"... dykers and deluers that doth here dedes ille,
And dryuen forth the longe day with 'Deu, vous saue,
Dame Emme!'" (Prologue, 223 f.)

One of the finest productions of Anglo-Norman lyric poetry written in the end of the 13th century, is the Plainte d'amour (Vising, Göteborg, 1905; Romania xiii. 507, xv. 292 and xxix. 4), and we may mention, merely as literary curiosities, various works of a lyrical character written in two languages, Latin and French, or English and French, or even in three languages, Latin, English and French. In Early English Lyrics (Oxford, 1907) we have a poem in which a lover sends to his mistress a love-greeting composed in three languages, and his learned friend replies in the same style (De amico ad amicam, Responcio, viii and ix).

Satire.—The popularity enjoyed by the Roman de Renart and the Anglo-Norman version of the Riote du Monde (Z. f. rom. Phil. viii. 275-289) in England is proof enough that the French spirit of satire was keenly appreciated. The clergy and the fair sex presented the most attractive target for the shots of the satirists. However, an Englishman raised his voice in favour of the ladies in a poem entitled La Bonté des dames (Meyer, Rom. xv. 315-339), and Nicole Bozon, after having represented "Pride" as a feminine being whom he supposes to be the daughter of Lucifer, and after having fiercely attacked the women of his day in the Char d'Orgueil (Rom. xiii. 516), also composed a Bounté des femmes (P. Meyer, op. cit. 33) in which he covers them with praise, commending their courtesy, their humility, their openness and the care with which they bring up their children. A few pieces of political satire show us French and English exchanging amenities on their mutual shortcomings. The Roman des Français, by André de Coutances, was written on the continent, and cannot be quoted as Anglo-Norman although it was composed before 1204 (cf. Gaston Paris: Trois versions rimées de l'évangile de Nicodème, Soc. Anc. Textes, 1885), it is a very spirited reply to French authors who had attacked the English.

Dramatic Literature.—This must have had a considerable influence on the development of the sacred drama in England, but none of the French plays acted in England in the 12th and 13th centuries has been preserved. Adam, which is generally considered to be an Anglo-Norman mystery of the 12th century, was probably written in France at the beginning of the 13th century (Romania xxxii. 637), and the so-called Anglo-Norman Resurrection belongs also to continental French. It is necessary to state that the earliest English moralities seem to have been imitations of the French ones.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Apart from the works already mentioned see generally: Scheibner, "Über die Herrschaft der frz. Sprache in England" (Annaberg, Progr. der Königlichen Realschule, 1880, 38 f.); Groeber, Grundr. der romanischen Philologie, ii. iii. (Strassburg, 1902); G. Paris, La Litt. fr. au moyen âge (1905); Esquisse historique de la litt. fr. au moyen âge (1907); La Litt. norm, avani l'annexion 912-1204 (Paris, 1899); "L'Esprit normand en Angleterre," La Poésie au moyen âge (2nd series 45-74, Paris, 1906); Thomas Wright, Biographia britannica literaria (Anglo-Norman period, London, 1846); Ten Brink, Geschichte der englischen Litteratur (Berlin, 1877, i. 2); J. J. Jusserand, Hist. litt. du peuple anglais (2nd ed. 1895, vol. i.); W. H. Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (London, 1906); Johan Vising, Franska Sprâket i England (Göteborg, 1900, 1901, 1902).

(L. Br.)

ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. It is usual to speak of "the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"; it would be more correct to say that there are four Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. It is true that these all grow out of a common stock, that in some even of their later entries two or more of them use common materials; but the same may be said of several groups of medieval chronicles, which no one dreams of treating as single chronicles. Of this fourfold Chronicle there are seven MSS. in existence; C. C. C. Cant. 173 (A); Cott. Tib. A vi. (B); Cott. Tib. B i. (C); Cott. Tib. B iv. (D); Bodl. Laud. Misc. 636 (E); Cott. Domitian A viii. (F); Cott. Otho B xi. (G). Of these G is now a mere fragment, and it is known to have been a transcript of A. F is bilingual, the entries being given both in Saxon and Latin. It is interesting as a stage in the transition from the vernacular to the Latin chronicle; but it has little independent value, being a mere epitome, made at Canterbury in the 11th or 12th century, of a chronicle akin to E. B, as far as it goes (to 977), is identical with C, both having been copied from a common original, but A, C, D, E have every right to be treated as independent chronicles. The relations between the four vary very greatly in different parts, and the neglect of this consideration has led to much error and confusion. The common stock, out of which all grow, extends to 892. The present writer sees no reason to doubt that the idea of a national, as opposed to earlier local chronicles, was inspired by Alfred, who may even have dictated, or at least revised, the entries relating to his own campaigns; while for the earlier parts pre-existing materials, both oral and written, were utilized. Among the latter the chronological epitome appended to Bede's Ecclesiastical History may be specially mentioned. But even this common stock exists in two different recensions, in A, B, C, on the one hand, and D, E on the other. The main points of difference are that in D, E (1) a series of northern annals have been incorporated; (2) the Bede entries are taken, not from the brief epitome, but from the main body of the Eccl. Hist. The inference is that, shortly after the compiling of this Alfredian chronicle, a copy of it was sent to some northern monastery, probably Ripon, where it was expanded in the way indicated. Copies of this northernized Chronicle afterwards found their way to the south. The impulse given by Alfred was continued under Edward, and we have what may be called an official continuation of the history of the Danish wars, which, in B, C, D extends to 915, and in A to 924. After 915 B, C insert as a separate document a short register of Mercian affairs during the same period (902-924), which might be called the acts of Æthelflaed, the famous "Lady of the Mercians," while D has incorporated it, not very skilfully, with the official continuation. Neither of these documents exists in E. From 925 to 975 all the chronicles are very fragmentary; a few obits, three or four poems, among them the famous ballad on the battle of Brunanburh, make up the meagre tale of their common materials, which each has tried to supplement in its own way. A has inserted a number of Winchester entries, which prove that A is a Winchester book. And this local and scrappy character it retains to 1001, where it practically ends. At some subsequent time it was transferred bodily to Canterbury, where it received numerous interpolations in the earlier part, and a few later local entries which finally tail off into the Latin acts of Lanfranc. A may therefore be dismissed. C has added to the common stock one or two Abingdon entries, with which place the history of C is closely connected; while D and E have a second group of northern annals 901-966, E being however much more fragmentary than D, omitting, or not having access to, much both of the common and of the northern material which is found in D. From 983 to 1018 C, D and E are practically identical, and give a connected history of the Danish struggles under Æthelred II. This section was probably composed at Canterbury. From 1018 the relations of C, D, E become too complicated to be expressed by any formula; sometimes all three agree together, sometimes all three are independent; in other places each pair in turn agree against the third. It may be noted that C is strongly anti-Godwinist, while E is equally pro-Godwinist, D occupying an intermediate position. C extends to 1066, where it ends abruptly, and probably mutilated. D ends at 1079 and is certainly mutilated. In its later history D is associated with some place in the diocese of Worcester, probably Evesham. In its present form D is a comparatively late MS., none of it probably much earlier, and some of it later, than 1100. In the case of entries in the earlier part of the chronicles, which are peculiar to D, we cannot exclude the possibility that they may be late interpolations. E is continued to 1154. In its present form it is unquestionably a Peterborough book. The earlier part is full of Peterborough interpolations, to which place many of the later entries also refer. But (apart from the interpolations) it is only the entries after 1121, where the first hand in the MS. ends, which were actually composed at Peterborough. The section 1023-1067 certainly, and possibly also the section 1068-1121, was composed at St. Augustine's, Canterbury; and the former is of extreme interest and value, the writer being in close contact with the events which he describes. The later parts of E show a great degeneration in language, and a querulous tone due to the sufferings of the native population under the harsh Norman rule; "but our debt to it is inestimable; and we can hardly measure what the loss to English history would have been, if it had not been written; or if, having been written, it had, like so many another English chronicle, been lost."

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The above account is based on the introduction in vol. ii. of the Rev. C. Plummer's edition of Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Clarendon Press, 1892, 1899); to which the student may be referred for detailed arguments. The editio princeps of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was by Abraham Wheloc, professor of Arabic at Cambridge, where the work was printed (1643-1644). It was based mainly on the MS. called G above, and is the chief source of our knowledge of that MS. which perished, all but three leaves, in the Cottonian fire of 1723. Edmund Gibson of Queen's College, Oxford, afterwards bishop of London, published an edition in 1692. He used Wheloc's edition, and E, with collations or transcripts of B and F. Both Wheloc and Gibson give Latin translations. In 1823 appeared an edition by Dr. Ingram, of Trinity College, Oxford, with an English translation. Besides A, B, E, F, Ingram used C and D for the first time. But both he and Gibson made the fatal error of trying to combine the disparate materials contained in the various chronicles in a single text. An improvement in this respect is seen in the edition made by Richard Price (d. 1833) for the first (and only) volume of Monumenta Historica Britannica (folio 1848). There is still, however, too much conflation, and owing to the plan of the volume, the edition only extends to 1066. A translation is appended. In 1861 appeared Benjamin Thorpe's six-text edition in the Rolls Series. Though not free from defects, this edition is absolutely indispensable for the study of the chronicles and the mutual relations of the different MSS. A second volume contains the translation. In 1865 the Clarendon Press published Two Saxon Chronicles (A and E) Parallel, with supplementary extracts from the others, by the Rev. John Earle. This edition has no translation, but in the notes and introduction a very considerable advance was made. On this edition is partly based the later edition by the Rev. C. Plummer, already cited above. In addition to the translations contained in the editions already mentioned, the following have been issued separately. The first translation into modern English was by Miss Anna Gurney, privately printed in 1819. This was largely based on Gibson's edition, and was in turn the basis of Dr. Giles' translation, published in 1847, and often reprinted. The best translation is that by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, in his series of Church Historians of England (1853). Up to the Conquest it is a revision of the translation contained in Mon. Hist. Brit. From that point it is an independent translation.

(C. Pl.)

ANGLO-SAXON LAW. 1. The body of legal rules and customs which obtained in England before the Norman conquest constitutes, with the Scandinavian laws, the most genuine expression of Teutonic legal thought. While the so-called "barbaric laws" (leges barbarorum) of the continent, not excepting those compiled in the territory now called Germany, were largely the product of Roman influence, the continuity of Roman life was almost completely broken in the island, and even the Church, the direct heir of Roman tradition, did not carry on a continuous existence: Canterbury was not a see formed in a Roman province in the same sense as Tours or Reims. One of the striking expressions of this Teutonism is presented by the language in which the Anglo-Saxon laws were written. They are uniformly worded in English, while continental laws, apart from the Scandinavian, are all in Latin. The English dialect in which the Anglo-Saxon laws have been handed down to us is in most cases a common speech derived from West Saxon—naturally enough as Wessex became the predominant English state, and the court of its kings the principal literary centre from which most of the compilers and scribes derived their dialect and spelling. Traces of Kentish speech may be detected, however, in the Textus Roffensis, the MS. of the Kentish laws, and Northumbrian dialectical peculiarities are also noticeable on some occasions, while Danish words occur only as technical terms. At the conquest, Latin takes the place of English in the compilations made to meet the demand for Anglo-Saxon law texts as still applied in practice.