The wild Borderland was the scene of the labours of many ol the first great Christian leaders. Where the arts of war were so much practised, it was needful that the arts of peace should flourish also. Great was the influence, even in the wildest times, of these able, serious, devoted leaders of early religious thought, men like Ninian and Kentigern.
Christianity first came into Britain in Roman times, and some of the Britons were converted. After the Romans quitted the country, King Arthur was the leader of the Christian Britons, and he is said to have fought with the pagan Britons, the pagan Picts, the pagan Saxons, who had begun their invasions, and the disorderly soldiers of various races, probably pagans whom the Romans left behind along the wall.
In due time the fight developed into a struggle between Christian Britons and pagan Saxons, and then the Saxons themselves began to accept the new religion. Oswald, a Northumbrian prince, had in a time of peril hidden in the island of Iona, to where the great Irishman Columba had come from Ireland as a missionary. When Oswald returned to power he summoned to his kingdom Aidan, a high-minded Christian teacher, whom he made first bishop of Lindisfarne (Holy Island). Aidan being a Celt, had to do his work through interpreters, but he did it well, and laid the foundations of Christianity and learning in Northumbria. Cuthbert was another famous missionary. Rising from shepherd-boy to bishop, he impressed both king and peasant by the dignified simplicity and sincerity of his life. His place of meditation was a sea-girt rock by Lindisfarne, lonely and picturesque, and still called after his name. A curious fossil, with the mark of a cross, is plentiful there, and goes by the name of St Cuthbert's beads. Other famous teachers were Wilfrid of York, who founded the churches of Hexham and Ripon; Boisil, who founded Melrose, and Biscop, who founded Jarrow.
But perhaps the most celebrated of all was Bede, the "Venerable Bede," who lived at Jarrow and wrote forty-five learned books on all subjects, including music, astronomy, and medicine. All the scholars in England flocked to hear his teachings, and he was justly called "the father of English learning." He it was who first introduced into England the art of making glass.
His last work was to translate the Gospel of St John into Northumbrian English. This was in the year 735. Being too ill to hold a pen, he dictated to his favourite pupil. "Write quickly," he said, for he felt that he was dying. "It is finished," answered the lad, and the old man's heart was satisfied. In a faint, brave voice he chanted the Gloria, and so died singing.
In those days there was, of course, no such thing as printing. Every manuscript was written and rewritten, carefully, by hand, and treasured as a sacred possession in the seats of learning. So proud were they of their manuscripts that they beautified them with illustrations in colour. Many of these manuscripts have, of course, been destroyed; for instance, the Danes in 875 burnt the priceless library of Bishop Acca at Hexham, destroying in one day the treasured collection of a lifetime; but many remain to show the love of learning which existed even then. Bishop Edfrid, who lived in the little rocky island of Lindisfarne, made a copy of the Gospels, which is looked upon with wonder even to-day. Strings of beautiful birds and quaint animals are drawn upon his pages; evangelists with mantles of purple and tunics of blue, pink, or green. With the writing clear and beautiful, the decorations showing the greatest care and devotion, this manuscript of one thousand two hundred years ago has been the delight of thousands, and comes down to us to witness to the loving care of the scholars of old in the days before printing was known.
Great as was their love of beautiful manuscripts, they had an equally noble passion for grand buildings. A superb monument of simple dignity and religious grandeur is the Norman Cathedral at Durham, commenced by Bishop Carilef in 1093, and finished by Bishop Flambard in 1128. Occupying a wonderful position at the top of a wooded hill, around which flows the beautiful river Wear, Durham Cathedral is in itself one of the noblest buildings in the world. While the Church in those troublous times kept thus a storehouse of learning for serious scholars, other methods kept the people informed of the more stirring events of their day.
In the old days, when no newspapers existed to tell people the news, when books were scarce and history was not taught to every lad as a part of his training, the ballad-writer and the wandering minstrel played a very important part. Ballads, sometimes really fine pieces of poetry, sometimes a mere halting troop of lame lines, were made upon every occasion of local or general interest. They were sung to simple and often beautiful tunes or chants. The best of the minstrels were welcome to the halls of the nobles, and even to the king himself; the poorest of them sang on the village green. The ballads were learnt and repeated by the folk of the country-side; some were in later times printed on loose sheets, but at first they were handed on from mouth to mouth. Alterations and errors often crept in; mistakes due to a sameness of sound. For instance, in the old ballad of Mary Ambree, a soldier is referred to as "Sir John Major," probably meaning Sergeant-major. In one of the versions of the battle of Chevy Chase, Henry Percy was said to have been killed there, whereas he really lived on to be slain at Shrewsbury. But, despite such occasional blunders, the ballads on the whole throw a vivid light on the manners and customs of the old days, as well as being usually stirring and sometimes strikingly noble and pathetic pieces of poetry. They deal as a rule rather with the side currents than with the main stream of history; but they express themselves with such homely force and directness that they bring home to us with wonderful clearness the character of the vigorous manly men with whose doings they are chiefly concerned.
During the last one hundred and fifty years many able men have laboured to collect old ballads, writing them down from the mouths of the country-folk and printing them in books with notes of explanation. One of the earliest thus to collect ballads seriously was Bishop Percy; the best known is Sir Walter Scott, of whose interest in the subject Lockhart, his biographer, writes very pleasantly.
Prefaced to many of the stirring tales in this present book are lines from the old Border ballads from which they are taken. It is to be hoped that readers will be tempted sooner or later to read the rest of these fine ballads for themselves.