Page images
PDF
EPUB

Britain the Angles spread East and North; the Jutes fixed themselves in Kent and soon disappeared in absorption; the Frisic Saxons took the South and the West. The Angles, who were probably the most numerous of the three divisions, conquered rapidly all the East country upwards from Suffolk to Lothian and established the kingdom of Northumbria, as well as that of Mercia in the Midlands. They soon became the most powerful and prosperous division of the Theods, while their conquest of the British kingdom of Strathclyde simply served to set hordes of Cumbrian warriors free to move southward into Wales, to maintain the struggle against the Frisic Saxons. This long and bitter struggle which really did not end for eight centuries, was the cause that the name of Saxon has lasted till the present day amongst the Gael and the Cymry to designate the Theodish invaders and their descendants.

At the beginning of the seventh century Pope Gregory sent a mission to civilize "the Angles," by which preponderant name he evidently understood the whole of the Theodish settlers in Britain. It was successful in its Christianising efforts, among the Saxons and Jutes (in Essex, Kent, and Sussex); churches were built and priests taught to write in Roman letters ; but the Angles had already met with the Irish missionaries of Iona, and had learned the art of writing. The script Columba had brought from Ireland was the Irish modification of Roman letters which have for many centuries been described as Irish or Anglo-Saxon. They were communicated to the Christianised Angles by the monks of Hy, and the alphabet made perfect by the necessary addition of th and w from the Runic system of the Goths. From that moment the remaining Theods throughout England, Saxons and Jutes, were filled with admiration for the scriptura Anglica or litera Anglica, and all the churchmen hurried to learn them in preference to the litera Romana introduced by Augustine in Canterbury. The Irish script was neater and more easily written than the cursive Roman of that age; and for over four centuries it ruled in Britain under the name of Anglish letters. Consequently the cultivated Anglian speech soon became the language of scholars, and when the southern King Alfred wrote on engelse he stamped the tongue of this country the name which it was to bear henceforward. From this it was but a step to calling the land England and all the people Englishmen.

upon

The so-called Anglo-Saxon language, which was simply Theodish as written by the Angles, has gone on modifying, developing, and forming itself from the eighth century to the nineteenth. The speech chosen by writer's was that of the North, while the poorer Southern speech sank into the position of a mother of dialects which are still to-day living in the Southern provinces. From about 850 to 1000, invaders from Scandinavia brought the Norse tongue into England, which blended easily with its Anglian sister and helped to give a strain to the future of the English language. From 1050-1200 the Romanic tongue of Northern France was introduced to such an extent that it has left a wide and permanent impress upon the vocabulary. So great was the influx of French speakers into England that from 1150 to 1200 this country was absolutely the chief home of French literature, and the political influence of the kings of England helped to ensure the

324-37

triumph of Paris over Toulouse in the formation of a French kingdom haring a dominant North French language. The The Anglish language as a cultivated written speech died out by 1200, and its unwritten spoken form was rapidly modified by French influence. This spoken form was little written till after Edward I's conquest of Scotland had brought the purer Anglian of Lothian into touch again with the languishing speech of old England; but in the Prick of Conscience, which made its appearance about 1330, we find ourselves in the presence of distinctly modern English in its rude early phase. A generation or two later Barbour, Gower, Chaucer, and Wickliffe exhibit the language in its perfect mould, but it is not till 1520 that we reach the stage at which the written speech used by Tyndale, Skelton, Surrey, Wyat, and Coverdale becomes familiar and wholly comprehensible to the folk of our own time. The beginning of the sixteenth century may therefore be taken as a starting point for modern literature. The English language is now spoken by 120,000,000 of people.

I.—ENGLISH, BRITISH, AND ANGLO-NORMAN WRITERS

700-1500

in chronological order

1 THE POET OF THE BEOWULF (about 600-700) The Anglo Saxon
Poems of Beowulf, The Travellers Song and the Battle of Finnesburh.
Edited by J. M. KEMBLE. Second Edition. 2 vols., 12mo., cloth,
Pickering, 1835-37

uncut

2 THORKELIN. De Danorum Rebus Gestis Secul. III & IV. Poëma Danicum dialecto Anglosaxonica. Ex Bibliotheca Cottoniana Musæi Britannici edidit versione Lat. et indicibus auxit G. J. Thorkelin, 4to., bds.

Hauniae, 1815 3 ST. ADAMNAN, 624-703. The Life of St. Columba, founder of Hy, written by Adamnan.. Latin (from an eighth-century MS.), with copious notes and dissertations by William Reeves, small 4to. facsimiles from the MS., and map; cloth, uncut

Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, Dublin, 1857
the same, issued on Large Paper, 4to. cloth Bannatyne Club, 1857
Although an Irishman, Adamnan or Awnan was nevertheless a native of the
Prytanic Islands. It was his monastery which taught the Angles to write and thus led
to the baptism of the written language as Anglish. He wrote the life of St. Columba
about 690.

THE LAW-MAKERS, 680-1150. ANCIENT LAWS and Institutes of
England; also Monumenta Ecclesiastica Anglicana; and the ancient
Latin Version of the Anglo-Saxon Laws. With a Compendious
Glossary by Thorpe, etc. 2 vols., roy. 8vo., cloth

1840 CEDMON (died about 700) Metrical Paraphrase of parts of the Holy Scriptures, Anglo-Saxon and English, by Benjamin Thorpe, roy. 8vo., gilt binding

the same, roy. 8vo. bds. uncut

£ s. d.

1 12 0

046

200

6 0 0

200

1832
1832

1 8 0

1 10 0

8 ELLIS (Henry) Account of Cadmon's Metrical Paraphrase, an illuminated MS. of the tenth century, 4to. with 53 plates in facsimile of the miniatures; sd. 15s; or, hf. bd. 1833

ROYAL CHARTERS (about 700-1000). Codex Diplomaticus Evi Saxonici opera Johannis M. Kemble. 6 vols. 8vo. with facsimile plates; cloth

the same, bds. uncut

0 18 0

1839
1839

500

5 10 0

10 CARTULARIUM SAXONICUM: a Collection of Charters relating to Anglo-Saxon History, by Walter de Gray BIRCH, F.S.A., of the British Museum, 32 parts, forming Vols. I, II, and III, crown 4to. (published at £4.), cloth

1883-93

As far as the work has advanced, it comprises upwards of 1500 documents in Latin and Saxon, from A.D. 430 to 968, with an analysis of the contents of each Charter in English.

In addition to the Charters published in the Codex Diplomaticus of the late Mr. J.
M. Kemble, the Diplomatarium Anglicum of the late Mr. B. Thorpe, the Councils of
the late Rev. A. W. Haddan and Rev. W. Stubbs, M.A., Lord Bishop of Oxford, the
Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, edited by Mr. E. A. Bond, late
Principal Librarian, and the Facsimiles of the Ordnance Survey, a considerable number
of texts are included that have never been printed before, from MSS. in the British
Museum, and other libraries, and the correct reading has been restored to many texts
hitherto printed inaccurately.

11 INDEX SAXONICUS: an Index to the Names of Persons in the
CARTULARIUM SAXONICUM, a Collection of Charters relating to Anglo-
Saxon History, by WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, LL.D., F.S.A., of the
Department of MSS. British Museum.

It is proposed to issue a full Index to the names, upwards of twelve
thousand in number, of the witnesses and other personages mentioned
in the thirteen hundred and fifty Charters which constitute this work.
It need scarcely be pointed out that this Index will add greatly to the
value of the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon Charters and documents
that has been published, and will form the most extensive Index
Nominum of this period yet attempted; valuable not only as a list of
the most noted persons, both in Church and State, but also for the
Anglo-Saxon or earliest English family nomenclature, which throws
light on the origin of many of our modern surnames.

The Index has been carefully compiled under the superintendence of the Editor, and will be issued uniformly with the CARTULARIUM SAXONICUM in one thick part, bound in paper boards, at the price of £1. 1s, or bound in cloth, uniform with the CARTULARIUM

Two hundred copies only will be printed, and names of intending Subscribers should be sent to me at once.

12 BÆDA, BEDE, 672-735. DE ARTE METRICA. Page 1: dux aut in unam
desinit consonantem.. Page 3: At uo in exametro carmine concatena-
tio ūsuŭ plurimo2 solet ee gratissima. Page 12: Explicit de
metrica Arte lib bede famuli xpi lege feliciter.
VELLUM, 6 leaves, not perfect; in bds.

4to. MS. ON

£ s. d.

2 12 6

1 3 0

About 880-900 48 0 0

Said to be the oldest text now extant of this work of Bede's.

13 BEDA DE RATIONE TEMPORUM. Pag. 1: Incipit Liber de Temporibus Bede Prbri. De compoto vel loquela digitorum. Pag. 2: De Temporum ratione domino iuuante dicturi necessarium duximus utilissimam primo promptissimamque flexus digitorum paucis premonstrare sollertiam ut cum maximam computandi dederimus facilitatem. . Pa. 27: . . De mensibus Anglorum. . Pa. 136: . . Explicit liber Bede de temporibus. Sequuntur quedam partes de ratione computandi ab ipso viro insite. Page 147. Finito xps rex libro sit benedictus. Folio, FINE MS. ON VELLUM; old French calf gilt

About 1140-50 20 0 0

The chapter on the months of the Angles contains some expressions which
represent almost the earliest occurrence on books of words of the English language.
For instance, January is called Giuli Yule; February Solmonath =sun month;
March Rethmonath Reed month; April Eustermonath Eastermonth; May
Trimilci Three-milk-month; June and July Lithamonath Light month; August
Weodmonath Wood-month; September Aligmonath Holy month; October
Uinterfillith Winter-filling; November Blodmonath Blood month; December,

[ocr errors]

the same as January, Giuli Yule. The MS. comprises further twenty-one leaves of
Chronological Tables (said to be by Magister Hugo) ending in one section with A.D.
1038, in another A.D. 1048; sixteen leaves of an astronomical Treatise, said to be
ISIDORUS de Natura Rerum, in which the forty-sixth (the last) chapter is about Mount
Etna; and twenty-one leaves of Isidori Differentiæ.

14 BEDAE Historia Ecclesiastica, Latine, et Saxonice [reddita à Rege Aluredo]; una cum reliquis ejus operibus historicis, Latine, cura et studio Johannis Smith, folio, frontispiece, map, and plates; hf. russia

14*.

Cantabrigiæ, 1722
Historiæ Ecclesiasticae libri III-IV, edited (in Latin) by John E.
B. Mayor and J. R. Lumby, fourth edition, 12mo. cloth, new

Cambridge, 1893

1829

15 KING ALFRED (848-900) Anglo-Saxon version of Boethius, with an English translation and notes by J. S. Cardale, 8vo. calf gilt, uncut Anglo-Saxon Version of the compendious History of the World by Orosius, edited by Bosworth. Roy. 8vo., with map and facsimiles; cloth

16

1859

The Anglo-Saxon_text with literal English translation, notes, and an essay on
King Alfred's geography.

When King Alfred took to writing on Engelsc, i.e. in the cultivated written
speech of the North, as distinguished from the colloquial speech of the West Saxons,
the English and the England of to-day had their baptism.

see BEDE HISTORIA, ante No. 14

17 BIBLE-TRANSLATORS, from 900 to 1100. THE GOSPELS of the fower Euangelistes translated in the old Saxons tyme out of Latin into the vulgare toung of the Saxons, newly collected out of Auncient Monumentes of the sayd Saxons AT LONDON. Printed by Iohn Daye.. 1571 .. (Anglish and English in parallel columns, edited by John Foxe the Martyrologist, who signs the preface)

17*.

18

[ocr errors]

Small 4to. pp. xii and 408; fine copy in old calf

£ 8. d.

1 4 0

060

150

076

1571 18 0 0

the same, a large and very fine copy in brown morocco extra, gilt copy, by Bedford

1571 21 0 0

the same, JOHN FOXE'S OWN COPY, with his autograph inscription on the title; calf, with the bookplate of the Tempsford Hall library (Stuart)

1571 20 0 0

The edition was the property of Matthew Parker, so that even the editor had to acknowledge his indebtedness to the prelate for a copy. The inscription on the title, though unsigned, is in Foxe's unmistakable autograph. "Ex dono Reuerendiss. in Chro. pris Matthæi Cantuariensis Archiepi. 1571.' It gives considerable interest to this copy. Alfred is supposed to have made a translation of the Bible.

19 GOSPEL according to SAINT MATTHEW in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian versions synoptically arranged, with collations of all the best manuscripts. [Edited by J. M. KEMBLE and C. HARDWICK]. 4to., cloth Cambridge (1858) 20 GOSPEL according to SAINT MARK in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian versions synoptically arranged, with collations exhibiting all the readings of all the MSS. Edited by Rev. W. W. SKEAT. 4to., cloth

076

ibid., 1871 076

21 WRITERS OF THE TENTH CENTURY. KEMBLE (J. M.). The
Poetry of the Codex Vercellensis, with an English Translation-The
Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus, with an Historical Introduction-
2 works in 1 vol., 8vo., calf
Alfric Society, 1843-48
22 CODEX EXONIENSIS. A Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, with an English
Translation, Notes, and Indexes, by Thorpe. Roy. 8vo., with facsimile;

bds.
1842
23 WRITERS OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. ELFRIC. The
Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The first part, containing
the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric. În the original
Anglo-Saxon, with an English version. By Benjamin THORPE.
2 vols., 8vo., calf gilt
Elfric Society, 1844-46
24 ETTMÜLLER (L.). Engla and Seaxna, Scôpas and Bôceras. Anglo-
saxonum Poëtae atque Scriptores Prosaici. 8vo., sd. 2s; or, half calf,
Quedlinburgii, 1850

uncut

100

0 10 6

1 4 0

036

25 GREIN (C. W. M.). Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie in kritisch bearbeiteten Texten und mit vollständigem Glossar. 4 vols. in 3, 8vo., half calf Goettingen, 1857-64 26 EADMER (Abbot of St. Alban's, died 1124). LIFE OF ST. WILFRID . INCIPIT UITA STI WILFRIDI EBORACENSIS ARCHIEPI. Anno igitur ab incarnatione u'bi dei sexcentesimo tricesimo quarto regnante in cantia eadbaldo et in nordhumbria. . sanctissimo rege oswaldo . . 4to. MS. ON VELLUM, with painted initials; 36 leaves (72 pp.) twenty-seven lines to the page, written by an English hand; bound in russia extra

£ 8. d.

1 16 0

About A.D. 1200 40 0 0

An important and rare text. It ends on the second line of p. 67, with the word
Amen. Then the phrase "Probavit dicens" is followed by five pages of text (plainly
transcribed from Bede) giving the disputation as to Easter between Colman and
Wilfrid. Then succeeds "Defunctus est autem in monasterio . . ." with the metrical
Epitaph from Wilfrid's burial place in Ripon Monastery.

This work, composed about the year 1100, has been printed by Mabillon in the
Acts of the Benedictine Saints; it ought to be printed among the Monumenta Historica
Britannica. MSS. are excessively rare.

[ocr errors]

27 WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY (1095-1143). De Gestis Anglorum .
Anno ab incarnatione dni. cccc xlix uenere angli z saxones britanniam
Aduentus causam licet usquequaq; decantatam non erit ab re hic
retexere. It breaks off suddenly on leaf 43 near the end of the third book,
A.D. 1087; and then goes on with De confessione in ultimis positorum
which ends with leaf 44a. On 44b Incipit pfatio Cassiodori senatoris
in libro de institutione diuinarum scripturarum It breaks off with
fol. 53.
On 54-57 there is an acephalous treatise De claustro spirituali
non manufacto. 58-63 contain the Liber de medicina anime. Оп
leaf 64 Libellus ad socium volentem nubere which ends on leaf 69, and
is followed by Libellus cuiusdam ad Ragnierum de tribus columbis
et aliis avibus. This ends on leaf 83. On leaf 84 begins Sermo de eo
quod septum est in psalmo xxxiii. On leaf 86: Incipit liber sci Iohis
csostomi de laudibus beati Pauli, seven Homilies which end on leaf 110.
Sermo in natali sci iohannis euangeliste, with other Homilies ending on
121a. 121b: Incipit Alexandri Magni et Dindimi regis Bragmano-
rum de phylosophia per litteras collatio ends on 130a. 130b: Palladii
opus agriculture ends on leaf 155

8vo. MS. ON VELLUM in various styles of writing, but apparently all by one hand, with ornamental initials, 30, 34, 36, and 40 lines to the page, in fine minute thirteenth century writing; gilt russia, from the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps About 1250 48 0 0 28 GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (1100-1154). De Gestis Regum Britannie Insule. Dum mecum multa et de multis sepius animo revolvens in historiam regum britannie inciderem in mirum contuli quod infra mentionem quandam de eis Gildas et Beda luculento tractatu fecerant nichil.. Leaf 90b: . . Willelmo Malmesburiensi et Henrico Hontendone si quos de regibus brittonum tacere iubeo cum non habeant librum illum brittannici sermonis quem Walterus Oxonefordensis Archidiaconus ex brittania aduexit quem in latinum sermonem transferre curaui. Explicit ... Hic incipit Vaticinia Merlini Galf. En lestorie de bretaigne maior | Dunt li breton primes furent seignor | Trouú escrit quil la pdirent E par famine si la guerpirent | Reis Kadwaladres tot li meillor Alerent en bretaigne menor.. Leaf 99a, the last eleven lines are slighty later and end thus: . . Deu mette helys a bone fin | Ki en romanz trislata le M'lin. Explicit liber de uaticiniis merlini. 996 and 100a contain a Latin Prayer by the hand which added the blessing on Helis on fol. 99. Leaf 100b contains 33 lines of the prose romance of Tristan in French

Small 8vo. FINE MS. ON VELLUM, in a small round hand of the thirteenth century, 33 lines to the page; hf. bd. About 1275 50 0 0

A MS. of great value, from the famous collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps. The

« PreviousContinue »