[109] Prof. Morsbach would assign the monument to the time of Aldfrith, who reigned 685-705 (not 725, a printer's error in Vietor's book).
[110] In his own narrative of course he often uses forms which must have been antiquated in his time (e.g. Vurtigerno, Aeduini, Aeodbaldo) and also foreign forms in the names of persons of Continental origin (e.g. Agilberctus). But it may safely be assumed that all these cases are derived from earlier documents.
[111] I.e. Oswiu (Oswald); cf. Baduuini, i.e. Baduwini. I have not taken account of the possibility that -uiu originally contained an -h-. If that could be proved the present discussion would be practically superfluous.
[112] Cf. my Studies, p. [247]. It will be seen that the number of cases in which M, B and C agree in f (for ƀ) is very small.
NOTE III. LITERARY INFLUENCE IN BEOWULF.
I am not aware that any serious argument has been brought forward to show that Beowulf was a literary production. It is customary indeed, especially among English scholars, to use the word 'write' with reference to its composition; but this is frequently due to mere carelessness. Nevertheless there is undoubtedly a widespread reluctance to admit that the poem came into existence without the use of writing—partly on account of its length and partly because its technique is of rather an advanced order. The first of these difficulties has now been definitely settled by the Servian poems, as we shall see in the next Note. Here we need concern ourselves only with the second.
The most definite pronouncement on this subject known to me is contained in Prof. Ker's book, The Dark Ages, p. 250. "Beowulf and Waldere," he says, "are the work of educated men, and they were intended, no doubt, as books to read. They are not, like the Elder Edda, a collection of traditional oral poems." Here we have three distinct statements. That Beowulf and Waldhere are not a collection of poems, like the Edda, is manifest. Whether they are traditional oral poems at all is a different question, the answer to which depends in the first place on our attitude to Prof. Ker's second statement—that they were intended as books to read. But this statement surely requires some evidence. The only argument brought forward is that "the Beowulf MS ... is intended as a book to be read, and is got up with some care. From the look of it, one places it naturally in the library of a great house or a monastic school; and the contents of it have the same sort of association; they do not belong to the unlearned in their present form." But, so far as the earlier part of this passage goes, the argument applies only to the tenth century. No one will deny that the earlier Anglo-Saxon poems were studied at that time; indeed they had probably come to be regarded as, in a sense, classical. But have we any right to assume that scholars of the seventh or eighth centuries viewed these poems or their subjects in a similar light? If so how are we to account for the total absence of references to such subjects in the works of Bede? And what about Alcuin? Quid Hinieldus cum Christo? Is it likely that Alcuin would have regarded these pagani et perditi reges as suitable subjects for the attention of scholars? The natural presumption from his language is that he knew of them not from literary works, but only from street-minstrels whom he looked upon with disgust. Yet Bede and Alcuin can hardly have been ignorant of any important literary activity during their times, and it would be unfair to regard them merely as religious bigots. In view of their silence it seems to me a precarious hypothesis even that the poems were committed to writing much before the end of the eighth century.