FOOTNOTES.
[1] Geikie, Prehistoric Europe, p. 13.
[2] Geikie, p. 119.
[3] Bunbury (History of Ancient Geography, i., 591) disputes this translation, and contends that Pytheas only said that he travelled (not necessarily on foot) over such parts of the island as were accessible.
[4] See [Note] at the end of this chapter.
[5] Pre-eminently of Sir John Evans, on whose great work on ancient British coins this chapter is founded.
[6] In B.C. 34, 27 and 25 (Dion Cassius, xlix., 38; liii., 22 and 25).
[7] The popular form of this prince’s name, Caractacus, is not justified by the MSS., but one would not think it necessary to restore the true form by the omission of one letter, were it not that the correct spelling brings us nearer to the Welsh equivalent, Caradoc.
[8] That these four legions took part in the Plautian conquest of Britain is undoubted. It may perhaps, however, be questioned whether all sailed with Aulus Plautius at the very outset of the expedition. The fact that the army was divided for the purpose of the crossing into three portions looks rather as if it consisted of three legions: and the fourth might form the nucleus of the reinforcements which came with the Emperor Claudius.
[9] Agricola, xiv.
[10] The name of this tribe is doubtful.
[11] For the reasons in favour of the date 60 instead of 61 (given by Tacitus), see Henderson, Life and Principate of Emperor Nero, p. 477.
[12] Her name seems to have been really Boudicca, meaning the Victorious. The form Boadicea rests on no authority and conveys no meaning, but it is now too late to change it.
[13] Several names of British gods begin like Andraste. A little farther on Dion speaks of the sacred grove of Andate or Victory; and we find dedications to Ancasta, Anociticus, and Antenociticus.
[14] From a misreading of this name is derived the modern Grampian.
[15] These sentences are quoted from Prof. Pelham’s paper on “The Roman Frontier System” (Transactions of Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society, xiv., 170–84), in which the reader will find an admirable statement of the object of the Roman frontier defences and the manner of their construction.
[16] Equivalent to seventy-three and a half English miles: the distance from Wallsend to Bowness.
[17] The term “Menapian” may apply to either country.
[18] Notwithstanding the positive statement of the panegyrist that the victory over Allectus was won by Constantius in person, the merit of it is assigned by some of the historians to the Prætorian Prefect Asclepiodotus. It is, perhaps, impossible to frame a satisfactory narrative out of the very fragmentary materials at our disposal.
[19] It has been shown by Mr. Haverfield that Britannia Prima included Cirencester (Arch. Oxon., p. 220).
[20] They were Branodunum (Brancaster in Norfolk), Gariannonum (Caistor, near Yarmouth), Othona (at the mouth of the Blackwater in Essex?), Regulbium (Reculver in Essex), Rutupiæ (Richborough), Dubræ (Dover), Lemannæ (Lymne), Anderida (close to Beachy Head), Portus Adurni (not yet identified).
[21] Epist. viii. 6.
[22] 2 Kings xvii. 27.
[23] See English Historical Review, xi., 420, for a list of these evidences of Christianity in Britain, drawn up by Mr. Haverfield.
[24] Quotation from Haverfield, Victoria History of Norfolk, i., 282.
[25] See Stevenson’s Asser, p. 166, for reasons against it.
[26] Possibly their name may be connected with that of the Eudoces, a tribe mentioned by Tacitus as neighbours of the Angli. But that identification, if confirmed, would not add much to our knowledge.
[27] It is conjectured, but only conjectured, that it took place at Maes Garmon (the field of Germanus?), near Mold in Flintshire.
[28] It will be observed that this date is eight years later than that given by Tiro. It is probably derived from Bede (i., 15), who, however, does not seem to have had any definite information as to the exact year of the first invasion, though he certainly places it in the reigns of the Emperors Marcian and Valentinian III., that is (according to his inaccurate reckoning) somewhere between 449 and 455.
[29] The site of Fethan-lea is not ascertained. Dr. Guest’s identification of it with Faddiley in Cheshire, and the large consequences thence deduced by him (Origines Celticæ, ii., 287–309), can hardly survive the strenuous attack made on them by Mr. Stevenson in the Eng. Hist. Rev., xvii., 637.
[30] Probably in Wiltshire (ibid., 638).
[31] “Forwurdon,” not the usual peaceful and beautiful “forth-ferdon” (fared forth).
[32] Or Agitius, as Gildas calls him.
[33] The name of Vortigern, inserted here in Gale’s edition, is absent from the best, though found in a few manuscripts.
[34] Isaiah xix. 11.
[35] Nennius makes such a muddle of his chronology that he virtually asserts that Christ was born A.D. 183; and he accepts the idle tales about Brutus, ancestor of the Britons, and descendant of Aeneas, which had been apparently fabricated by Irish students of Virgil two centuries before he wrote.
[36] Sed ipse erat dux bellorum.
[37] This may be either Chester or Leicester.
[38] Ep. i., 7. This is a very important passage, as showing at what an early date British refugees were settled near the mouth of the Loire in such numbers as to be an important element in Gaulish politics. Arvandus, once Prætorian prefect of Gaul, was accused before the Emperor of high treason because he had corresponded with the King of the Visigoths, inviting him to attack “the Britons situated on the Loire,” who were evidently loyal to the empire. In another letter of the same writer (Ep. iii., 9) we find him pleading with his friend Riothamus, a Breton chief (or king), for the restoration of some slaves who have been coaxed away from a friend of his by “Britannis clam sollicitantibus”. This same Riothamus, described by Jordanes as “rex Brittonum,” fought with Euric, King of the Visigoths, on behalf of the empire (Jord. de rebus Geticis, xlv.).
[39] Excerpta e Prisci historia, p. 199 (ed. Bonn).
[40] De Bello Gothico, ii., 6.
[41] De Bello Gothico, iv., 20.
[42] Between 575 and 578, or possibly between 585 and 590.
[43] This story is told in similar but by no means identical words in an early life of Pope Gregory, probably written by a monk of Whitby who was a contemporary of Bede’s, and discovered by Paul Ewald: Hist. Aufsätze an G. Waitz gewidmet. It has been suggested that Bede copied from this biography. To me it seems more probable that Bede and the biographer, independently of one another, repeated the common traditio majorum.
[44] Benedict I., if the earlier date is correct; otherwise Pelagius II. On the fourth day of Gregory’s journey a grasshopper alighted on the page of the Bible which he was reading during the noontide halt. “Ecce locusta,” he said, and interpreted the sign as meaning Loco sta, “Stay where you are”. In that hour arrived the papal emissary commanding him to return to Rome.
[45] “Inter Langobardorum gladios”: a favourite expression of Gregory’s.
[46] Bede, Hist. Eccl., i., 25. Evidently the defeat sustained (according to the Chronicle) in 568 at the hands of Ceawlin, king of Wessex, had been more than made good.
[47] This follows from the date of St. Martin’s death, which was about 402.
[48] Archiepiscopus genti Anglorum ordinatus est (Hist. Eccl., i., 27). Observe that Bede without hesitation uses the word Angli to denote the whole Anglo-Saxon-Jutish nationality.
[49] See Kemble, The Saxons in England, i., 148.
[50] In the county of Flint about ten miles south of Chester: not to be confounded with Bangor on the Menai Straits or with the Irish monastery of Bangor in County Down.
[51] See H. A. Wilson in Mason’s Mission of St. Augustine, pp. 248–52.
[52] As in the case of the stigmata of St. Francis, modern science has shown that it is possible to accept the historic truth of this narrative without admitting the hypothesis, either of miracle or of fraud.
[53] That of Richard of Hexham (circa 1141. Prologue to his History). Simeon of Durham (circa 1104) says that “all the country between Tees and Tyne was then [in the seventh century] a waste wilderness, the habitation of wild animals, and therefore subject to no man’s sway” (Vita Oswaldi, cap. i.).
[54] “Ond rixode twelf gear, ond he timbrode Bebbanburh, seo waes aerost mid hegge betyned, ond aefter mid wealle.” Mr. Bates, whose History of Northumberland is a most helpful guide to this part of our history, reminds us that this “hackneyed passage is an interpolation of a Kentish scribe in the eleventh century”. Still, though we may not quote it as a first-rate authority, there seems no reason for rejecting it altogether.
[55] Hist. Eccl., i., 34.
[56] Or as the Saxon chronicler quaintly puts it, “that if Welshmen would not be kith and kin (sibbe) with us they should by Saxon hands perish”.
[57] We may probably conjecture that the rapid far-reaching campaigns of early English kings, such as Ethelfrid, were rendered possible by the still solid condition of the great Roman roads, which in the Middle Ages fell grievously into decay. Thus even the civilisation of the Roman empire fought for the barbarians.
[58] This remark was made by Professor Freeman.
[59] In telling this story Bede hints that Paulinus received by supernatural means the particulars of an earlier supernatural appearance; but he does not put forward this theory very confidently, and we may, perhaps, sufficiently account for the incident if we suppose that Paulinus himself, unknown at that time to Edwin, was the chief actor in the first scene, the memory of which he revived at an opportune time to strengthen the wavering faith of the king.
[60] It must be remembered that this is the Anglian version of the story, possibly unjust to Cadwallon, and that the Britons had the wrongs of two centuries to avenge.
[61] Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii., 89.
[62] By Skene, u.s., ii., 63.
[63] Nennius (Hist. Brit., § 64) says “in bello Catscaul”. Cat is an old English word for battle; caul is probably corrupted from guaul, the word elsewhere used by Nennius for the Roman wall (cf. §§ 23 and 38).
[64] Brut y Tywysogion, s.a., 681.
[65] “Urbs regia” (Bede, iii., 6); “urbs munitissima” (Simeon of Durham, Historia Regum, § 48).
[66] Generally identified with Oswestry (Oswald’s tree) in Shropshire.
[67] By Freeman: Norman Conquest, i., 36 (3rd ed.).
[68] Except parts of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire surrounding Dorchester.
[69] “A viro gentili nomine Ricberto” (Bede, Hist. Ecc., ii., 15).
[70] In some way which is not explained, Ethelhere was himself “the author of the war”. Possibly as suggested by Mr. Bates (Archæologia Aeliana, xix., 182–91), his marriage with a great niece of Edwin gave him some claim to the throne of Deira.
[71] That of Swithelm.
[72] The whole of this story about the so-called Dalfinus, Archbishop of Lyons, as related by Wilfrid’s biographer is encompassed with historical difficulties. See Bright’s Early English Church History, pp. 218 ff. (3rd ed.).
[73] An attempt to arrange the recurrences of Easter in a cycle of 19 years.
[74] The southern Irish conformed in 634; the northern Irish in 692; the northern Picts, 710; the monks of Iona, 716; the Britons in Wales, 768.
[75] Chiefly Celtic. See Bright’s Early English Church History, p. 237, n. 2.
[76] For the reasons for dating Oswy’s death in 671 rather than a year earlier according to the text of Bede, see Plummer’s note on H. E., iv., 5.
[77] Hagustald.
[78] In Hrypum.
[79] This is Eddius’ account of the transaction. According to Bede a dispute arose between Egfrid and Wilfrid. The latter was deposed and then his diocese was divided.
[80] Site not known.
[81] P. 174.
[82] The identification of this place with Wanborough, near Swindon, is disproved by Stevenson (Eng. Hist. Rev., xvii., 638).
[83] Gesta Regum Anglorum, i., 35 (first recension).
[84] Weorthige.
[85] Gaers-tun.
[86] Gedal-land. Mr. Seebohm translates “land divided into strips”.
[87] There is evidently an omission of some such words.
[88] Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, p. 150.
[89] The nature of the difference between the tun and the ham has perhaps yet to be discovered. For brevity’s sake the former word only will be used in the following discussion. Neither “town” nor “township” is a quite satisfactory translation.
[90] The theory that place-names containing the element ing necessarily points to a settlement by a community, though generally accepted, is contested by Prof. Earle and Mr. Stevenson, who consider that ing is sometimes merely the equivalent of the genitive singular (Eng. Hist. Rev., iv., 356).
[91] Such as those in Seebohm’s Village Community.
[92] By Vinogradoff, l.c., 176; compare also Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 337.
[93] Germania, xxvi.
[94] From caruca, a plough. There is a general correspondence between the two terms hide and carucate, but it would not be safe to treat them as always precisely equivalent to one another.
[95] The size of a hide might partly depend on the nature of the soil. Obviously in some soils a team of six oxen would accomplish a much larger day’s work than in others. Kemble, The Saxons in England, i., 101, argues for a hide of about 33 acres.
[96] From virga = a yard.
[97] For convenience of reference the following table is appended, but it must be remembered that these are rather average results than scientifically exact formulæ. See Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, p. 239, for varying sizes of Hides, Virgates and Bovates.
1 Bovate or Ox-gang = 15 acres.
2 Bovates = 1 Virgate or Yard-land = 30 acres.
8 Bovates or 4 Virgates = 1 Carucate or Hide = 120 acres.
[98] As alleged by Mr. Seebohm.
[99] The laws of Ine which speak of the subjection of a free man to a lord are 3, 21, 27, 39, 67 and 74.
[100] Law 43.
[101] Law 16. Ceorles birele evidently means a ceorl’s female slave.
[102] Vinogradoff (Growth of the Manor, 202) minimises the element of personal slavery in the early Anglo-Saxon community: “Even in the earliest stage of English life it could not be said that English society was a slave-holding one.... Slavery turns out not to be a fit economic and social basis for a primitive, half-agricultural, half-pastural society: the slaves are difficult to keep and awkward to deal with.... They are mostly provided with small households of their own and used as coloni.”
[103] Ine, 70. The amber is said to have contained four bushels, but Maitland (Domesday Book, etc., p. 440, n. 6) doubts its having been so large.
[104] Ine, 11, 12.
[105] There seems to have been a tendency as legislation advanced to increase the distance in respect of wergilds between the king and his subjects.
[106] Chadwick, Anglo-Saxon Institutions, pp. 144–48.
[107] See Chadwick, chapter viii., for references on this point.
[108] Chadwick (Excursus, iv.) takes a different view and practically denies the elective power of the witan.
[109] There are some indications that in early times the shilling of Wessex may have contained only 4 peningas.
[110] Heinrich Leo.
[111] This name, or rather Cruland, was afterwards corrupted into Croyland.
[112] Ep. 73 (Mon. Hist. Germ., Epist. iii., 340).
[113] It is now recognised that the dates in the Chronicle from 754 to 851 are two, or in some cases three years behind the true dates.
[114] The words from Haerethaland which follow in the text are thought by Steenstrup (Normannerne, ii., 15–20) to be an interpolation. In the following chapters the example of the Chronicle will generally be followed, in calling the Scandinavian invaders Danes, without entering on the debated question which of them came from Denmark proper and which from Norway.
[115] See Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom, pp. 139–42.
[116] Here is simply the Anglo-Saxon equivalent for army; but in the Chronicle it almost invariably means the Danish army, while fyrd is the word used for the English troops, which were in the nature of a militia.
[117] This fact has been especially emphasised by Freeman, Norman Conquest, i., 43–45.
[118] This date, as will be seen, is not that of his original burial, which probably took place near the beginning of July, 862, but the date of the “translation” of his remains to the cathedral, which was accomplished more than a century later.
[119] Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., 249, and 258.
[120] The translation of some of the terms used is conjectural.
[121] Liber Pontificalis, ii., 148 (ed. Duchesne).
[122] This restoration of the Schola Saxonum rests only on the authority of William of Malmesbury, and is doubted, but hardly disproved, by Mr. Stevenson in his edition of Asser, pp. 245–46. Notwithstanding the high authority of Monseigneur Duchesne, quoted by Mr. Stevenson, it does not seem to me probable that the scholæ peregrinorum were essentially military establishments, though they may have assumed somewhat of that character under the stress of the Saracen invasions in the ninth century.
[123] Charles the Bald was at this time thirty-two years of age. Ethelwulf cannot have been less than fifty and may have been considerably older.
[124] The reader is referred to the Appendix for an account of the controversies which have arisen respecting this book. It is enough to say here that we seem to be justified in accepting it as a contemporary, and in the main a truthful account of the life of the great king. It ends, however, with the year 887.
[125] Tunc ille statim tollens librum de manu sua magistrum adiit et legit. Quo lecto matri retulit et recitavit.—Asser, De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi, § 23.
[126] As Mr. Stevenson suggests, if et be a copyist’s mistake for qui (both represented by contractions), the difficulty would vanish.
[127] This is pointed out by Mr. Oman in “Collected Essays” in Alfred the Great.
[128] Florence of Worcester’s words (borrowed from St. Edmund’s earliest biographer Abbo), “Ex antiquorum Saxonum prosapia oriundus,” seem, according to the usage of the time, to refer to the Old Saxons of the continent. If he had meant merely to say “from an old Saxon family,” he would probably have said “antiqua” rather than “antiquorum”.
[129] Studies in Church Dedications (ii., 327), by Miss Arnold-Forster.
[130] In describing the events of this year the writer follows the guidance of the late Mr. W. H. Simcox, who personally identified most of the battle-sites, and the results of whose investigations are contained in an excellent paper in the English Historical Review, i., 218–34.
[131] The title of the Danish battle leaders, next in rank to the king.
[132] On philological grounds Mr. Stevenson disputes the propriety of this translation and asserts that Aesc must be the name of a person. The present appearance of Ashdown Hills seems, however, to correspond admirably with Asser’s description. It is better not to complicate the discussion by an argument derived from the strange figure of a White Horse (so-called) cut upon their northern side, as that figure, with all its picturesque interest, is not a safe guide to a historical identification.
[133] At this point the Chronicle of St. Neots, a late and untrustworthy authority written perhaps early in the twelfth century, inserts the well-known story of the burning of the cakes, which does not form part of the genuine text of Asser’s Life.
[134] The site of this fortress has been much discussed but is not yet satisfactorily settled. See Stevenson’s Asser, p. 262.
[135] Edington in Wiltshire, a little east of Westbury. Near this place is another White Horse, at Bratton Castle, but we have not sufficient evidence to connect this with Alfred’s victory.
[136] This was pointed out half a century ago by Dr. Reinhold Schmid, the accurate German editor of the Anglo-Saxon laws.
[137] It is interesting to note that the Watling Street is still the chief boundary between the counties of Warwick and Leicester. Through a large part of its course the London and North Western Railway so nearly coincides with this old Roman road that the traveller faring northwards may consider himself to be looking forth from the right-hand window over the “Danelaw” and from the left over “Saxony”.
[138] The value of the mark of pure gold is not yet clearly ascertained. Mr. Chadwick (Studies in Anglo-Saxon Institutions, p. 50) argues from this passage that a single mark of gold = 300 scillings, and that the fine hereby imposed was 1,200 scillings, equal to the wergild of a West Saxon noble. But in that case one would have expected to have some more distinct indication of rank than is contained in the words “gif man ofslagen weorthe”.
[139] For some valuable suggestions on the mysterious subject of Alfred’s diseases see Plummer’s Life and Times of Alfred the Great, pp. 28, 214.
[140] Plummer, Two Saxon Chronicles, ii., civ.
[141] Quotations are given from Mr. Sedgefield’s translation, which has the great merit of distinguishing Alfred’s interpolations by a different type from the original text.
[142] Against the genuineness of the passage are its omission from Ã, the earliest and best MS. of the Chronicle, from Asser, and from the original text of Florence of Worcester. See Stevenson, Asser, pp. 287–90.
[143] Professor Vinogradoff in his essay on Folkland contributed to the English Historical Review, vol. viii.; further illustrated by his Growth of the Manor.
[144] “Terra popularis, communi jure et sine scripto possessa.” This was Spelman’s definition (1626), and Vinogradoff shows good ground for reverting to it with a slight modification, instead of adopting Allen’s theory that the folkland was land owned by the nation like the ager publicus of Rome.
[145] See Cnut’s laws, ii., 13.
[146] Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, No. 317; Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, No. 558.
[147] Not 893–97 as Chronicle.
[148] Earle, Two Saxon Chronicles (1865), p. xvi.
[149] Reginonis Chronicon, a. 891.
[150] In Eng. Hist. Rev. (1898), xiii., 444, Mr. W. C. Abbott argues that Hasting is possibly identical with Hásteinn, one of the first settlers of Iceland.
[151] Probably; but the Chronicle gives the date 901, and Mr. Stevenson, Eng. Hist. Rev. (1898), xiii., 71, argues strongly for 899.
[152] Words and Places, pp. 175–76.
[153] Might it not be added “and from the Humber?”
[154] The Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland (1856).
[155] Edward’s reign probably lasted from 900 to 924, but owing to discrepancies between the MSS. of the Chronicles no date in the reign can be stated with certainty, the differences varying from one to three years.
[156] Offa calls it his palatium regale in one of his charters (Birch, Cart. Sax., 240).
[157] Especially Freeman, whose words are quoted in the rest of this paragraph. But see also for a later vindication of the correctness of the chronicler’s statement, Plummer, Saxon Chronicles, ii., 131.
[158] Historical Essays, i., 60, 62.
[159] Norman Conquest, i., 59.
[160] Robertson, Skene and Lang.
[161] Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, ii., 397.
[162] It was pointed out in the Athenæum for Nov. 4, 1905, that this place rather than Farringdon, in Berkshire, corresponds with the Farndune of the Chronicle.
[163] Adolf, son of Baldwin of Flanders.
[164] Heinskringla, Story of Haarfager, 41 and 42.
[165] It was probably at this time that Athelstan, as we learn from William of Malmesbury, rased to the ground the fortress which the Danes had aforetime built in York, “that there might be no place in which these perfidious ones could take refuge,” and generously divided among his men the vast booty which he found there.
[166] By Symeon of Durham, not by the Chronicle, which here is singularly barren of information except such as is contained in the “Lay of Brunanburh”.
[167] The twelfth century chronicler, Florence of Worcester, says that with these ships he entered the Humber; and this statement has been frequently copied by later historians. It is not, however, to be found in any contemporary or nearly contemporary record, and it is now generally regarded with suspicion, for the obvious reason that an invader, coming from Ireland with the intention of co-operating with the Kings of Cumberland and Scotland, would be more likely to land on the western than on the eastern coast of Britain.
[168] Especially since it was turned into spirited yet closely literal English verse by Tennyson, from whose poem a few passages are here quoted.
[169] William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, ii., 135.
[170] Ibid., 134.
[171] Probably of the tenth century, therefore nearly contemporary.
[172] See Plummer, Saxon Chronicles, ii., 137, and Freeman, Hist. Essays, i., 10–15, for a full discussion of the question.
[173] See Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 656.
[174] Possibly Chesterfield.
[175] Life of Dunstan, by B. (a Saxon monk, nearly contemporary).
[176] The celebrated story of the Devil and the hot tongs is not told by any contemporary of Dunstan’s, but by the much-romancing Osbern about 130 years after his death. The identical pair of tongs with which the saint is said to have seized the Devil’s nose is still shown at the priory of Mayfield in Sussex.
[177] An excellent summing up of the whole case will be found in E. W. Robertson’s Historical Essays, p. 192.
[178] The short reign of Edwy furnishes 150 pages to the Cartularium Saxonicum.
[179] The Chronicle and the biographers agree in postponing Dunstan’s return till after Edgar’s accession to the undivided realm, but his signatures to charters seem to require an earlier date.
[180] See Robertson’s, Historical Essays, p. 211.
[181] As pointed out by Mr. W. H. Stevenson in the English Historical Review (1898), xiii., 506, an important attestation to the meeting of the kings (though not to the water procession) is furnished by the ecclesiastical author Elfric, himself a contemporary of Edgar and a pupil and friend of bishop Ethelwold. In his poetical Life of St. Swithin, written about 996, he contrasts the happy days of Edgar with the disastrous reign of his son, and says: “All the kings of this island of Cymri and of Scots, eight kings, came to Edgar once upon a time on one day and they all bowed to Edgar’s government”.
[182] Robertson’s Historical Essays, p. 203.
[183] Ibid., p. 169.
[184] As stated by Robertson, ibid., p. 168.
[185] See Freeman’s Historical Essays, first series, 15–25, for a refutation of the legend of Elfrida’s marriage.
[186] See Robertson’s Historical Essays, pp. 166–71. There is no evidence that Elfrida shared her husband’s coronation, but she is the first king’s wife after Judith to sign charters as Regina.
[187] Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus, 700.
[188] Especially by Sir H. Howorth, Archæologia, xlv., 235–50.
[189] The following passages are almost all taken from the Peterborough version of the Chronicle which was based for this part of the narrative on a Canterbury Chronicle. Hence, doubtless, the fulness of the entries relating to Kent.
[190] Now corrupted into Skutchamfly Barrow, eight and a half miles from the White Horse in Berkshire.
[191] The term Danegeld seems to be properly applicable to the tax imposed on the king’s subjects in order to provide for the payment to the Danes. The payment itself is generally called gafol in the Chronicle.
[192] It is stated in Ethelred’s Treaty with Olaf (Liebermann, i., 220–228) that the sum promised to the invaders was “22,000 pounds of gold and silver”. The document is, on other grounds, an interesting one, as it seems to show a serious effort to secure permanent peace between the two nations.
[193] Stubbs’ Constitutional History, i., 118, 623.
[194] Freeman, Hist. of Norm. Conq., i., 279.
[195] Admirably told to English-speaking readers in Longfellow’s “Saga of King Olaf,” which is, in fact, a paraphrase of this part of the Heimskringla.
[196] The name of this well-known historical personage was undoubtedly Knut or Cnut. It is so written both in the Scandinavian Sagas and in the English Chronicle. But the Latinised form Canutus preserves the remembrance of a helping vowel which may have been often used, even by contemporaries, at least in England. At this day the Danish name Knothe is always pronounced Kinnoté in Northumberland. The important point is to remember that the accent is on the last syllable: Canúte, not Cánute.
[197] In Hampshire, near Portsmouth.
[198] This is Freeman’s suggestion, Norman Conquest, i., 415.
[199] This also is Freeman’s suggestion (u.s., i., 411).
[200] See Freeman, u.s., i., 737–40.
[201] As suggested by J. R. Green, Conquest of England, 479.
[202] Author of the tract, De Obsessione Dunelmi, added to the history of Symeon of Durham.
[203] See supra, p. 396.
[204] In the reign of Indulph (954–962) according to a Pictish chronicle quoted by Skene, Celtic Scotland, i., 365.
[205] It does not appear necessary to discuss the previous question of the alleged “cession of Lothian” by Edgar, the evidence for which is very slender.
[206] As to this identification, see Skene, Celtic Scotland, i., 397, 405–6.
[207] Certainly not 1031, as stated in the Chronicle. Canute’s presence at Conrad’s coronation makes this date impossible. So considerable an error throws doubt on the chronological accuracy of, at any rate, this part of the Chronicle.
[208] In Scania, which then belonged to Denmark.
[209] This story of the forged letter is taken from the author of the Encomium Emmæ, who, as a contemporary, and as one who actually conversed with Queen Emma, seems to be entitled to credence, notwithstanding some strange misstatements, due, perhaps, rather to insincerity than to ignorance.
[210] Mr. Plummer (Saxon Chronicles, ii., 210–15) argues that Godwine’s hostile action towards the Etheling was taken in the interest not of Harold but of Harthacnut.
[211] Freeman, Norman Conquest, i., 489–501 and 779–87.
[212] Son of Uhtred and nephew of Eadwulf Cutel.
[213] Or Leges Mar chiarum, a digest of which was published in 1705 by William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle (a later edition in 1747).
[214] It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that some even of the special terms of the Leges Marchiarum are also to be found in the laws of Edgar and Ethelred. Such are foul or ful for “guilty,” and trod for the track of a stolen beast.
[215] Compare Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, p. 144; Chadwick, Anglo-Saxon Institutions, 239–48, and the remarkable article by Mr. W. J. Corbett in vol. xiv. of Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, N.S., on the “Tribal Hidage”.
[216] Cnut, ii., 15 (in Liebermann, i., 320).
[217] Rutland was not, however, formed into a separate county till after the Norman Conquest.
[218] Edgar, iii., 5 (ibid., 202).
[219] Burg is, of course, one of the best-known words of the common Teutonic stock. It is enshrined in Luther’s hymn “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,” and in hunting for the traces of Roman encampments in Hesse and Nassau, I have found that the name by which they are best known in the countryside is “Die alte Burg”.
[220] Ine, 45 (Liebermann, i., 108); Alfred, 40 (ibid., 72).
[221] Maitland, Domesday Book, etc., p. 184.
[222] IV., 2, 4 and 5 (Liebermann, i., 210).
[223] If Ethelfled’s fortress of Scergeat may be identified with Shrewsbury.
[224] As Freeman puts it: “I believe the cause of this distinction [between Somerset and Northamptonshire] to be that West Saxon England was made only once, while Mercian England had to be made twice” (“The Shire and the Gâ” in English Towns and Districts, p. 124).
[225] Some of these names are probably contained in that curious document, the Tribal Hidage, on which Mr. Corbett has commented in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. xiv., N.S.
[226] See Chadwick, Anglo-Saxon Institutions, 262.
[227] If any exception is to be made to this statement it will be with reference to the half-independent earls of Bamburgh.
[228] The wers are calculated in the Scandinavian or, perhaps, Northumbrian money, the thrymsas, each equivalent to three penings.
[229] See Vinogradoff (The Growth of the Manor, p. 131) on this illustration of “the arrogant superiority of the Danish conquerors”. He remarks on the growth of the pretensions of the invaders since the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum which put the Northmen warriors only on the same level as the twelf-hyndmen, or ordinary thegns.
[230] Schmid, p. 371; Liebermann, p. 444.
[231] This is Professor Vinogradoff’s view, Growth of the Manor, p. 233.
[232] Edward, i., 1 (Liebermann, i., 138).
[233] Edgar, iv., 3 (Liebermann, i., 210). This law is important as it helps us clearly to distinguish between burh, a borough, and borh, an association for mutual defence and for the enforcement of mutual responsibility.
[234] Cnut, ii., 20 (ibid., i., 322).
[235] Ethelred, viii., 22 (Liebermann, i., 266).
[236] See Maitland, Domesday Book, etc., p. 260. He thinks it probable that many grants of similar privileges of an earlier date have perished.
[237] The German sache, preserved in our expression “for God’s sake,” and the like (Maitland, Domesday Book, etc., p. 84).
[238] Sco ealde Hlaefdige is the term used in the Chronicle to describe the queen-dowager. It will be remembered that there was in Wessex a peculiar distaste to the title “Queen”.
[239] By Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., 124–25 and 615.
[240] For some years the county of Huntingdon was strangely added to Northumbria as a portion of his earldom. For the complicated question of the limits of the earldoms under Edward, see Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. ii., note G.
[241] Freeman, u.s.
[242] Welisce menn.—Of course the word Wealas and its derivations meant simply non-Teutonic and had no necessary connexion with the British population of what we now call Wales.
[243] Some doubt has been thrown on the early connexion of Godwine with Kent.
[244] “Mycelne ende thes folces,” says the Peterborough chronicler; “thirty good thegns,” say the Abingdon and Worcester chroniclers, “besides other folk.”
[245] Literally “had raised up un-law and deemed un-dooms”.
[246] This is Mr. Plummer’s excellent suggestion for the interpretation of a passage in the Chronicle which had previously baffled the commentators.
[247] It must always be remembered that we have nothing but bare conjecture to go upon for the date of Harold’s visit to Normandy. There are some reasons for placing it much earlier than 1064.
[248] Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii., 300.
[249] The following description of this battle is taken for the most part from the Saga of Harold Hardrada in the Heimskringla, and has no doubt a good deal of the character of fiction.
[250] Wace (ed. Malet, p. 60), who gives the number on his father’s report.
[251] Wace, author of the Roman de Rou. The question of the existence of this “palisade” has been discussed at great length by Mr. Round who denies, and by Mr. Archer and Miss Norgate who affirm, its existence (see English Historical Review, vol. ix., 1894). The question remains full of difficulty, the doubt being whether to attach most weight to the obscure utterance of one writer or to the silence of many. The conclusion to which the present writer is disposed to come is that there was some sort of hastily constructed fence, meant as a protection against cavalry, but that in the actual battle, which was waged chiefly between opposing bodies of infantry, it played an unimportant part and may have been soon thrust out of the way, as much by the defenders as by the assailants of the position.
[252] Made by Baring, Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xx., 1905.
[253] After the death of Osred in 716 the genealogy of the Northumbrian kings becomes uncertain.
[254] The pedigree of all these kings is uncertain. All that can be said of them is that “their right ancestry goeth to Cerdic”.