After a troublous time of encroachment from the side of Wessex, the kingdom of Kent had again a time of honour, if not of absolute independence, under king Wihtred (691-725), who, in the preamble to his laws, is called the most gracious king of the Kentish folk (se mildesta cyning Cantwara). His laws are mostly ecclesiastical. The rights of the Church and of her ministers, the keeping of the Sunday, manumission of slaves at the altar, penalties for heathen rites, these subjects make the bulk of a code of 28 captels, of which the last four are about theft. The closing provision is characteristic of the state of society:

Cap. 28. If a man from a distance, or a stranger, go off the road, and he neither shout nor blow a horn, as a thief he is liable to be examined, or slain, or redeemed.

In the preamble this code is precisely dated on the 6th day of August in Wihtred’s fifth year, which is 696. Also it mentions Berghamstyde, which seems to mean Berkhamstead (Herts), as the place of enactment, and Gybmund, bishop of Rochester, as having been present. Doubts have been cast upon the genuineness of this code, but it is defended in Schmid’s introduction. This is the last of the laws of Kent.

The Kentish laws are found in a register of the twelfth century, which has a high character for fidelity. No doubt the substance of them is faithfully preserved. But they are not in the original Kentish dialect; they have been translated into West Saxon. The translation has not, however, obliterated all traces of the original; there are some peculiarities which survive, and which enable us to see through the present form those traces of a higher antiquity, which strengthen that confidence which the contents are calculated to inspire.

The Kentish dialect was the first literary form of the language of our Saxon ancestors. It has been thought that in the Epinal Gloss, of which a specimen will be given below, we have the best extant representation of this ancient dialect. Early in the ninth century we have some original documents in the Kentish dialect, and these are our surest guides in judging of other specimens.[59]

The following extract is from a legal document of the year 832. Luba had made a deed of gift from her estate to the fraternity of Christ Church at Canterbury, and the following sanction was appended:

✠ Ic luba eaðmod godes ðiwen ðas forecwedenan god ⁊ ðas elmessan gesette ⁊ gefestnie ob minem erfelande et mundlingham ðem hiium to cristes cirican ⁊ ic bidde ⁊ an godes libgendes naman bebiade ðæm men ðe ðis land ⁊ ðis erbe hebbe et mundlingham ðet he ðas god forðleste oð wiaralde ende se man se ðis healdan wille ⁊ lestan ðet ic beboden hebbe an ðisem gewrite se him seald ⁊ gehealden sia hiabenlice bledsung se his ferwerne oððe hit agele se him seald ⁊ gehealden helle wite bute he to fulre bote gecerran wille gode ⁊ mannum uene ualete. I, Luba, the humble handmaid of God, appoint and establish these foresaid benefactions and alms from my heritable land at Mundlingham to the brethren at Christ Church; and I entreat, and in the name of the living God I command, the man who may have this land and this inheritance at Mundlingham, that he continue these benefactions to the world’s end. The man who will keep and discharge this that I have commanded in this writing, to him be given and kept the heavenly blessing; he who hinders or neglects it, to him be given and kept the punishment of hell, unless he will repent with full amends to God and to men. Fare ye well.

§ 2.

The middle of the seventh century was a very dark period throughout the West. The lingering rays of ancient culture had grown very faint in France, Italy, and Spain. Literary production had ceased in France since Gregory of Tours and his friend Venantius Fortunatus, the poet; in Spain, soon after Isidore of Seville, the Christian area had been narrowed by the Moslem invasion; in Italy, though the tradition of learning was never extinguished, yet no writer of eminence appeared for a long time after Gregory the Great. At such a time it was that the seed of learning found a new and fruitful soil among the Anglo-Saxon people; and they who had been the latest receivers of the civilising element, quickly took the lead in religion and learning.

In the year 668 three remarkable men came into Britain, These were Theodore, a Greek of Tarsus, who came as Archbishop of Canterbury; Hadrian, an African monk who had deprecated his own appointment to that office; and Biscop Baducing (called Benedict Biscop), an Angle of Northumbria, who had left his retreat in the monastery of Lerins, to guide and accompany the travellers into his native country.