Beast Allegories.-The Panther, The Whale, and The Partridge are perhaps portions of an Old English Physiologus, or allegorical bestiary. The description of the animal is followed by an allegory upon it-e.g. the Panther is Christ, the Whale is Satan. Riddles. The Riddles are ninety-five in number, perhaps originally a hundred. There were various collections of riddles in Latin. The eighty-sixth is in Latin, and has the name Lupus in it, perhaps as Cynewulf's signature. The riddles are from four to a hundred lines long; they describe scenes, events, persons, animals, familiar English objects of the time, with poetic imagination-e.g. the iceberg, the ploughing, the wandering singer, the swain. MINOR POEMS AND FRAGMENTS Several minor poems remain to be noticed. Cuthbert, in a famous letter to Cuthwin, Bishop of the East Angles (c. 750), gives a Latin version of a Death Song which he says his master, Bede, composed. It belongs to the period of Cadmon's Hymn. The Address of the Lost Soul to the Body, The Address of the Saved Soul to the Body (a fragment), and the Last Judgment form a group of similar subjects. The Gifts of Men, The Fates of Men, The Mind of Man, and The Falsehood of Man are short poetical sermons based on prose homilies. The gifts include hunting, seamanship, drinking, and dicing. The Fates is on the theme "The child-what will he become?" Riming Song. The Riming Song is unique in English poetry for the regular use of head-rhyme and end-rhyme in the same poem. The subject is the remembrance in sadness of happier days. Gnomic Verses.-The rest of the minor poems are didactic. The Gnomic Verses or Proverbs consist of maxims and descriptions; A Father's Instruction, which has been compared to the Proverbs of Solomon; The Rune Song, on the meanings of the names of the twenty-nine runes; and Saloman and Saturn, a dialogue in alliterative verse. POETRY AFTER ALFRED With the Danish destruction of the abbeys north of the Humber Northumbrian poetry ceased. The centre of learning now was Wessex, where Alfred was directly responsible for the revival of literature and the promotion of education. The 10th and 11th centuries are notable as the greatest period of Old English prose. Most of the little verse we have deals with contemporary events, or is suggested by them. Judith. To the 10th century may be referred Judith, noticed above; if, as has been conjectured, it was written in honour of Ethelflæd of Mercia and her freeing of the Five Boroughs, its probable date is 918. There remain the Battle of Maldon; several poems and passages of poetry inserted in the Chronicle; the Menologium, or poetical calendar; Domes Dæge, a very fine and beautiful expanded version of De Die Judicii, said to be by Bede or by Alcuin; a hortatory poem called Lär; and some 11th-century metrical versions of the Psalms. The Battle of Maldon.-The Battle of Maldon celebrates the death in 991 of Bryhtnoth the Ealdorman, kinsman of Ælfric's friend and patron Æthelmær, while fighting at Maldon on the Blackwater to repel the new invasion of the Northmen. A few lines at the beginning and end are lost. The Vikings are on an island in the river. Bryhtnoth has marshalled his men on the bank, when the enemy's herald offers peace and withdrawal in return for tribute. He scornfully refuses. The tide comes in and delays the battle. Then Bryhtnoth allows the Norsemen to cross to the bank. In the fierce fighting Bryhtnoth is slain, calling on the rest to continue the resistance. His chief thegns fall too. Many of the English flee to the woods. Elfwine rallies the remnants, and is supported by Offa and Dunmere. The narrative ends while the English thegns are still falling. The poem is minute in detail, full of patriotic fervour, and very dramatic. It gives a graphic picture of courageous and faithful comradeship in war, and in it we see reflected the troubled times of Æthelred. Poems in the Chronicle.-The Battle of Brunanburh (937) is the first poem in the Chronicle. This fine lyrical poem celebrates Æthelstan's victory over the Danes, the Welsh, and the Scots. The tone is noble and enthusiastic. There are some nine or ten other sets of verses in the Chronicle, but none equal to this. CHAPTER 4. BRITISH AND ENGLISH WRITERS IN LATIN British Writers: Gildas and Nennius-English Men of Letters: Ealdhelm, Bede, Gildas.-Gildas the Wise, born c. A.D. 500, lived in the west of England. He wrote, c. 547, his Liber Querulus, dealing with the destruction and conquest of Britain by the English (see p. 622). Nennius. Another work, Historia Britonum, is a compilation about Britain and some notable Britons-e.g. St. Patrick-made by a Briton (c. 679), and with later additions, edited (c. 800) by Nennius (see p. 622). In the South Ealdhelm. The first great English writer of Latin was Ealdhelm, one of the chief pupils of the school established by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his deacon Hadrian. The Roman Church, in the south, encouraged Latin. Although Ealdhelm wrote some songs in English, his chief work was in Latin: (a) De Laudibus Virginitatis, in prose; (b) a version of (a) in hexameters ; (c) the Letter to Acircius (Aldfrith, King of Northumbria), containing a hundred riddles in verse and a prose treatise on metre, etc.; (d) a number of letters, to abbesses and nuns, foreign monasteries, kings, etc. Ealdhelm lived chiefly at Malmesbury, but died in 709, Bishop of Sherborne. He had several imitators in the south and west of England, such as Tatwin, Æthilwald (Ethelbald), and Boniface. In the North. When Paulinus baptized Edwin in 627, Latin literature had its beginning in York, but ceased for the time with Edwin's death and the flight of Paulinus; for when, under Oswald in 634, Christianity was revived, it was under the Celtic Church, which fostered a vernacular literature. The decision of the Synod of Whitby (664), which finally established in the north the rule of Rome, again resulted in the growth of Latin literature in Northumbria. In 674 and 682 were founded by Benedict Biscop the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, which had considerable libraries. Bede. The greatest writer of the period is Bede, called the Venerable. He was born c. 673. At the age of seven he was placed under the charge of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, and not long after was transferred to Jarrow, where he spent the rest of his life and died in 735. The beautiful and vivid story of his death which Cuthbert tells, is as well known as that of the call of Cadmon which he himself tells in his History. Bede was a voluminous writer on all the learning of his time. His chief work, and his best, popular on the Continent as well as in England, is the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731), from Julius Cæsar to 731, chiefly from the coming of Augustine. For the earlier history he uses numerous authorities, and weighs his material in the true historical spirit. For later times he consults contemporaries and acquaintances of the men he writes about. added the note of his own charming personality, whether in his charitable yet sure estimate of persons or his graceful narration of scenes, such as that of Paulinus and Edwin of Northumbria, which contains the arresting simile of the sparrow flying through the lighted hall. Perhaps his last writing was the letter to Egbert of York, a pastoral epistle which shows his deep interest in and insight into the social and religious life of the time. The only English work written by Bede that we know of is lost; it was an unfinished translation of St. John's Gospel. Alcuin. Egbert, Bede's pupil, became Archbishop of York; and York, at Bede's death, became the chief school of Northumbria, with a library rivalling that of Rome, a wide range of studies, and students from Ireland and western Europe. Egbert and, on his death, Ælberht, assisted by his friend Alcuin or Ealhwine, developed this European centre of learning. Alcuin was a very fine scholar, and his help in organizing the education of his empire was sought by Charlemagne; he therefore left England to spread through English scholars and books the learning * of England on the Continent, and that just when the Scandinavian invasions were beginning to destroy literature in Northumbria, as they had ruined learning in Wessex and Mercia. Alcuin died in 804. His works were written chiefly on the Continent, many of them works of controversial theology. Of his letters, his best historical and literary remains, written to Charlemagne and others, 300 still exist, and show the important influence he had. Other Latin Writings.-Amongst the other Latin writings are various lives of saints, several apocalyptic visions, and some devotional works. (2,352) 20 a CHAPTER 5. OLD ENGLISH PROSE Alfred the Great: his Educational Activities; his Translations of Gregory's Pastoral ALFRED Alfred at his accession told Pope Gregory that there were few south of the Humber who could render the service-book into English, and fewer north of it. For England, lost to learning through the Danish invasions, he did what Charlemagne, with the aid of English scholars from Northumbria, had once done for his kingdoms; and as the result of his labours Wessex became, in succession to Northumbria, the centre of learning. He has been called the greatest of our kings; he led his country victoriously against the Danes, established laws, fostered learning, and set a high example of religion and piety. Visiting Rome as a boy, and, on his homeward journey, the court of Charles the Bald, he received impressions that greatly influenced him in his work for the revival of letters in England. The sources of our knowledge about Alfred are his own works, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and a Life by Asser. Asser was a Welsh cleric of St. Davids whom Alfred prevailed upon to spend with him six months of each year after 886, and to help him in the study of Latin. He became Bishop of Sherborne, and outlived Alfred by ten years. In 887 Alfred began to compile a Handbook, now lost, chiefly extracts from the Vulgate and the Fathers. Next year he had it translated into English for the people to read. Perhaps in the same year, more probably about five years later, he edited and wrote the preface to his Law Book. |