[9] Some of these allusions are occasionally marked in the notes.
[10] A considerable portion of the present work was printed anonymously as a continuation of Bede, at Heidelberg, in 1587. The whole, together with the History of the Prelates, was first printed by Sir Henry Saville, who appears to have consulted several copies in the “Scriptores post Bedam,” London, 1596, fol. This was reprinted, but with many additional errors, at Frankfort, 1601, fol. Saville’s division into chapters, in the second book more especially, has no authority; but as it appeared sufficiently convenient, it has been adopted: the division of the sections is nearly the same throughout all the MSS.
[11] Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the Mecænas of his age, was a natural son of Henry I., and a man of great talents and of unshaken fidelity. He married Mabil, daughter of Robert Fitzhamon, by whom he had a numerous issue. He died October 31, A.D. 1147.
[12] This alludes to those invaluable records, the Saxon Chronicles. These, as originally compiled, have been already published in the present Series of Monkish Historians.
[13] Elward, or Ethelwerd, was a noble Saxon, great-great-grandson of King Ethelred, brother of Alfred. He abridged and translated the Saxon Chronicle into Latin, published in the present Series. He lived apparently in the time of Edgar, towards the close of the tenth century.
[14] Eadmer, a monk and precentor of Christ-Church, Canterbury, and pupil of Archbishop Anselm, together with a variety of other works, wrote “Historia Novorum,” or, a history of modern times, from A.D. 1066 to 1122.
[15] MS. Anselmi. Eadmer at first brought down his history to the death of Archbishop Anselm only, A.D. 1109, but afterwards continued it to the decease of Ralph, A.D. 1122.
[16] Virgilii Ecl. VI. v. 10.
[17] Helena’s origin has been much contested: Gibbon decides that she was daughter of an innkeeper. The word “Stabularia,” literally implies an ostler-wench; and it has been conjectured that it was applied to her, by the Jews and Gentiles, on account of her building a church on the spot where stood the stable in which our Lord was born.
[18] Various periods have been assigned for the British settlement in Armorica, or Bretagne; but the subject is still involved in great obscurity.