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ANGLO-SAXON GOSPELS

61 the name of Wulfstan, and his identity with the Archbishop does not seem certain.

Among other theological productions of the age may be named a version of the Gospels, afterwards published by Archbishop Parker, and commencing that grand series of medieval translations of the Scriptures in which England surpasses every other country. There is also a version of the apocryphal

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Gospel of Nicodemus.

Aldred's invaluable Northumbrian gloss on the Durham Gospels was probably written about the middle of the tenth century. In didactic literature we have a translation of the distichs of Valerius Cato, and two dialogues in verse and two in prose between Solomon and "Saturn." The origin of these is Hebraic; they belong to the extensive class of writings, founded on the history of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, in which the wise king is represented in friendly contest with visitors who come to make trial of his wisdom. One of these in the earliest form of Hebrew tradition is Hiram, King of Tyre, whose place at a later period is taken by "Marcolis," no other than Mercurius, whether the Gentile

Danish

conquest of England

Saxon
Chronicle

deity or the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. Entering Europe, Marcolis became the German Marcolf or Morolf, and by a stroke of genius was, transformed into the prototype of Eulenspiegel and Sancho Panza, plain coarse common-sense mocking divine philosophy, and low cunning winning an apparent triumph over lofty but unpractical wisdom. There is nothing of this profound double-edged irony in the Anglo-Saxon pieces, where "Saturn "-how coming by that appellation is hard to tell-manifests no trait of Morolf or Sancho, but is simply a propounder of queries sometimes. encountered by meet replies, sometimes by a recital of the wildest imaginings of the Rabbis.

While Aelfric was labouring to instruct the laity and raise the character of the clergy, England was suffering the most grievous calamities from the second series of Danish invasions, which, after many preliminary incursions,

Coin of Canute

commenced systematically about 991, and continued until the general submission of the kingdom to Canute in 1017. The new affliction, however, was more tolerable than the old. The Danes were no longer mere freebooters, but aimed at conquest, and the victory they sought did not, like the subsequent conquest by the Normans, involve the enslavement of the Saxon people, much less their expulsion. Canute, a monarch even greater as statesman than as warrior, sought the fusion of the races under his sceptre, and while retaining his hold upon his hereditary dominions, always regarded England as the chief of his possessions, and himself as before all things King of England. The general conversion of the Northmen to Christianity had removed the chief barrier between the nations, and Canute's piety, which seems to have been no less sincere than politic, won the clergy to loyalty, and contributed to the peaceful establishment of his power. He appears to have been a real patron of ecclesiastical learning, and even more so of minstrelsy and poetry; he was, indeed, himself a poet, and the initial stanza of a lay composed by him has come down to us :

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Merrily sang the monks in Ely
When Cnut, King, rowed thereby :
Row, my knights, near the land,
And hear we these monkes' song.

All the words of the original but two are good modern English. Notwithstanding Canute's literary tastes, his reign was unproductive of literature. One work of great value, indeed, was slowly growing up, which, beginning under Alfred, lasted on until Norman times. We must not wait until the Conquest before speaking of the Saxon Chronicle. It is an honourable distinction of England that, while the rude annals of other modern nations have, during the primitive stages of their culture, beenusually written in Latin, she possesses her first national history in her

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Eadgar offering up his Charter for the new Minster, Winchester, A. D. 966 British Museum, Cott. MS. tenth century

own tongue. Of earlier British historians who wrote in Latin, Gildas and Nennius were Celts, and Beda attempted no more than ecclesiastical history. Italian and Spanish, and probably even German, were in too rude and unformed

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a condition to have

allowed of vernacular

history, when, probably about 758, the

ec foundations of such a history were laid

in England by the beginning of the thought of literary composition was pre

Saxon Chronicle. No

sent to the minds of the writers, whose

simple part was at
first to record the
past year
board, used in the

leading events of the

upon a

E hine pilve pið peð þína lum onion Aampa gufa papon hypope to panne "Grapum. no god polde pat po papl poff pan propade inlichoman lefoe pepting pat hy hm mid hondum nan mofeth. Thud pid hy ge fredþad pathe. Hshine Jak fun onpa haan lyft. petition him malice off monnage pache pore tigum till scrapove umroth haligna hyma gepeuloum inmynfchum monna gebau papa pela lipff puph lust. brucan volum chrum opin plancum ghelum grelp licum ppabid grogude paup pop pay auto ph iza nexty red. Nopin pa pony gepion poppt achof bloofy hrade gebrock hapoon pehim alsp. Letle hpile "pathy hip lichoman lang ninofen pium palan nehum pilt gepco po pehylum to man Togin hafvon Lavdun hine pri oplete Topam leop Tan_faride on worðan þat he fet geftag belong on brin bonan giornedon mich den munfire behem Beda and Orosius. bitirin præam optr þunge Ippa þapparolic humo tie

A Page from the Legend of St. Guthlac, in the
Exeter MS.

monasteries for the purpose of indicating the proper day for keeping Easter. After

a while the historical

retrospect was carried farther back, and pro

longed retrogressively to the days of Julius Cæsar by the aid of

The portion from A.D. 449 onwards receives the title of The Saxon Chronicle. Secular annalists also lent

their aid, as is inferred from the comparative fulness of treatment accorded to Alfred's battles. The work was almost certainly encouraged by Alfred, and it is not improbable that he may have had some personal share in it; his archbishop, Plegmund, certainly had. The part from 893 to 897 more particularly is among the finest specimens of Anglo-Saxon prose. From this period down to 924 the Chronicle possesses high merit; after this date it becomes meagre, too clearly indicating that the general prosperity and

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