs of antiquity
exhibited in their phraseology, the inference that the oldest in point
of speech is _proportionably_ old in point of time is not the only one.
It is an easy thing to say that in the Latin literature the language of
Ennius represents a date a hundred years earlier than that of Cicero,
and that of Cicero a date 400 earlier than the time of Boethius, and
that when we meet elsewhere compositions which differ from each other as
the Latin of Ennius does from that of Boethius, there is 500 years
difference between them. It is by no means certain that any two
languages alter at the same rate.
But an average may be struck, and it may be said that greater antiquity
of expression is _primâ facie_ evidence of a greater antiquity of date.
It is: but is only so when we are quite sure that the _dialects_ of the
two specimens are the same. There are works printed this very year in
Iceland which, if their dates were unknown, would pass for being a
hundred years older than the Swedish of the eleventh century.
It is only when the supporter of the authenticity of a work of singular
and unique antiquity can begin with an epoch of comparatively recent
date, and argue backwards through a series of continuous works, each
older than the other, to one still older than any, that he can
reasonably accuse the critic who demurs to his deductions of
captiousness. In this way the antiquity of the oldest Chinese annals is
invalidated: in this way the date of the Indian Vedas (1400 B.C.). But
the great classical literatures stand the test, and from the present
time to Claudian, from Claudian to Ennius, and from Ennius to
Archilochus we trace a classical literature with all its works in
continuity; each pointing to some one older than itself. Even this
forbids an excessive antiquity to Homer.
Again--the likelihood of forgery must be continually kept in mind; so
much so, that even in the unexceptionable literature of the classics, if
it could be shewn that any age between the present and the eighth
century B.C., were an age in which the Greek drama, the Greek epics,
the Greek histories, or the Greek orations could be forged, a great deal
would be subtracted from the proofs of their antiquity. I do not say
that it would set them aside; because everything of this kind is a
question of degree; but the argument in their favour would be less
exceptionable than it is.
For it cannot be too strongly urged that the preservation of records of
high antiquity, in and of itself, is naturally and essentially
improbable. More than half of the antiquities of the world have
been lost; and this alone gives us the odds against an instance
of survivorship. This has been insisted on by more than one
archæologist--more cautious and candid than the majority of his
brotherhood. Whoever doubts this should look around him. How few nations
have a literature! How thoroughly is the non-development of a permanent
literature the exception rather than the rule! And, even when records
come into existence, how numerous are the chances against their
preservation. Destruction is the common law: continuance a happy rarity.
For extraordinary phenomena we must have extraordinary proofs.
From the present time to the eleventh century we may trace the native
Welsh literature continuously; but no farther. If any thing be older
than the laws of Hoel Dhu, they must be so by four centuries, with
nothing in the interval. This is the measure of the value of Welsh
evidence to the events of the fifth century. Writers, however, in Latin
existed earlier. Still, this is unsufficient to be conclusive to the
validity of a fact in the fourth. Such a statement must be tested by its
own intrinsic probability. It cannot come before us invested with the
dignity of a historically authenticated event. What this is will soon
appear.
If this be the spirit in which we must scrutinize documentary evidence,
with what eyes must we look upon traditions--traditions wherein the
record, instead of being permanently registered, is transmitted from
mouth to mouth, from father to son, from the old man to the young, from
generation to generation? The mere etymological import of the word will
mislead us. It is not enough for a thing to have been _handed down_ from
father to son. A relic may be so transmitted; indeed, written papers and
printed books are traditions of this kind. Heirlooms of any
sort--whether belonging to a nation or an individual--are such
traditions as these.
In a true tradition we must consider the _form_ and the _origin_. A
narrative which has taken a definite shape, either as a formula or a
poem, can scarcely be called a tradition. It is a specimen of
composition handed down by tradition, but not a tradition itself. It is
an unwritten record--as much a record in form and nature as a written
document, but differing from a written document in the manner of its
transmission to posterity. Many a good judge believes that the Homeric
poems are older than the art of writing, and, consequently, that they
were handed down to posterity orally. Yet no one would say that the
Iliad and Odyssey were Greek traditions.
The fact of a narrative having taken a permanent form, inasmuch as that
permanent form both facilitates its transmission, and ensures its
integrity, distinguishes an unwritten record from a tradition.
A true account of a real event transmitted from father to son in no set
form of words, but told in a way that a nursery tale is told to
children, or the way in which a piece of evidence is given in a court of
justice, constitutes a tradition; for in this form only is it liable to
those elements of uncertainty which distinguish tradition from
history--elements which we must recognize, if we wish to be precise in
our language.
Such is its _form_, or rather its _want of form_. But this is not
enough. A tradition, to be anything at all, must have a basis in fact,
and represent a real action, either accurately described or but
moderately misrepresented. I say _moderately misrepresented_, because
the absolute transmission of anything beyond a mere list of names, and
dates, without addition, omission, or embellishment, is a practical
impossibility. Hence we must allow for some inaccuracy; just as in
mechanics we must allow for friction. But, allowing for this, we must
still remember that the event and the account of it, are correlative
terms. An opinion--an account of an account--only takes the appearance
of a tradition. It is a _tradition_ so far as it is _handed down_ to
posterity, but it is no tradition with corresponding facts as a basis.
It is generally a theory--a theory, perhaps unconsciously formed, but
still a theory. Certain phenomena, of which there is no historical
explanation, excite the notice of some one less incurious than his
fellows, and he attempts to account for them. On the two opposite coasts
of a sea--for instance--two populations with the same manners and
language, are observed to reside. A migration will account for this;
and, consequently, a migration is assumed. The view, being reasonable,
is generally adopted; and the fact of a migration having absolutely
taken place becomes the current belief. The men who speak of this in the
fourth or fifth generation, speak of it as an actual occurrence. So,
perhaps, it is. But it is no tradition notwithstanding; since the record
cannot be traced up to the event. All that posterity has had
handed-down from its ancestors, is an _inference_; which, even if it be
as good as the historical account of an absolute event (as it sometimes
is), is anything but a tradition in the strict sense of the term. Of
course, the existence of the inference itself can be reduced to a fact,
and, as such, produce a tradition. But this is not the tradition which
is wanted--not the tradition which gives the fact in question.
These _ex post facto_ traditions may be of any amount of value, or of
any degree of worthlessness. They may be inferences of such accuracy and
justice as to command the respect of the most critical; or they may
involve impossibilities. The extremes are the best; the former for their
intrinsic value, the latter from their unlikelihood to mislead. The most
dangerous are the intermediate. Possibly, plausible, or, at any rate,
without any outward and visible marks of condemnation--
"They lie like truth, and yet most truly lie."
What proportion do these _ex post facto_ traditions bear to the true
ones? This is difficult to say. A nickname, a genealogy, a tune may well
be transmitted by tradition. So may charms, formulæ, proverbs, and
poems; yet when we come to proverbs and poems we are on the domain of
unwritten literature, a domain which can scarcely be identified with
that of tradition. A local legend, when it is not too suspiciously
adapted to the features of the place to which it applies, may also be
admitted as traditional. These and but little beyond. Men rarely think
about transmitting narratives until it is too late for an authentic
account.
On the other hand, the very mental activity which employs itself upon
the attempt to account for an unexplained phenomenon is a sign of
attention; and where there is the attention to speculate, there is
likely to be the desire to transmit. If so, it is probable that the
proportion of transmitted speculations to true traditions is
immeasurably large. But there is an other reason for ignoring the
so-called traditions. When there is a tradition, and a true historical
record as well, the tradition is superfluous. When a tradition stands
alone, there is nothing to confirm it. What can we do then? To assume
the fact from the truth of the tradition, and the truth of the tradition
from the existence of the fact, is to argue in a circle. Two independent
traditions, however, may confirm each other. When this happens the case
is improved; but, even then, they may be but similar inferences from the
same premises.
If, then, I allow no inference which I feel myself justified in drawing
to be disturbed by any so-called tradition; and, if instead of seeing in
the accounts of our early writers a narrative transmitted by word of
mouth in lieu of a record registered in writing, I deal with such
apparent narratives as if they were the inferences of some later
chronicler, I must not be accused of undue presumption. The statements
will still be treated with respect, the more so, perhaps, because they
rest on induction rather than testimony; and, as a general rule, they
will be credited with the merit of being founded on just premises, even
where those premises do not appear. In other words, every writer will be
thought logical until there are reasons for suspecting the contrary. For
a true and genuine tradition, however, I have so long sought in vain,
that I despair of ever finding one. If found, it would be duly
appreciated. On the other hand, by treating their counterfeits as
inferences, we improve our position as investigators. A fact we must
take as it is told us, and take it without any opportunity of
correction--all or none; whereas, an inference can be scrutinized and
amended. In the one case we receive instructions from which we are
forbidden to deviate; in the other we act as judges, with a power to
pronounce decisions. Nor does it unfrequently happen that our position
in this respect is better than that of the original writer; since,
however, many may be the facts which he may have had for his opinion
beyond those which he has transmitted to posterity, there are others of
which he must have been ignorant, and with which _we_ are familiar.
Changing the expression, where there is anything like an equality of
_data_, the means of using them is in favour of the later inquirer as
against the earlier; in which case he understands antiquity better than
the ancients--presumptuous as the doctrine may be. With a _bonâ fide_
piece of testimony, however traditionary, documentary, or
cotemporaneous, the case is reversed, and the modern writer must listen
to his senior with thankful deference. And this it is that makes the
distinction between inference and evidence so important. To mistake the
former for the latter is to overvalue antiquity and exclude ourselves
from a legitimate and fertile field of research. To confound the latter
with the former, is to raise ourselves into criticism when our business
is simply to interpret.
Proceeding to details, we find that the _Historia Gildæ_ and the
_Epistola Gildæ_ are the two earliest works upon Anglo-Saxon Britain.
For reasons which will soon appear, these works are referred to A.D.
550. The class of facts for which the evidence of a writer of this date
is wanted, is that which contains the particulars of the history of
Britain during the last days of the Roman, and the beginning of the
Anglo-Saxon domination. Amongst these, the more important would be the
rebellion of Maximus, the Pict and Scot inroads, the earliest Germanic
invasions, and the subordination of the Romans to the Saxons. But all
these are deeds of devastation, and, as such, unfavourable to even the
existence of the scanty literature necessary to record them. Again,
there were two other changes, equally unfavourable to the preservation
of records, going on. Pagan or Classical literature was becoming
Christian or Medieval, whilst the Latin or Roman style was passing into
Byzantine and Greek. Ammianus Marcellinus, the last of the Latin Pagan
historians, was cotemporary with the events at the beginning of the
period in question. Procopius, one of the last Pagan writers of
Byzantium, died about the same time as Gildas.
Hence, the 150 years--from A.D. 400 to 550--for which alone the history
of Gildas is wanted, is an era of excessive obscurity. Are the merits of
the author proportionate? Is the light he brings commensurate with the
darkness? What could he know? What does he tell? He tells so little that
the question as to the value of his authorities is reduced to nearly
nothing; and, of that little which we learn from his wordy and turgid
pages, the smallest fraction only is of any ethnological interest.
Indeed, Gildas is most worth notice for what he leaves unsaid. The
rebellion of Maximus he mentions; but he is not answerable for the
migration from Britain to Brittany, on which (as already stated) so much
turns. The Saxons, too, he mentions, and the name of Vortigern--but he
is not answerable for the derivation of the name from the word
_Sahs_=_dagger_. In regard to the important question as to the date of
the invasion, and the number of the invaders, he fixes 150 years before
his own time, and gives _three_ as the number of their vessels
(_cyulæ_). Aurelius Ambrosius and the Pugna Badonica are especially
alluded to, the date of the latter event being the date of his own
birth. As this is an event which he might have known from his parents,
and as the later Roman writers are our authorities until (there or
thereabouts) the death of Honorius, it remains to inquire upon what
testimonies Gildas gave the few events which he notices between the
years 417[12] and 516. Is there anything which by suggesting the
existence of native cotemporary documents should induce us to consider
his evidence as conclusive? I think not. Such may or may not have
existed, the presumption being for or against them, according to the
view which the inquirer takes respecting the literary and civilizational
influences of the expiring Paganism of the Romans, and the incipient
Christianity of the early British Church, combined with the antiquity of
the earliest British and Irish records--a wide and complex subject, if
treated generally, but if viewed with reference to the specific case
before us (the authorities of Gildas), a narrow one.
In the case of Gildas it is perfectly unnecessary to assume anything of
the kind. The only material facts which he gives us are the letter to
Ætius for assistance, and a notice of the place which Vortigern finds in
the downfall of the Romano-British empire. The first of these points to
Rome rather than to Britain; the second is from the life of a Gallic
missionary--St. Germanus of Auxerre. To this may be added the high
probability of Gildas' work having been written in Gaul; a fact which,
undoubtedly, subtracts from the little value it might otherwise possess.
The next is an author of a very different calibre, the venerable Beda;
concerning whom we must remember that he stands in contrast to Gildas
from being Anglo-Saxon rather than British. Now, his history is
Ecclesiastical and not Civil; so that ethnological questions make no
part of his inquiries, and, as far as they are treated at all, they are
treated incidentally. Whatever may have been the records of the
Romano-British Church, or the compositions of Romano-British writers,
they form no part of the materials of Beda. The most he says that, from
_writings and traditions_ along with the information derived from the
monks of the Abbey of Lestingham, he wrote that part of his work which
gives an account of the Christianity of the kingdom of Mercia. For the
other parts of the kingdom he chiefly applied to the Bishop of the
Diocese; to Albinus for the antiquities of Kent and Essex; and to Daniel
for those of Wessex, the Isle of Wight, and Sussex. For Lincolnshire he
had _viva voce_ information from Cynebert, and the monks of the Abbey of
Partney; and for Northumberland he made his inquiries himself. Now as
Christianity was first introduced into Anglo-Saxon England by Augustine,
A.D. 597, the era of the Germanic invasions lies beyond the evidence of
either Beda or his authorities. Gildas, and the sources of Gildas he
knew; but of access to native records of the fifth century--the century
for which they are most wanted--or of the existence of such, no trace
occurs in the Historia Ecclesiastica, except in the two doubtful cases
which will appear in the sequel.[13]
In Nennius, more than in any other writer, do we find it necessary to
assume the existence of any previous historians, upon whose authority
the facts of the times between the cessation of the Roman supremacy, and
the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon power may be received; and in
Nennius we must, for many reasons, admit it. In the first place, he
mentions more than one circumstance which he could not well have got
from any other source; in the next, the preface says that what has been
done has been done "partim majorum traditionibus; partem scriptis;
partim etiam monumentis veterum Britanniæ incolarum; partim et de
annalibus Romanorum. Insuper et de chronicis sanctorum Patrum, Ysidori,
scilicet Hieronymi, Prosperi, Eusebii, necnon et de historiis Scotorum
Saxonumque, inimicorum licet, non ut volui, sed ut potui, meorum
obtemperans jussionibus seniorum, unam hanc historiunculam undecunque
collectam balbutiendo coacervari." But, it should be added that the
authenticity of the preface is doubtful.
Nennius, then, most introduces the question as to the value of the
narratives of the events of the fifth century. I cannot but put it
exceedingly low. Of any _historian_, properly so called, there is not a
trace. Neither is there of regular annals, a point which will soon be
considered more fully. Nor yet of any of even the humbler forms of
narrative poetry; though this is a point upon which I speak with
hesitation. I base my opinion, however, upon the notices of the two
chief epochs--that of Vortigern and that of King Arthur. The first is
from the life of St. Germanus, the second is an unadorned enumeration of
three campaigns, with as little of the appearance of being derived from
a poetic source as is possible.
Several genealogies occur in Nennius; and it often happens that
genealogies are useful elements of criticism. British ethnology,
however, is not the department in which their value is most conspicuous.
How far were the traditions of Nennius of any worth? The following is a
specimen of them. "The Britons were named after Brutus; Brutus was the
son of Hisicion, Hisicion of Alanus, Alanus of Rea Silvia, Rea Silvia of
Numa, Numa of Pamphilus, Pamphilus of Ascanius, Ascanius of Æneas, Æneas
of Anchises, Anchises of Tros, Tros of Dardanus, the son of Flire, the
son of Javan, the son of Japhet. This Japhet had seven sons; the first
Gomer, from whom came the Gauls; the second Magog, from whom came the
Scythians and Goths; the third Aialan, from whom came the Medes; the
fourth Javan, whence the Greeks; the fifth Tubal, whence the Hebrews;
the sixth Mesech, whence the Cappadocians; the seventh Troias, whence
the Thracians. These are the sons of Japhet, the son of Noah, the son of
Lamech. I will now return to the point whence I departed.
"The first man of the race of Japhet came to Europe, Alanus by name,
with his three sons. Their names were Ysicion, Armenon, and Neguo.
Ysicion had four sons, their names were Frank, Roman, Alemann, and
Briton, from whom Britain was first inhabited. But Armenon had five
sons. These are Goth, Walagoth, Cebid, Burgundian, Longobard. Neguo had
four sons, Wandal, Saxon, Bogar, Turk. From Hisicio the first-born of
Alan, arose four natives, the Franks, the Latins, the Alemanns, and the
Britons. From Armenon, the second son of Alan, came the Goths, the
Vandals, the Cebidi, and the Longobards. From Neguo, the third, the
Bogars, Vandals, Saxons, and Tarinci. But these nations were subdivided
over all Europe. Alanius, however, as they say, was the son of Sethevir,
the son of Ogomnum, the son of Thois, the son of Boib, the son of
Simeon, the son of Mair, the son of Ethac, the son of Luothar, the son
of Ecthel, the son of Oothz, the son of Aborth, the son of Ra, the son
of Esra, the son of Israu, the son of Barth, the son of Jonas, the son
of Jabath, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the
son of Methusalem, the son of Enoch, the son of Jareth, the son of
Malalel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of
Adam, the son of the living God."
Surely this is but a piece of book-learning spoilt in the application.
Yet what says the author?
"This genealogy I found in the traditions of the ancients, who were the
inhabitants of Britain in the earliest times."--_Historia Britonum_,
cap. xiii.
The next two works are chronicles, so-called; one British and one
Anglo-Saxon; the _Annales Cambriæ_ and the _Saxon Chronicle_.
The notices of the _Annales Cambriæ_ are remarkably brief and scanty. It
has scarcely one for every second year, and what it has is short and
unimportant.
It begins with A.D. 447, and ends with the Norman Conquest. It is
closely confined to the events of Wales.
The date and authorship are uncertain. Of the three MSS. which supply
the text, one is said to be as old as A.D. 954.
When the entries began to be cotemporary with the events registered is
uncertain; indeed, there is no proof that they are so anywhere. On the
other hand, they cannot be earlier than A.D. 521, since the event
registered there is the _birth of St. Columba_. Now the entry of the
birth of an illustrious personage is not likely to be a cotemporaneous
entry; since his greatness has yet to be achieved, and it is only the
spirit of prophecy and anticipation that such a record would be made at
the time he merely came into the world.
The year 522, then, is the earliest possible cotemporary entry, and this
is, most likely, much too early.
But the work has not the appearance of being a register of
cotemporaneous events at all. In such a composition the idlest
chronicler would find something to say under each year, and notices of
either local events, or the great events of general interest, could
scarcely fail to be entered. No one, however, will say that such a
series of entries as the following from A.D. 501 to A.D. 601, can ever
have constituted cotemporary history.
LVII. Annus. Episcopus Ebur pausat in Christo, anno cccl. ætatis
suæ.
LVIII. Annus.
LXXI. Annus.
LXXII. Annus. Bellum Badonis in quo Arthur portavit crucem Domini
nostri Jesu Christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeros
suos, et Brittones victores fuerunt.
LXXIII. Annus.
LXXVI. Annus.
LXXVII. Annus. Sanctus Columcille nascitur. Quies Sanctæ Brigidæ.
LXXVIII. Annus.
XCII. Annus.
XCIII. Annus. Gueith Camlann, in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere; et
mortalitas in Brittannia et Hibernia fuit.
XCIV. Annus.
XCIX. Annus.
C. Annus. Dormitatio Ciarani.
CI. Annus.
CII. Annus.
CIII. Annus. Mortalitas magna, in qua pausat Mailcun rex Genedotæ.
CIV. Annus.
CXIII. Annus.
CXIV. Annus. Gabran filius Dungart moritur.
CXV. Annus.
CXVII. Annus.
CXVIII. Annus. Columcille in Brittania exiit.
CXIX. Annus.
CXX. Annus.
CXXI. Annus. [Navigatio Gildæ in Hibernia.]
CXXII. Annus.
CXXIV. Annus.
CXXV. Annus. [Synodus Victoriæ apud Britones congregatur.]
CXXVI. Annus Gildas obiit.
CXXVII. Annus.
CXXVIII. Annus.
CXXIX. Bellum Armterid. [Inter filios Elifer et Guendoleu, filium
Keidiau, in quo bello Guendoleu cecidet; Merlinus insanus effectus
est.]
CXXX. Annus. Brendan Byror dormitatio.
CXXXI. Annus.
CXXXV. Annus.
CXXXVI. Annus. Guurci et Peretur [filii Elifer] moritur.
CXXXVII. Annus.
CXXXIX. Annus.
CXL. Annus. Bellum contra Euboniam, et dispositio Danielis
Banchorum.
CXLI. Annus.
CXLIV. Annus.
CXLV. Annus. Conversio Constantini ad Dominum.
CXLVI. Annus.
CXLIX. Annus.
CL. Annus. [Edilbertus in Anglia rexit.]
CLI. Annus. Columcille moritur. Dunaut rex moritur. Agustinus
Mellitus Anglos ad Christum convertit.
CLII. Annus.
CLVI. Annus.
CLVII. Annus. Synodus Urbis Legion. Gregorius obiit in Christo.
David Episcopus Moni judeorum.
The notices between the brackets are not found in the Harleian MS.--one
of three.
The years are counted from the commencement of the Annals, which, from
circumstances independent of the text, is fixed A.D. 444. Hence, lvii
and clvii, coincide with A.D. 501, and A.D. 601, respectively. It is not
until the last quarter of the tenth century that the entries notably
improve in fulness and frequency; during which period the table was
probably composed,--the earlier dates being put down not because they
were of either local or general importance, but because they were known
to the writer. Such, at least, is the inference from the style. Lives of
Saints may have furnished them all. They agree more or less with the
Irish Annals, and, probably, are to a great extent taken from the same
sources.
The _Annales Cambrenses_ contain few or no facts directly bearing upon
the ethnology of Great Britain, except so far as the existence of a
literary composition, of a given antiquity, is the measure of the
civilization of the country to which it belongs.
One of its entries, however, has an indirect bearing. The value of
Gildas depends upon the time at which he wrote. We have already seen
that a small piece of autobiography in his history tells us that he was
born in the year of the _Bellum Badonicum_. Now the date of this is got
from the Annales Cambrenses, A.D. 516. There is no reason to believe it
other than accurate.
It were well if such a composition as the _Annales Cambriæ_ were called
(what it really is) a list of dates; since the word _chronicle_ has a
dangerous tendency to engender a very uncritical laxity of thought. It
continually gets mistaken for a _register_; yet the two sorts of
composition are wholly different. That the habit of making
cotemporaneous entries of events as they happen, just as incumbents of
parishes, each in his order of succession, enter the births, deaths, and
marriages of their parishioners, should exist in such institutions as
religious monasteries or civil guild-halls, is by no means unlikely.
But, then, on the other hand, there is an equal likelihood of nothing of
the sort being attempted. Hence, when a work reaches posterity in the
shape of a chronicle or annals, its antiquity and value must be judged
on its own merits, rather than according to any preconceived opinions.
In mechanics _nothing is stronger than its weakest part_, and it would
be well if a similar apothegm could be extended to the criticism of such
compositions as the Annales Cambriæ, and the Saxon Chronicle. It would
be well if we could say that in chronological tables _nothing was
earlier than the latest entry_. In common histories we do this. The
common historian is always supposed to have composed his work subsequent
to the date of the latest event contained in it--a few exceptions only
being made for those authors whose works treat of cotemporary actions.
So it is with the annalist whose Annals, more ambitious in form than the
bare chronicle, emulate, like those of the great Roman historian, the
style of history. But it is not so when the notices pass a certain
limit, and become short and scanty. They then suggest a comparison with
the parish register, or the Olympic records, and change their character
altogether. No longer mere chronological works, emanating from the pen
of a single author, and referrible to some single generation,
subsequent, in general, to a majority of the events set down in them,
they are the productions of a series of writers, each of whom is a
registrar of cotemporary events. By this an undue value attaches itself
to works which have nothing in common with the register but the form.
Now, if genuine traditions are scarce, real registers are scarcer. In
both cases, however, the false wears the garb of the true, and, in both
cases, writers shew an equal repugnance to scrutiny. This is to be
regretted; since with nine out of ten of the chronicles that have come
down to us, it is far more certain that their latest facts are earlier
in date than the author who records them, than that the earliest
possible author can have been cotemporary with the first recorded
events. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may illustrate this. It ends in the
reign of Stephen; yet the writer of even the last page may have been
anything but a cotemporary with the events it embodies. It begins with
the invasion of Julius Cæsar. A cotemporary entry--the essential element
of registration--is out of the question here.
The general rule with compositions of the kind in question is, that they
fall into two parts, the first of which cannot be of equal antiquity
with the events recorded, the second of which may be; and we are only
too fortunate when satisfactory proofs of cotemporary composition enable
us to convert the possible into the probable, the probable into the
certain--the _may_ into the _must_. Even when this is the case, the
proportions of the cotemporary to the non-cotemporary statements are
generally uncertain--a question of _more_ or _less_, that must be
settled by the examination of the particular composition under
consideration.
Whatever may be the other merits of the _Annales Cambriæ_, it has no
claim to the title of a register during the sixth century--and, _a
fortiori_ none during the fifth.
Neither has the Saxon Chronicle. We infer this from the extent to which
it follows Beda. We infer it, too, still more certainly from the
following passage--a passage which, if made in the year under which it
is found, would be no record but a prophecy.
A.D. 595.--"This year Æthelbriht succeeded to the kingdom of the Kentish
men, and held it fifty-three years. In his days the Holy Pope Gregory
sent us baptism. That was in the two-and-thirtieth year of his reign;
and Columba, a mass-priest, came to the Picts and converted them to the
faith of Christ. They are dwellers by the northern mountains. And their
king gave him the island which is called Hi. Therein are fine hides of
land, as men say. There Columba built a monastery, and he was abbot
there thirty-two years, and there he died when he was seventy-seven
years old. His successors still have the place. The Southern Picts had
been baptized long before; Bishop Ninias, who had been instructed at
Rome, had preached baptism to them, whose church and monastery is at
Hwithern, hallowed in the name of St. Martin; there he resteth with many
holy men. Now, in Hi there must ever be an abbot and not a bishop; and
all the Scottish bishops ought to be subject to him, because Columba was
an abbot, not a bishop."
Similar notices, impossible, without a vast amount of gratuitous
assumption, to be considered cotemporaneous, are of frequent occurrence
until long after the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon power in England;
but as the events of the fifth and sixth centuries are the only events
of ethnological importance, the notice of them is limited.
The Welsh poems attributed to the bards of the sixth and seventh
centuries, contain no facts that will make part of any of our reasonings
in the sequel. Their existence is, of course, a measure of the
intellectual calibre of the time (whatever that may be) to which they
refer. But this is not before us now.
In respect to the value of the Irish annals, the civil historian has a
far longer list of problems than the ethnologist; since the latter wants
their testimony upon a few points only, _e.g._, 1. The origin of the
proper Irish themselves; 2. the affinities of the Picts; 3. the
migration (real or supposed) of the Scots. These, at least, are the
chief points. Others, of course, such as the details concerning the
Danes, can be found; but the ones in question are the chief.
In respect to the first, whoever reads Dr. Prichard's[14] account of the
contents of the earliest chronicles, consisting, amongst other matters,
of an antediluvian Cæsar; a landing of Partholanus with his wife Ealga,
on the coast of Connemara, twelve years after the Deluge, and on the
14th of May; the colony of the Neimhidh, descendants of Gog and Magog;
the Fir-Bolg from the Thrace; the Tuatha de Danann from Athens; and,
above all, the famous Milesians, amongst whom was Nial, the intimate of
Moses and Aaron, and the husband of Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, will
soon satisfy himself that, with the exception of a little weight which
may possibly be due to the prominence which the Spanish Peninsula takes
in the several legends, the whole mass is so utterly barren in
historical results, that criticism would be misplaced.
But the Pict and Scot questions are in a different predicament. Like the
Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain, the events connected with
them may have occurred within the Historical period--provided only that
that period begin early enough.
How far this may be the case with the Irish annals is a reasonable
question.
That any existing series of Irish annals anterior to the time of the
earliest extant annalist, Tigernach, who lived in the eleventh century,
is cotemporary with the events which it records, so as to partake of the
nature of a register, is what no one has asserted; and hence their
credit rests upon that of such earlier records as may be supposed to
have served as their basis.
These may be poems, genealogies, or chronicles; all of which may be
admitted to have existed. How long? In a more or less imperfect form
from the introduction of Christianity. Is this the extreme limit in the
way of antiquity? Probably; perhaps certainly. Out of all the numerous
pieces of verse quoted by the annalists, one only carries us back to a
Pagan period, and even this is referred to a year subsequent to the
introduction of Christianity. An extract from the annals of the Four
Masters is as follows, A.D. 458, twenty-seven years after the first
arrival of St. Patrick "after Laogar, the son of Nial of the Nine
Hostages, had reigned in Ireland thirty years, he was killed in the
country of _Caissi_ (?) between Eri and Albyn, _i.e._, the two hills in
the country of the Faolain, and the Sun and Wind killed him, for he
violated them; whence the poet sings--
"Laogar M'Nial died in Caissi the green land,
The elements of divine things, by the oath which he violated,
inflicted the doom of death on the king."
The genealogies are generally contained in the poems.
As to annals partaking of the nature of registers the language of the
extant compositions is unfavourable. They are mentioned, of course; but
it is always some one's collection of something before his time--never
the original cotemporary documents. Now the compiler is Cormac McArthur,
now St. Patrick. The manner of their mention in the Four Masters is as
follows:--
"A.D. 266 was the fortieth year of Cormac McArthur McConn over the
kingdom of Ireland, until he died at Clete, after a salmon-bone had
stuck in his throat, from old prophecies which Malgon the Druid had made
against him, after Cormac turned against the Druids on account of his
manner of adoring God without them. For that reason the Devil (_Diabul_)
tempted him (Malgenn) through the instigation, until he caused his
death. It was Cormac who composed the precepts to be observed by kings,
the manners, tribute, and ordinations of kings. He was a wise man in
laws, and in things chronological and historical, for it was he who
invented the laws of the judgments, and the right principles in all
bargains, also the tributes, so that there was a law which bound all men
even unto the present time. This Cormac McArthur was he who collected
the Chronicle of Ireland into one place, Tara, until he formed from them
the Chronicles of Ireland in one book, which was called (afterwards) the
Psalter of Tara. In that book were the events and synchronisms of the
kings of Ireland with the kings and emperors of the world, and of the
kings of the provinces with the kings of Ireland."
A work of this kind, possible enough in Alexandria, is surely in need of
very definite and unexceptionable testimony to make it credible as a
piece of Irish history. The truly historical fact contained in the
extract is the existence of a book, at the time of the Four Masters,
with a Christian title, and Pagan contents.
To assume anything beyond the existence of early biographies of the
early propagators of Irish Christianity is unnecessary. These had an
undoubted existence; sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse; and it is
these that the annalists themselves chiefly refer to; the character of
whose notices may be collected from the following extracts relating to
the first arrival of St. Patrick.
"A.D. 430.--The second year of Laogar. In this year Pope Celestine first
sent Palladius, the bishop, to Ireland, to preach the faith to the
Irish, and there came with him twelve companions. Nathe, the son of
Garchon, opposed him. Going onwards, however, he baptized many in
Ireland; and three churches, built of wood, were built by him, the White
Church, the House of the Romans, and _Domnach Arta_ (_Dominica Alta_).
In the White Church he left his books, and a desk with the relics of
Paul, Peter, and many other martyrs. He left, too, in the churches after
him these four, Augustinus, Benedictus, Silvester, and Solonius, whilst
Palladius was returning to Rome, because he found not the honour due to
him, when disease seized him in the country of the Picts (_Cruithnech_),
and he died there."--_Annals of the Four Masters._
Again--
"A.D. 431. The fourth year of Laogar. Patrick came to Ireland this year,
and imparted baptism and blessing to the Irish, men, women, sons, and
daughters, except those who were unwilling to receive baptism or faith
from him, as his life relates (_ut narrat ejus vita_). The church of
Antrim was founded by Patrick, after its donation from Felim the son of
Laogar, the son of Nial, to him, to Loman, and to Fortchern. Flann of
the monastery has sung--
"Patrick, abbot of all Ireland, McCalphrain, McFotaide,
McDeisse, the withholder of testimony to falsehood, McCormac Mor,
McLeibriuth,
McOta, McOrric the Good, McMaurice, McLeo of the church,
McMaximus the Mournful, McEncret, the Noble, the Illustrious,
McPhilist the Best of All, McFeren the Blameless,
McBritain the Famous by Sea, whence the Britons strong by sea,
Cochnias his mother the Noble, Nemthor his city, the Warlike;
In Momonia his portion is not denied, which he acquired at the
prayers of Patrick."
In the Books of the Schools on Divine Things the rest of this poem is to
be found, _i.e._, De Mirabilibus Familiæ Patricii Orationum.
The value due to a series of Lives of Saints may be allowed to the Irish
Annals subsequent to A.D. 430; and isolated events, without much
reference to their importance, is what we get from them. As soon as
Christianity introduces the use of letters, we see our way to the
preservation of the records, and the dawning of history begins.
If the annals of the Christian period rest almost wholly on Christian
records, what can be the authority of the still earlier histories?
Separate substantive proof of the existence of early historians, or
early poets there is none. We only assume it from the events narrated.
We also assume the event from the narrative; and, so doing, argue in a
circle. The fact from the statement, and the statement from the fact.
Such is too often the case.
An additional century of antiquity may be gained by admitting the
existence of an imperfect Christianity in Ireland anterior to the time
of St. Patrick--though the evidence to it is questionable. The annals
anterior to A.D. 340 will still stand over. They fall into two
divisions; the impossible, or self-confuting, and the possible. The
latter extend over seven centuries from about B.C. 308 to A.D. 430. The
former go back to the Creation, and are given up as untrustworthy by the
native annalists themselves.
The early annals of the class in question which give us possible events,
if they existed at all, must have been in Irish. They must also have
been more or less known to King Cormac McArthur. They imply, too, the
use of an alphabet. St. Patrick, too, must have known them; as is
implied by the following extract:--
[Sidenote: A.D. 438.]
"The tenth year of Laogar. The history and laws of Ireland purified and
written out from old collections, and from the old books of Ireland
which were brought together to one place at the asking of St. Patrick.
These are the nine wise authors who did this. Laogar, King of Ireland,
Corcc, and Daire, three kings; Patrick, Benin, Benignus (Benin), and
Carnech, three Saints; Ros, Dubthach, and Fergus, three historians, as
the old distich--
"Laogar, Corccus, Daire the Hard,
Patrick, Benignus, Carnech the Mild,
Ros, Dubthach, Fergus, a thing known,
Are the nine Authors of the Great History."
The Welsh antiquarian may, perhaps, observe that this likeness to the
Triads is suspicious, a view to which he may find plenty of confirmation
elsewhere.
Neither is it too much to say that such old poems as are quoted in
respect to the events of the second and third centuries, are apparently
quoted as Virgil's description of Italy under Evander might be quoted by
a writer of the Middle Ages.
The events recorded are, as a general rule, probable; but they cannot be
considered real until we see our way to the evidence by which they
could be transmitted. The probable is as often untrue, as the true is
improbable. The question in all these points is one of testimony.
The most satisfactory view of that period of Irish antiquity, which is,
at one and the same time, anterior to the introduction of Christianity,
and subsequent to the earliest mention of Ireland by Greek, Latin, and
British writers, is that the sources of its history were compositions
composed out of Ireland, but containing notices of Irish events; in
which case the Britons and Romans have written more about Ireland than
the Irish themselves. This is an inference partly from the presumptions
of the case, and partly from internal evidence.
Prichard, after Sharon Turner, has remarked that the legend of
Partholanus is found in Nennius.
The Welsh name Arthur, strange to Ireland, except during the period in
question, is prominent in the third century.
The Druidical religion, which on no unequivocal evidence can be shewn to
have been Irish, has the same prominence during the same time.
The _Fir-Bolg_ and _Attecheith_ are also prominent at this time, _but
not later_. Now the _Belgæ_ and _Attacotti_ might easily be got from
British or Roman writers. The soil of Ireland, as soon as its records
improve, ceases to supply them.
This is as far as it is necessary to proceed in the criticism of our
early authorities of British, Irish, and Saxon origin, since it is not
the object of the present writer to throw any unnecessary discredit over
them, but only to inquire how far they are entitled to the claim of
deciding certain questions finally, and of precluding criticism. It is
clear that they are only to be admitted when opposed by a very slight
amount of conflicting improbabilities, when speaking to points capable
of being known, and when freed from several elements of error and
confusion. The practical application of this inference will find place
in the eleventh chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] This is the year in which Orosius concludes his history. It leaves,
as near as may be, a century between the last of the Roman informants
and the birth of the earliest British.
[13] The origin of the Picts and Scots.
[14] Vol. iii, pp. 140-147.