[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.