Britanniam insulam tres numerosissimæ gentes incolunt: Quorum vnicuique suus Rex imperat. Nominantur hæ gentes Angili, Frisones, et qui eiusdem sunt cum insula cognominis Britones. Tanta vero hominum multitudo esse videtur, vt singulis annis inde magno numero cum vxoribus et liberis ad Francos emigrent. Illi autem in eorum terram, quæ maximè deserta videtur, excipiunt. Vnde insulam sibi vendicare ferunt. Vtique non ita pridem, cum Francorum Rex quosdam è suis Constantinopolim ad Iustinianum legaret, Anglos etiam misit, ambitiosius vendicans, quasi hæc insula suo subesset imperio.
The same in English.
The Isle of Britaine is inhabited by three most populous nations, euery of which is gouerned by a seuerall king. The sayd nations are named Angili, Frisones, and Britones which last are called after the name of the Island. In this Isle there are such swarmes of people, that euery yeare they goe foorth in great numbers with their wiues and children into France. And the Frenchmen right willingly receiue them into their lande, which seemeth very desolate for want of inhabitants. Whereupon it is sayd that the French doe challenge the foresayde Island vnto themselues. For not long since, when the king of the Frankes sent certaine of his subiects ambassadours to Constantinople vnto Iustinian the Emperour, he sent English men also, ambitiously boasting, as though the sayd Isle had bene vnder his iurisdiction.
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The life and trauailes of Iohn Erigena.
Ioannes Erigena Britannus natione, in Meneuia vrbe, seu ad fanum Dauidis; et patricio genitore natus, dum Anglos Daci crudeles bellis ac rapinis molestarent, ac omnia illic essent tumultibus plena, longam ipse peregrinationem Athenas vsque suscepit, annósque quamplures literis Græcis, Chaldaicis, et Arabicis insudauit: omnia illic inuisit Philosophorum loca, ac studia, imo et ipsum oraculum Solis, quod Æsculapius sibi construxerat. Inueniens tandem quod longo quæsierat labore, in Italiam et Galliam est reuersus vbi ob insignem eruditionem, Carolo Caluo, et postea Ludouico Balbo acceptus, Dionysij Areopagitæ libros de coelesti Hierarchia, ex Constantinopoli tunc missos Latinos fecit, Anno Dom. 858. Profectus postea in Britanniam, Alphredi Anglorum Regis, et suorum liberorum factus est præceptor, atque ipso mox adhortante, inter ocia literaria è Græco transtulit in tres linguas, scilicet Chaldaicam, Arabicam, et Latinam, Aristotelis moralia, de secretis secretorum, seu recto regimine Principum, opus certe exquisitum. In Malmsburiensi cænobio tandem, quo recreationis gratia se contulerat, inter legendum a quibusdam discipulis maleuolis interimebatur, Anno Christi, 884.
The same in English.
Iohn Erigene a Britane, descended of honourable parents, and borne in the Towne of S. Dauid in Wales, seeing the Englishmen to be oppressed with the warres and rapines of the cruell Danes, and all the land in a hurlie burlie, he in the meane time vndertooke a long iourney, euen as farre as Athens, and there spent many yeres in the studie of the Greeke, Chaldie, and Arabian tongues: he there frequented all the places and schooles of the Philosophers, and the oracle also of the Sunne, which Æsculapius had built vnto himselfe. And hauing found at length that which he had with long trauell searched, he returned againe into Italie, and France, where for his singular learning, he was much fauoured of the two Kings Charles and Lewes, and in his being there, he translated into Latine the bookes of Dionysius Areopagita concerning the Heauenly Hierarchie, which were sent from Constantinople in the yeere 858. After this hee came backe againe into his owne Countrey, and was schoolemaster vnto Alphred then King of England, and his sonnes: and vpon his request, at his times of leasure, he translated Aristotles Morals, of the Secrets of Secrets, or of the right gouernement of Princes, out of Greeke into these three tongues, Chaldie, Arabian, and Latine, which he did very exquisitely. At the last, being in the Abbie of Malmesburie, whither he went for his recreation, and there according to his manner disputing, and reading to the Students, some of them misliking and hating him, rose against him, and slue him in the yeere of Christ, 884.
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English men were the guard of the Emperours of Constantinople in the reigne of Iohn the sonne of Alexius Comnenus. Malmesburiensis, Curopolata and Camden, pag. 96.