Anglo-Saxon Literature

by John Earle

II.

INSCRIPTIONS

of the Anglo-Saxon period exist both in the learned and the vernacular language. It is peculiarly interesting, when an inscription is exhumed that gives us back a contemporary monument, however slight, of that Anglian Church which was the first-fruit of Christianity in our nation. About twenty years ago, a stone was found at Wearmouth which had been buried in the ruins of the monastery ever since the ninth century, and which came up fresh and clear in almost every letter, bearing, “Hic in sepulcro requiescit corpore Hereberecht prb.[28] (Here in this tomb Hereberecht presbiter rests in the body).” A fine inscription from Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire, is now among the Arundel Marbles at Oxford. It is printed in Parker’s “Glossary of Architecture,” and in my Saxon Chronicles. Often the interest of these Latin inscriptions is enhanced by a strong touch of the vernacular showing through. This is the case on a fine monumental stone in Mortimer Church.

OF VERNACULAR INSCRIPTIONS

there is one at Lincoln, in the tower of St. Mary-le-Wigford Church. Into this tower, which is of early date, a Roman pagan monument (Diis Manibus, &c.) is walled, and, on the triangular gable of the stone, a Saxon inscription has been carved. It is imperfect, but the general sense is clear. It must be read from the lowest and longest line upwards to the apex. It says: “Eirtig caused me to be made and endowed in honour of Christ and St. Mary.” Perhaps the tower, or even the church, is the speaker. The founder’s name is much defaced: I have adopted the reading of Rev. J. Wordsworth, who has bestowed attention on this stone.

A fragment of a similar inscription, but much more copious, was found at St. Mary’s, York, and is described in Hübner, No. 175.

But the most characteristic of the vernacular inscriptions are those on sun-dials. There are no less than three of these in the North Riding of Yorkshire; viz., at Old Byland, and at Edstow near Pickering, and at Kirkdale.[29] The last is fullest and most perfect, and is, moreover, dated. It bears: “+ Orm Gamalson bought the minster of S. Gregory when it was all to broken and to fallen, and he it let make anew from ground for Christ and S. Gregory in the days of Edward the King and Tosti the Earl. + and Hawarth wrought me and Brand presbiter. + This is day’s sun-marker, hour by hour.”

The poetical inscription in Runes, on the Ruthwell Cross, is too large a subject for this place.[30]

JEWELLERY.

The Anglo-Saxons retained an old tradition of decorative art, and they had among them skilful jewellers. Several specimens have been found, and are to be seen in museums; but the noblest of all these is that which is known as the Alfred Jewel.

The Alfred Jewel was discovered in Newton Park, near Athelney, in the year 1693, and it found its way to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford by the year 1718, where it still rests. It consists of an enamelled figure enshrined in a golden frame, with a golden back to it, and with a thick piece of rock crystal in front to serve as a glass to the picture. Imagine a longitudinal section of a pigeon’s egg, and let the golden plate at the back of our jewel represent the plane of the egg’s diameter. From this plane, if we measure three-quarters of an inch in the girth of the egg, and then take another section parallel to the gold plate at the back, we obtain the front surface of the crystal through which the enamelled figure is visible. The smaller end of our oval section is prolonged and is fashioned like the head of a boar. The snout forms a socket, as if to fit on to a peg or dole; a cross-pin, to fix the socket to the dole, is still in place. Around the sloping rim, which remains, the following legend is wrought in the fabric: Ælfred mec heht gewyrcean (Alfred me commanded to make). The language of the legend agrees perfectly with the age of King Alfred, and it seems to be the unhesitating opinion of all those who have investigated the subject that it was a personal ornament of the great West Saxon king. As to the manner of wearing it, and as to the signification of the enamelled figure, there has been the greatest diversity of opinion. Sir Francis Palgrave suggested that the figure was older than the setting. Perhaps it was a sacred object, and perhaps one of the presents of Pope Marinus, or some other potentate; and that the mounting was intended to adapt it for fixture in the rim of a helmet or crown over the centre of the royal brow. By its side, in the same glass case, there lies a gold ornament of far simpler design, but of like adaptation.

DRAWING AND ILLUMINATION OF BOOKS.

This is the branch of Saxon art which is best represented by extant remains. That the specimens are numerous may be gathered from what has been said above in the description of manuscripts. There are two periods, and the change takes place with the revival of learning in the reign of Edgar. In the earlier period, the drawings and the decorations are of the same general type as the Irish illuminated books, and it has been thought that our artists had learnt their art from the Irish; but now there is a disposition to see in this art a type common to both islands, and to call it British. The Lindisfarne Gospels (A.D. 710) offer the best example of this kind. In the tenth century, Frankish art was much imitated, and the Saxon style was altered. But the Saxons, in their imitations, displayed originality; and they developed a gorgeous form of decoration, which was recognised as a distinct style, and was known on the Continent as English work (opus Anglicum). The typical specimen of this kind is the Benedictional of Æthelwold (between 963 and 970). From the same cause, the character of the penmanship also passes through a corresponding change, but more gradually and indistinctly.[31]

ARCHITECTURE.

Of Saxon architecture there are many traces; we will take but a few.

The cathedral at Canterbury was an old church, which had been built by Christians under the Romans, and which Augustine, by the king’s help, recovered, and consecrated as the Church of St. Saviour;[32] in later times it came to be called Christ Church. This building lasted all through the Saxon period; it was enlarged by Abbot Odo, about 950, and was finally pulled down by Lanfranc, in 1070. But there exists a written description of this old church by a man who had seen it,—namely, Eadmer the Precentor, who was a diligent collector of traditions concerning his cathedral. What makes his description especially valuable to the architectural historian is the fact that he compares it to St. Peter’s at Rome, and he had been to Rome in company with Anselm. Now, although the old Basilica at Rome was destroyed in the sixteenth century, yet plans and drawings which were made before its demolition are preserved in the Vatican: and, with all these data before him, Professor Willis reconstructed the plan of the metropolitan church of the Saxon period.[33] In certain features he used, moreover, the evidence of the ancient Saxon church at Brixworth.[34]

Not only from models left in Britain by the Romans, but also through the frequent visits of our ecclesiastics to Rome, it naturally happened that the Saxon architecture was imitated from the Roman. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxons appear to have developed a style of their own. Sir Gilbert Scott in his posthumous Essays characterises this early church architecture by two features—the square termination of the east end, and the west end position of the tower. This was quite insular, and not to be found in Roman patterns. In Professor Willis’s plan of the first cathedral at Canterbury the east and west ends are both apsidal, and the two towers are placed on the north and south sides of the nave.

The great discovery, a few years ago, of the Saxon chapel at Bradford-on-Avon, and the successful way in which it was cleared and detached from other buildings by Canon Jones, has not only given us so complete an example of Saxon church architecture as we had nothing like it before, but it has also improved our faculty of recognising Saxon work in fragmentary relics, and, if I may so speak, of pulling them all together. A remarkable passage in William of Malmesbury records that Aldhelm built a little church (ecclesiola) in this place; and the possibility that this may be that very church is not rejected by the best judges. Aldhelm died in 709.

Of Saxon construction a chief peculiarity is that which is called “longs and shorts.” It occurs in coins of towers, in panelling work, and sometimes in door jambs.[35] Of the latter, a fine example occurs at Laughton, near Maltby, not many miles distant from Sheffield. What makes this latter instance more peculiarly interesting, is the fact that over the churchyard wall on the west, in a small grass field, traditionally called the Castle Field, there is the well-preserved plan of a Saxon lordly mansion. The circuit of the earthwork is almost complete, and at a point in the enceinte there rises the mound on which was pitched the garrison of the little castle. I use the term castle, as the habits of the language now require, and as it is expressed in the name of the spot. But, indeed, castles were little known in England before the Conquest; had it been otherwise, the Conquest would not have been so easy.[36] The name and the thing came in with the Normans. Yet there were ancient places of security, and their great feature was an earthen mound, upon which a wooden building was pitched. The Saxon mounds often became, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Freeman, the kernel of the Norman castle. And there was a traditional method of fortification for the houses of great men of which Laughton is an example.

SCULPTURE.

There are several pieces of Anglo-Saxon sculpture extant; and they are not hard to recognise, because of the peculiar lines of drawing with which we are already familiar in the illuminated manuscripts. In the Saxon chapel at Bradford-on-Avon there are two angels, of life size, or larger, carved in relief on stone. They appear in the wall high above the chancel arch, towards the nave; and it is supposed from the distance between them, and from their facing one another, that there was once a holy rood placed between them, towards which they were in attendance.

In Bristol Cathedral there is a remarkable piece of Saxon sculpture, representing a human figure, life size, apparently the Saviour, delivering a small figure, as it were a soul, out of the mouth of the dragon. This is carved on the upper side of the massive lid of a stone coffin. It was discovered about forty years ago, and it may be seen in the vestry within the Norman chapter-house, where it is masoned into the wall over the chimney-piece.

BURIALS.

The Saxon graves have yielded many illustrative objects, especially weapons and personal ornaments, pottery, and glass.[37]

The Saxon graves were first systematically explored by Bryan Faussett, of Heppington, in Kent (b. 1720—d. 1776); who was called by his contemporaries “the British Montfaucon.” He is unequalled for the extent of his excavations, and the distinctness of his well-kept chronicle. After him, in the next generation, came an interpreter, who was also a great excavator; James Douglas, author of “Nenia Britannica,” 1793. The Faussett collection is in Liverpool, the Douglas collection (most of it) in Oxford.

In more recent times the general accuracy of the results has been established by means of comparative researches. The tumuli in the old mother country of the Saxons have been examined, and their affinity with our Saxon graves has been determined beyond question; while a parallel comparison has also been instituted between the Frankish graves in France, and the ancestral Frankish graves in old Franconia over the Rhine. Thus it is well known what interments are really Saxon.

The chronology of the varieties of interment is not, however, so completely ascertained. In the boundaries of property from the tenth century and onwards we find repeated mention of “heathen burial-places,” and it has perhaps been too readily inferred that all the Saxon graves in the open country unconnected with churches are older than the Conversion. Mr. Kemble investigated this subject, and he came to the conclusion that the cinerary urns were heathen, but that the whole interments were Christian. His observations were made chiefly in the old mother country, which lies between the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Main. He identified the change from cremation to inhumation with that from heathenism to Christianity.

The tumular relics of different parts of England suggest old tribal distinctions of costume and apparel. In Kent the fibulæ are circular and highly ornamented, but these are sparingly found beyond the area of the earliest settlers. From Suffolk to Leicestershire the fibulæ are mostly bridge-shaped. A third variety, the concave or saucer-shaped, is found in Berkshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire. It is, however, possible that these distinctions may be partly chronological.

The most splendid fibula known is of the first kind. It was exhumed by Bryan Faussett, 5th August, 1771, on Kingston Down in Kent, from a deep grave containing numerous relics, and such as indicated a lady of distinction. The Kingston fibula is circular, entirely of gold, richly set with garnets and turquoise; it is 3½ inches in diameter, ¼ inch in thickness, and weighs 6 oz. 5 dwt. 18 gr. This is the gem of all Saxon tumular antiquities, and it rests with the other Faussett finds in the Mayer collection at Liverpool. Near it was found a golden neck-ornament, weighing 2 dwt. 7 gr. These and other like examples, though less splendid, from the graves of Saxon ladies, are good illustrations of the poetic epithet “gold-adorned,” which is repeatedly applied to women of high degree.

The Saxon pottery is known to us by the burial urns. These are marked by a local character for the various districts, but still with a generic resemblance, which is based upon the comprehensive fact that although they appear like inferior copies from Roman work, yet they are at the same time like the urns found in Old Saxony and Franconia.

The glass drinking-vessels are very peculiar, and they are noticed as such in the poetry.[38] The hooped buckets that have been found in men’s graves only, seem also to answer to expressions in convivial descriptions.

Of the tumular remains this general remark may be made, that they richly illustrate the elder poetry. The abundance and variety of the objects which remain after so long a time unperished, give a strong impression of the lavish generosity with which the dead were sent on their way. Answering to these finds there are two descriptions in the “Beowulf,” one in the beginning where the mythic hero Scyld Scefing is (not buried but) shipped off to sea; and the other the funeral of Beowulf with which the poem closes.

The graves also afford illustration negative as well as positive. The comparative rarity of swords is a fact that has been particularly remarked. This too agrees with the poetry in which there are swords of fame, which are known by their own proper names, and which have an established pedigree of illustrious owners at the head of which often stands the name of the divine fabricator, Weland. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that affinity with the tumular deposits is one of the notes of the primary poetry.

[11] “Palæographia Sacra Pictoria.”

[12] “Leland’s laboryouse journey and serche for Englandes antiquities, given as a newe years gifte to King Henry VIII., enlarged by John Bale.” London. 1549.

[13] This is curiously confirmed by the discovery of Waldhere, described below.

[14] As this fire is one that the student is only too often reminded of, a few details may be acceptable. A committee was appointed by the House of Commons to view the Cotton Library after this disaster, and we learn from their Report (1732, folio) that “114 volumes are either lost, burnt, or entirely spoiled, and 98 others damaged so as to be defective; so that the said library at present consists of 746 entire volumes and 98 defective ones.” The collection when purchased had contained 958 volumes. Of late years great pains have been taken for the preservation of the fragments by careful mounting.

[15] Photographed by the Early English Text Society, 1883.

[16] “Die Sprache des Kentischen Psalters,” von Rudolf Zeuner. Halle, 1882. Referring to Mr. Sweet, in Transactions of Philological Society, 1875-6.

[17] “The Gospels of the fower Evangelistes, translated in the olde Saxons tyme out of Latin into the vulgare toung of the Saxons, newly collected out of Auncient Monumentes of the sayd Saxons, and now published for testimonie of the same.” At London. Printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling ouer Aldersgate, 1571.

[18] See Scrivener, “Introduction to Criticism of New Testament,” ed. 2, p. 147.

[19] “Harmonia Symbolica,” Oxford, 1858, p. 61.

[20] Westwood, “Facsimiles,” p. 123.

[21] It was to have been edited by Professor Buckley for the Ælfric Society, but that society closed its career too soon.

[22] They were arranged by Kemble; and have recently been facsimiled by the Ordnance Survey, under the editorship of Mr. W. Basevi Sanders.

[23] Fully described by Mr. W. B. Sanders in the “Annual Report for 1873 of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records,” p. 271 ff.

[24] See the particulars in “Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel.” Clarendon Press, 1865. Introduction, pp. vii., xxv., xxviii.

[25] Stubbs, “Memorials of Saint Dunstan,” p. xxx.

[26] “The Englishman and the Scandinavian,” by Frederick Metcalfe, M.A., 1880, p. 11.

[27] In 1880 these Homilies were edited by Dr. Morris, for the Early English Text Society, under the name of “The Blickling Homilies.”

[28] Hübner, 197.

[29] Hübner, 179, 180, 181.

[30] Kemble, “Archæologia,” Anno 1843; Stephens, “Runic Monuments,” p. 405.

[31] Westwood, “Palæographia Sacra Pictoria,” and “Facsimiles of Miniatures from Irish and Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts.”

[32] Beda, “Church History,” i., 33.

[33] “The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral,” 1845, p. 27.

[34] “The church at Brixworth has plainly had its walls raised, and a clerestory with windows added, even in the Saxon period; assuming that midwall baluster-shafts are to be received as characteristics of this period, for a triple window with such shafts was inserted in the western wall when the walls were so raised.” Ibid., p. 30. See also Haddan and Stubbs, i., 38.

[35] Some of the churches in which these features may be observed are Deerhurst in Gloucestershire; Earl’s Barton, Northants; Benet church in Cambridge; Sompting in Sussex. Figured illustrations may be seen in Parker’s “Introduction to Gothic Architecture.”

[36] Freeman, N. C., ii., 605; “Reign of Rufus” i., 49.

[37] These are described and figured in Bryan Faussett’s “Inventorium Sepulchrale,” ed. Roach Smith; Wylie, “Fairford Graves”; Neville, “Saxon Obsequies”; Akerman, “Pagan Saxondom”; Kemble, “Horæ Ferales.”

[38] “The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,” by T. Wright, p. 424.

CHAPTER III.

THE HEATHEN PERIOD.

For many a petty king ere Arthur came
ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
each upon other, wasted all the land;
and still from time to time the heathen host
swarm’d over seas, and harried what was left.
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
wherein the beast was ever more and more,
but man was less and less, till Arthur came.
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
and after him king Uther fought and died,
but either fail’d to make the kingdom one.
And after these king Arthur for a space,
and thro’ the puissance of his Table round,
drew all their petty princedoms under him,
their king and head, and made a realm, and reign’d.

Alfred Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur.

For the first hundred and fifty years of their life in this island our ancestors were heathens. This time has no place in the English memory through any legendary or literary tradition that is associated with the Saxons. The legends of this time which retain a place in literature are not Saxon but British. This is the era of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. There is no book or piece of Saxon literature that can in any substantial sense be ascribed to the heathen period; for I cannot go with those who assign this high antiquity to the “Beowulf.”

There is a book that claims to be a product of this time, but it is neither Saxon nor heathen. It bears the name of Gildas, a Briton, and it is a fervently Christian book, written in Latin. It has two parts, one being a Lament of the Ruin of Britain, the other a Denunciation of the conduct of her princes. Its genuineness has been questioned, and it has also been ably defended.[39] The strong point in favour of the book is, that it existed and was reputed genuine before the time of Bede, who used it as an authority, and cited it by the author’s name, saying that “Gildas, their [the Britons’] historian,” describes such and such evils in his “lamentable discourse.”[40] Through Bede the information of Gildas has fallen into the stream of English history, and we cease to be aware of the original source. For example, the familiar tradition of the Saxons coming over in “three keels,” ordinarily ascribed to Bede, is taken from Gildas. The date of this author and his work, as now generally accepted, is this:—That he was born in 520, the year of the battle of Mons Badonicus, and that he wrote about 564. But this rests on an ill-jointed and uncertain passage, which was misunderstood by Bede, if the modern interpretation is right.

And when we come to look into that Saxon literature which was subsequently developed, the traces of the heathen period are unexpectedly scanty, and the very remembrance of heathenism though not abolished seems already wonderfully remote. But notwithstanding all this, we cannot treat the subject of Anglo-Saxon literature in any satisfactory manner without some consideration of the heathen period. For, on the one hand, history requires it as a background, and the only appropriate background to our story of the subsequent culture; and, on the other hand, we shall find, by putting the scattered fragments together, that such an impression may be gained as is at least sufficient for a subsidiary purpose.

Among the extant Saxon writings there is one and only one book, in which we detect some possible work of this period. This is in the Chronicles. Between A.D. 450 and 600 we have a sprinkling of curious annals that are naturally calculated to rivet the attention. They are certainly of a very distinct and peculiar cast, and it has been thought that they may possibly represent (through much disguise of transcription) some kind of contemporary records of the heathen period, whether the original shape was that of ballads, or of annals kept in Runes.

These annals are characterised by an occasional touch of poetic fervour, and by several local details which are stimulating to modern curiosity. A few examples may be useful:—

455. Here[41] Hengest and Horsa fought against Wyrtgeorn, the king, in the place that is called Agælesthrep; and his brother Horsa was slain; and after that Hengest took to the kingdom, and Æsc, his son.

457. Here Hengest and Æsc fought against the Brettas in the place that is called Crecganford; and there they slew 4,000 men; and the Brets then abandoned Kentland, and in great terror fled to Londonbury.

473. Here Hengest and Æsc fought against the Walas: and they took countless spoil: and the Walas fled the Engles like fire.

491. Here Ælle and Cissa beset Andredescester, and slew all those that therein dwelt: there was not so much as one Bret remaining.

571. Here Cuthwulf fought with the Bretwalas at Bedcanford, and took four towns: Lygeanburg and Ægelesburg (Aylesbury), Bænesingtun (Bensington) and Egonesham (Ensham).

584. Here Ceawlin and Cutha fought against the Brettas, in the place that is named Fethanleag; and Cutha was slain. And Ceawlin took many towns and countless spoils; and in wrath he returned thence to his own.

There is about these entries something remote and primitive, and something, too, of a contemporaneous form, that penetrates even through the folds of a modern dress.

If we would gather an idea of the religious sentiments of that heathen time, two sources are open to us:—1. Classical authors, especially Cæsar and Tacitus; 2. Incidental notices in domestic writings after the establishment of Christianity. In regard to both these sources we must regulate our expectations in accordance with the circumstances.

1. Cæsar and Tacitus wrote of Germany at large, and not of our particular tribes in the north-west; yet they naturally touch some leading points which are of interest for us here. As to their religion, Cæsar formed a totally different opinion from Tacitus. According to the former, the Germans knew only those visible and palpably useful gods, the Sun and the Moon, and Fire; they had never even heard of any others by report. Tacitus, on the contrary, says, that they worship Hercules and Mars, and, above all, Mercury; that, at the same time, their religious sense is eminently spiritual, for they repudiate the thought of enshrining the celestials within walls, or representing them by the human form; that they venerate groves and forest-glades, and that by the names of their gods they understand mysterious beings visible only to the inward and reverential sight. These estimates are diametrically opposed, and they have been used by an eminent writer to illustrate the difficulty of getting at the truth about the religion of barbarians. But it should be remembered that a long interval had elapsed between Cæsar and Tacitus; an interval, moreover, that was likely to work some, if not all, of the changes required to make these estimates compatible with one another.

Tacitus informs us about the god Tuisco, whose name we still keep in Tuesday;[42] about the supremacy of Mercurius,[43] that is, of Woden; and about the form of the boar as a sacred symbol, which was worn on the person for a charm against danger.[44] He also relates the hideous ceremony of a goddess Nerthus, or Mother Earth, who makes her occasional progresses in a wagon drawn by cows, the attendants being slaves who, when the rite is done, are all drowned in a mysterious lake.[45]

2. From the second source we might have expected more than we find. Knowing that the new religion was not established without struggles and delays and relapses, we might have expected that the traces of the dying superstition would have been numerous in Anglo-Saxon literature. And if we had the domestic writings that were produced in the first Christian ardour, such an expectation might have been partially fulfilled. But in any case we should not expect too much from early and unformed literature. It is the mature fruit of long cultivation to produce a literature that reflects the present. Almost all early literature is conventional, because the spontaneous is not esteemed and is not preserved. But whatever might have happened under other conditions, the fact now is that the literature of our first Christian era is almost entirely lost. It perished in the Danish invasions. The works of Beda are, indeed, preserved, and in one sense they make a large exception to the general statement, yet the exception is not one that is of great import for our immediate purpose. His works, even when he is upon a local subject, breathe little of local curiosity or interest. His was a cloistered life, his view was ever directed through the vista of books and learned correspondence towards the central heart of Christianity, and he deigned but rarely to cast a look behind him at the old superstitions of his people. His writings, which are all in Latin, contribute something, but it is little, towards our knowledge of Saxon heathendom. We are indebted to him for an explicit statement about the meaning of the word “Easter.” It is as follows:—“Rhedmonath is so called from their goddess Rheda, to whom in that month they sacrificed.... With the people of my nation, the old folk of the Angles, the month of April, which is now styled Paschal Month, had formerly the name of Esturmonath, after a goddess of theirs who was called Eostra, and whose festival is kept in that month; and they still designate the Paschal Season from her name, by force of old religious habit keeping the same name for the new solemnity.”[46] This is a sample of what Beda might have told us about the old heathendom, if he had made it a subject of inquiry. The information is the more valuable because it was not forthcoming from any other source. The Germans have an obscure trace of Retmonat; and their ôstarmânoth, which remains as a German name for April (Ostermonat) to the present day, is found as early as Eginhard, the biographer of Charlemagne. But of the deities there is no information anywhere but in Beda. The name of Easter appears related to “East” and the growing strength of the sun. In the Edda a male being, a spirit of light, bears the name of Austri: the German and Saxon tribes seem to have known only a female divinity in this sense. A being with attributes taken from the Dawn and from the Spring of the year, so full of promise and of blessing, might well be tenaciously remembered and retained for Christian use.

We will now proceed to notice the sources which preserve some relics of the old heathenism.