CHAPTER IV.
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE HEROIC POEMS.
In an earlier chapter (p. [3]) it was mentioned that the English heroic poems are usually ascribed to the seventh or eighth centuries. We must now try to see whether any means are to be found of dating their composition more precisely.
Unfortunately very few references to the poems or their subjects occur in works which can be dated with anything like certainty. The most important is contained in a letter from Alcuin to Hygebald, bishop of Lindisfarne, written in the year 797: "When priests dine together let the words of God be read. It is fitting on such occasions to listen to a reader, not to a harpist, to the discourses of the fathers, not to the poems of the heathen. What has Ingeld to do with Christ? Strait is the house; it will not be able to hold them both. The king of heaven will have no part with so-called kings who are heathen and damned; for the one king reigns eternally in heaven, the other, the heathen, is damned and groans in hell. In your houses the voices of those who read should be heard, not a rabble of those who make merry in the streets[33]." From this passage it is clear that at the end of the eighth century there were current in Northumbria certain poems, probably well known poems, dealing with a heathen king named Ingeld, whom we need not hesitate to identify with Ingeld the son of Froda, who figures in Beowulf. Of course it is not at all likely that the reference is to Beowulf itself, for the part played by Ingeld in that poem is insignificant.
Acquaintance with the subjects of the heroic poems is shown also by a mistake in the Historia Brittonum, 31, which dates probably from about the same period. This passage contains a genealogy, tracing the descent of Hengest and Horsa from Woden and of Woden from Geat. The latter part is known also from many other texts, in which it regularly runs as follows: Woden Frealafing, Frealaf Frithuwulfing, Frithuwulf Finning, Finn Godwulfing, Godwulf Geating. In the Historia Brittonum however in place of Finn Godwulfing we find Finn qui fuit Folcwald—which is clearly due to confusion with Finn the son of Folcwalda (Finn Folcwalding), a Frisian king mentioned in Beowulf and Widsith, as well as in the fragment which bears his name.
Further evidence is afforded by names of persons and places. There can be no doubt that even in the seventh century it was customary to take the names of famous men of the past or present. Danihel, bishop of Winchester (d. 745), and Iohannes, bishop of Hexham (d. 721), are instances which no one will dispute. In the Durham Liber Vitae we meet with the names Aethan and Cundigeorn. It must not be assumed that persons bearing such names were necessarily of Celtic blood. Indeed the spelling suggests rather that they were Englishmen called after Aidan and Kentigern. Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury (655-664), doubtless derived his name from Pope Deusdedit (615-618), while the West Saxon king Ceadwalla (685-688) was in all probability called after the British king of the same name, who died in 642. It is extremely likely that Hlothhere, king of Kent (673-685), obtained his name from one of the Frankish kings, Lothair II (584-628) or Lothair III (656-670), for the element hloth- is not used elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon names. Even in the sixth century we hear of English princes who seem to be called after Frankish or Gothic kings of the same period. Thus Tytla, the name of the father of the East Anglian king Redwald, is probably taken from the Gothic king Totila; it is not of an English type. Two sons of the Northumbrian king Ida were called Theodric and Aethelric, perhaps after the Gothic king Theodric and his successor Athalaric. As the element theod- is somewhat rare in England, it is not unlikely that the Northumbrian prince Theodbald, a son of Aethelric, derived his name from the Frankish king Theodbald.
The occurrence of such names as Widsith and Beowulf (Biuulf) in the Liber Vitae shows that names were taken not only from contemporary persons and from books but also from native poems and traditions. Indeed researches which have been made in this direction have demonstrated that names of the latter type were extremely popular. But it has not been sufficiently pointed out that such names occur most frequently in the earliest times and gradually become more rare—a fact which is of considerable importance for our purpose. The total number of personal names found in the five poems Beowulf, Finn, Waldhere, Widsith and Deor is 132[34], and of these altogether 57 recur as names of persons mentioned in English historical documents. Over forty of these names belonged to persons who appear to have lived, or at any rate to have been born, before the end of the seventh century[35], while at least thirteen of them are unknown after the same period. To the latter class belong the important names Widsith and Beowulf.
In local nomenclature it is possible to trace at least 51 of the 132 names mentioned above. In some cases these names may have been taken direct from the story, e.g. when we find in Kent two localities close together called Hokes clif and Hengstes earas (Birch, Cart. Sax., III 1000). A similar case, very frequently cited[36], is that of Beowanhammes hecgan and Grendeles mere in Wiltshire (ib. II 677), though neither of these names is included in our list. But in the majority of cases it is more probable that the place-name is taken in the first instance from that of a previous landowner, and consequently that the connection with the story is only secondary. Hence it is important to notice that out of the 51 place-names no less than 19 contain names which are not borne by persons in historical documents. The explanation of this lies doubtless in the fact that the place-names for the most part became fixed at a very early period, and consequently that they exhibit an earlier stratum of personal nomenclature.
If we add the place-names to the personal names the total number of heroic names found in England in historical documents seems to be 76. Out of this number only seven apparently are limited to persons born after the end of the seventh century, and of these again almost all occur in the course of the eighth century. These statistics show clearly that such names were most popular during the sixth and seventh centuries, especially if we bear in mind that the materials for this period are incomparably less than those for the following three centuries. Hence, if we are justified in drawing any conclusions from nomenclature, the popularity of the heroic stories was distinctly on the wane in Alcuin's time.
The argument from nomenclature holds good of course only for showing the popularity of the stories; it cannot prove the existence of the poems which we now possess. In one case however we may probably make an exception. The name Widsith is obviously fictitious[37] and based on the travels with which the minstrel is credited. The introduction, in which alone the name occurs, is in all probability a later composition than the rest of the poem[38] and designed to explain what follows. It is of importance therefore to note that, if we may judge from the place in which this name occurs in the Liber Vitae, it must have been borne by a person of the seventh century.