Anglo-Saxon period

“ But few of the civilized nations of Europe possess works which will bear comparison with those produced by our early Saxon writers; nor has any other of the Gothic tribes, from350 which our old Germanic language sprung, a literature of so old a date, that in any way approaches to the perfection attained by the early Anglo-Saxons. ”

“ As the Saxons were the avowed enemies of the ancient Cymry, and came amongst them only to slay, destroy, and take possession of the land, it is easy to account for the length of time that must have elapsed before the Britons would impart the knowledge they had gathered from the Romans to their Saxon conquerors. ”

“ The remainder of our journey through the kingdoms which anciently formed the Saxon Octarchy now lies in a more direct road, where there are fewer of those perplexing paths and winding ways, such as we have hitherto been compelled to thread, in our difficult course through this dimly-discovered country of the Past. ”

“ The curious semi-Saxon vocabulary is chiefly interesting as representing the Anglo-Saxon in its period of transition, when it was in a state of rapid decadence. The interlinear gloss to Alexander Neckam, and the commentary on John de Garlande, are most important monuments of the language which for a while usurped among our forefathers the place of the Anglo-Saxon, and which we know by the name of the Anglo-Norman. ”

“ The dolichocephali, or long-skulled type of men, who, in part, preceded the English, "have been found abundantly in the Suffolk region of the Littus Saxonicum, where the Celt and Saxon [Englishman] are not known to have met as enemies when East Anglia became a kingdom." Thus we see that just where people of the dark type occur abundantly at the present day, skulls of the corresponding sort are met with abundantly in interments of the Anglo-Saxon period. ”

“ If we can thus trace it, as we may, as far back as the Old English period, when people certainly were as tenacious of their ancient customs as their descendants were, it is reasonable to conclude that those who lived under it in the Saxon period also inherited it from some earlier forefathers. ”

“ From these sources we are enabled to gain a fairly complete view of the Anglo-Saxon culture in the period immediately preceding the immense influx of Romance civilisation after the Conquest; and though some such Romance influence was already exerted by the Normanising tendencies of Eadward the Confessor, we may yet conveniently consider the whole subject here under the age of Eadgar and Æthelred. It is difficult, indeed, to trace any very great improvement in the arts of life between the days of Dunstan and the days of Harold. ”

“ The northmen found no lack of allies in a land where their countrymen had so long been located, who, shaking off their allegiance to England, flew eagerly to arms, and joined the new-comers.
But the old Saxon spirit was not yet wholly extinct. There was still remaining amongst the nobles a few who were resolved not to be plundered with impunity. With great effort they at last succeeded in arousing the lethargic king; and by his command, a few strong ships were built at London, and filled with chosen soldiers; and to Alfric, the governor of Mercia, was entrusted the guidance of the Saxon fleet. ”

“ The settlements that were formed on the south-western coasts of England resembled on the one hand those early colonies of Teutonic people on the southern and eastern coasts in the earliest Anglo-Saxon period, and on the other the later settlements of maritime people, including Danes and Northmen, on the coasts of Wales. ”

“ On the whole, then, Anglo-Saxon poetry exhibits the limitations of a culturally early age, but it manifests also a degree of power which gives to Anglo-Saxon literature unquestionable superiority over that of any other European country of the same period. ”

“ We have tradition, but nothing more. No great power of writing existed up to that period. But Augustine and his companions did more than introduce Christianity among the Saxons. They also introduced writing, annals, and other forms of Roman civilization. The first Anglo-Saxon charter is dated April 28, A.D. 604, by which Ethelbert, king of Kent, granted to the Cathedral church of Rochester, lands at Southgate. This charter was granted by the advice of Bishop Laurence and of all the king’s princes. ”

“ If the Anglo-Saxon peoples do not come within that denomination, what other will?
The struggle for predominance, tacit or avowed, still goes on. No one important nation, in our {viii} times, is more content to remain in a second, or even an equal place, than at any former period of history. ”

“ Bede, the earliest Anglo-Saxon historian, wrote, no doubt, according to the best information current in his day, and his statement concerning the many German tribes from which the English were descended is supported by modern research. Tradition cannot be altogether neglected. In all old countries there comes a time when history dawns, but men lived and died before that dawn, and only traditions concerning them came down to the historic period. ”

“ Of the historical writings that remain from the Anglian period—namely, those of Æddi and Bede, we have already spoken; the subject of the present chapter will be the Saxon Chronicles and the Latin histories which are more or less related to these Chronicles.
The habit of putting together annals began to be formed very early. In our Chronicles there are some entries that may perhaps be older than the conversion of our people. ”

“ Whatever there is in the English character of persistence, obstinacy, patience, industry, sobriety, love of freedom, we are accustomed to attribute to our Anglo-Saxon descent. In religion, arts, learning, literature, culture, we owe little or nothing to the Anglo-Saxon. ”

“ They were, no doubt, for the most part of Teutonic origin, but among them were others of the Wendish race who came into Wilts and Dorset among the Gewissas. The evidence of the black-haired Vikings of the ninth century is from contemporary records certain, and as the English place-names denoting settlers of a dark or black complexion are names which were in use in the Saxon period, there appears to be no reason to doubt that there were among the Anglo-Saxon settlers people of a darker race than the fair-haired Angles and Scandians, or the fair-complexioned Saxons and Germans. ”

“ Anglo-Saxon lads, peacefully sleeping in the harbor of a Latin nation, had been treacherously blown up, and at the sight of that which was thicker than water in the hold of the Maine, the Anglo-Saxons of the world got still closer together. ”

“ He was distinguished for his elaborate study of Latin metres, and his commendation of the pursuit. He wrote poems in Latin hexameters, and among these a Collection of Enigmas, which bore fruit in the later Anglo-Saxon literature.
The latter part of the Anglian period produced Alcuin, the distinguished scholar who was engaged by Charles the Great to organise his new schools. So we see the lamp of culture pass from Anglia into Frankland, shortly before the time when Anglia was overrun by the Danes and almost all the monuments which were destructible perished. ”

“ Though the so-called history of the conquest, handed down to us by Bæda and the "English Chronicle," [1] is now considered by many enquirers to be mythical in almost every particular, the facts themselves speak out for us with unhesitating certainty. We know that about the middle of the fifth century, shortly after the withdrawal of the regular Roman troops, several bodies of heathen Anglo-Saxons, belonging to the three tribes of Jutes, English, and Saxons, settled en masse on the south-eastern shores of Britain, from the Firth of Forth to the Isle of Wight. ”

“ Karinus and Leucius are brought to Jerusalem and led into the temple, where they are adjured to reveal the mysteries they have seen and heard; in compliance they sit down and write.
XX. CÆDMON'S GENESIS: THE OFFERING OF ISAAC. Anglo-Saxon literature first flourished in the Anglian territory (north of the Thames) . In this first period, which culminated about the middle of the eighth century, the greater part of Anglo-Saxon poetry was produced. ”

“ Thus the Anglo-Saxons, before the great exodus from Denmark and North Germany, appear as a race of fierce, cruel, and barbaric pagans, delighting in the sea, in slaughter, and in drink. They dwelt in little isolated communities, bound together internally by ties of blood, and uniting occasionally with others only for purposes of rapine. ”

“ The truth is, that among all those who have achieved great prominence in the English-speaking world, the Anglo-Saxon type is conspicuous by its absence. Nine times in ten, when a man boasts of “Anglo-Saxon” pluck, enterprise, ability, and progress, he himself is not of that type of man, and nine-tenths of the incidents he cites were brought about through the pluck, enterprise, ability and progress which came from mixed blood. ”

“ The Norman Conquest gave the death-blow to our old native literature, in the sense that the use of the literary Anglo-Saxon in its first integrity, as at once a learned language and a spoken language, did not extend beyond the generation that witnessed that great dynastic change. In this strict sense we might point to the close of the Worcester Chronicle in 1079 as the termination of Anglo-Saxon literature. ”

“ Our poetry and our ordinary language is tinged with heathen ideas even in modern times.
Still more interesting, however, are those relics of yet earlier social states, which we find amongst the Anglo-Saxons themselves. The production of fire by rubbing together two sticks is a common practice amongst all savages ”

“ The Anglo-Saxon put on the new civilization and institutions brought him by the Conquest, as he would an embroidered garment; but the man within the garment, though modified by civilization, has never essentially changed. ”

“ In blood, it is probable that the importance of the Anglo-Saxon element has been generally over-estimated. It has been too usual to speak of England as though it were synonymous with Britain, and to overlook the numerical strength of the Celtic population in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. It has been too usual, also, to neglect the considerable Danish, Norwegian, and Norman element, which, though belonging to the same Low German and Scandinavian stock, yet differs in some important particulars from the Anglo-Saxon. ”

“ Anyone who departs from the beaten track, and attempts to obtain some new information from archæological and other research bearing on the circumstances of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, will find many difficulties in his way, and that much time is required to make even small progress. Here and there, however, by the comparison of customs, old laws, the ancient names of places, and other archæological circumstances, with those of a similar kind in Scandinavia or Germany, some advance may be made. ”

“ It has been usual to represent the English conquest of South-eastern Britain as an absolute change of race throughout the greater part of our island. The Anglo-Saxons, it is commonly believed, came to England and the Lowlands of Scotland in overpowering numbers, and actually exterminated or drove into the rugged west the native Celts. The population of the whole country south of Forth and Clyde is supposed to be now, and to have been ever since the conquest, purely Teutonic or Scandinavian in blood, save only in Wales, Cornwall, and, perhaps, Cumberland and Galloway. ”

“ The unifying force to-day is the Anglo-Saxon, who to the genius of the Roman for conquest and government, and to the genius of the Greek for letters and art, has added the genius of the Phœnician for commerce and the genius of the Hebrew for religion. Here we touch the secret of his ascendancy. The Anglo-Saxon civilization is Christian. His [Pg 14] language is becoming the universal language. His institutions are becoming the universal institutions. His ships carry the passengers and produce of the world. His capital dominates commerce. London is the clearing-house of the world. ”

“ It was probably the most remarkable evidence on record of the resourcefulness of the Anglo-Saxon race, and its ability and determination to dominate. Driven to desperation by conditions that threatened to destroy their civilization, the citizens of the South, through this organization, turned upon their enemies, overwhelmed them, and became again masters of their own soil ... and its proper use must be commended by all good men everywhere, for by it was preserved the purest Anglo-Saxon civilization of this nation. ”

“ It is, Sir, a great race from which we came, or rather two great races, for I must protest that the way men speak of us as Anglo-Saxons is very imperfect and inadequate. We are not Anglo-Saxon simply, but Anglo-Celtic in origin. ”

“ The aim of this volume is “to bring all the English-speaking peoples together by enabling them to realize their own characteristics.” And to this end the author “has covered the ground that the Anglo-Saxon occupies in anthropology, history, economics, art, theology, and everything else.... The privileged classes of England are a Latin survival, and so is the ‘boss’ of American politics. Nevertheless, Americans, Australians, and other Anglo-Saxons are far ahead of Great Britain in their progress towards true Anglo-Saxonism ”

“ From what we have seen, in the course of the preceding chapters, society seems for a long time to have been at a standstill among the Anglo-Saxons, as though it had progressed as far as its own simple vitality would carry it, and wanted some new impulse to move it onwards. By the entrance of the Normans, the Saxon aristocracy was destroyed ”

“ As in the times of the early Saxon kings, the cause breeding destruction was the widening distance between the king and the people. In those earlier times the people unresistingly lapsed into decadence, but the Anglo-Saxon had learned much since then, and it was not so safe to degrade him and trample on his rights. ”