The history of our earliest institutions has come down to us in a fragmentary form: in a similar way has it here been treated,—in chapters, or rather essays, devoted to each particular principle or group of facts. But throughout these fragments a system is distinctly discernible: accordingly the chapters will be found also to follow a systematic plan.
It is my intention, at a future period, to lay before my countrymen the continuation of this History, embracing the laws of descent and purchase, the law of contracts, the forms of judicial process, the family relations, and the social condition of the Saxons as to agriculture, commerce, art, science and literature. I believe these things to be worthy of investigation, from their bearing upon the times in which we live, much more than from any antiquarian value they may be supposed to possess. We have a share in the past, and the past yet works in us; nor can a patriotic citizen better serve his country than by devoting his energies and his time to record that which is great and glorious in her history, for the admiration and instruction of her neighbours.
J. M. K.
London, December 2nd, 1848.
PREFACE
TO THE NEW EDITION.
The original edition of this monumental work having for a long time been out of print and of enhanced value, a great demand has arisen for the issue of a new edition; and the welcome opportunity of amending a number of oversights and typographical errors, and of verifying a large number of references, has not been neglected. The book itself is of so standard a character, and was so well digested in the first place, that no apology is needed for its re-publication now—more than a quarter of a century after its first appearance.
The principles laid down, the deductions gathered from the array of recorded facts and examples, are as true and incontrovertible to-day as they ever were. The work, therefore, does not labour under the disadvantage of becoming obsolete, inasmuch as the researches which have since been made in this branch of literary and historical enquiry have not tended to weaken or destroy, but rather to support and strengthen, the arguments applied by the author to the gradual unfolding of his theories of the growth and consolidation of the Anglosaxon Commonwealth, and the Royal Authority in England.
It is worthy of remembrance that one of the chief authorities for the views advanced in this History is the celebrated Codex Diplomaticus, the printing of which occupied nine years of the author’s life. The re-editing of that great work, under new arrangement, with collations, and incorporation of a large quantity of newly found material, has now so clearly become a necessity, that steps should be taken to re-publish the enormous collection of documents relating to Anglosaxon times and Anglosaxon history.
No one can read the summary of Kemble’s investigations, which is contained in the concluding chapter to the First Volume, without feeling bound to acknowledge that its pages contain the heartfelt convictions of one who has spared no pains to mature his own knowledge of the inner springs which actuated the conduct of our forefathers’ lives and advanced their culture, nor failed in his endeavour to impart to his readers a correct view of these important elements of our own manners and customs;—in Kemble’s own words, “the history of our childhood, the explanation of our manhood.”
W. de G. B.