| [164] | The Danish and Saxon languages came from the same branch—that is, from the Teutonic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Indic, Hellenic, Italic, Teutonic, Celtic, are all members of this family. But this again came from a parent speech, called the Aryan, which originated in central Asia. There are no literary monuments of this parent left. |
| [165] | The editor has elsewhere maintained that our country was not ruled in Saxon times by a precise Heptarchy nor even by an Octarchy; but the reader may find in Sharon Turner’s Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, first edition published in 1799, page 253, a chapter devoted to “The History of the Anglo-Saxon Octarchy to the Victory of Oswald over Cadwallon, A.D. 634.” |
| [166] | Sigebert was the fifth King of the East-Angles. Edward the Elder is said to have erected halls for students—a regular system of academical education may not, however, have been introduced till the 12th century. The university received special privileges from Edward III., 1333, and it renounced the supremacy of the Pope in 1534. |
| [167] | “Cambridge is the Caer Graunt of Nennius.... The position of this fortified town was well chosen, for it is situated on one of the most commanding spots to be found in the district. Its site is the projecting extremity of a low range of hills, backed by a slight depression or broad and shallow valley. On at least two of its sides the ground fell away rather rapidly from the foot of the ramparts, and the river defended the fourth. “It is highly probable that the Saxon town of Grantabrigge stood upon the same site as the Roman Camboritum.” Babington’s Ancient Cambridgeshire, 1853. |
| [168] | “It must however be added that the Castle Hill at Cambridge, which is situated within the walls of Camboritum, is manifestly one of the Ancient British tumuli, so often found to occupy commanding posts and to have been fortified in after times. The lower part of the hill is natural, but the upper half in all probability artificial.” Ibid. |
| [169] | Not Ermine Street, but Akeman Street. See [Map]. Also Babington’s Map in “Ancient Cambridgeshire.” |
| [170] | “The quinquaine of Pasche” is intended for the fifth day of Easter. Pascha, the Jewish Passover, is here put as the equivalent of Easter. |
| [171] | On the approach of Sulla (87 B.C.) Marius fled from Rome to Ostia, thence by the sea coast to Minturnæ and hid himself in the marshes in the south of Latium. |
| [172] | See note, page [218]. |
| [173] | “His rule at Malmesbury was tyrannical, and the story runs that William picked him out, as being more of a soldier than a monk, as the fittest man to rule the great house of Peterborough, now that it was threatened by Hereward and his fellow outlaws in the fens.” Freeman’s Norm. Conq., Vol. IV., page 458. |