It
seems to us to be one of the great services which Bede rendered
to English writers, that he gave currency to a direct and simple
style.
seems to us to be one of the great services which Bede rendered
to English writers, that he gave currency to a direct and simple
style.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v01
There is, practically, nothing to show that he knew
Hebrew, and we need not spend time in examining the remark
about Vergil. In spite of this and similar exaggerations, the
fact remains that Aldhelm's learning is really very great for
his time.
The writings of his which we possess are the following:
1. A number of letters. 2. A prose treatise on the praise of
virginity. 3. A versification, in hexameters, of the same treatise.
4. A prose book on the number seven and on metres, especially
the hexameter, containing also a collection of one hundred riddles
in verse. 5. Occasional poems, principally inscriptions for altars
or the like.
. Of the letters (several of which have been preserved among
the correspondence of St Boniface) two are of particular interest.
The first of these, addressed to the Welsh king Geraint, complains
of the irregularities of the British clergy in regard to the form of
the tonsure and the observance of Easter, and of their unchristian
attitude towards the English clergy, with whom they refuse to
hold any intercourse. It warns the king of the dangers incurred
by those who are out of communion with the church of Peter, and
begs him to use his influence in favour of union. The style and
vocabulary of this letter are unusually plain and straightforward.
Few words appear to be inserted simply for the sake of adorning
the page. It is a sincere and business-like document.
The other offers a wide contrast. It is written to one Eahfrid
on his return from Ireland, whither he had gone for purposes of
study, and is intended to show that equally good teaching could
be obtained in England. With this in view, Aldhelm pours out
all the resources of an extremely rich and varied vocabulary upon
his correspondent. In the opening lines the figure of alliteration
is employed to an alarming extent: out of sixteen consecutive
words fifteen begin with p. Once or twice, the writer breaks
without rime or reason into Greek (the phrase ad doxam
onomatis kyrië is a good example); and Latinised Greek words
stud the text, together with unfamiliar Latin. Elaborate passages
of metaphor, too, occur-one about bees, of which Aldhelm is
specially fond—and the whole affords as concentrated a sample of
the author's "learned” style as it is possible to find in a small
compass. An interesting feature in the theme is a panegyric on
Theodore and Hadrian, who are extolled as capable of routing
and putting to shame all the scholars of Ireland.
It is evident that this letter was much admired, for it survives
## p. 74 (#94) ##############################################
74
Latin Writings in England
in a good many copies, in juxtaposition with the treatise on
virginity, with which it has no connection.
The two books in prose and verse on virginity were the most
popular of Aldhelm's writings. A short sketch of their contents
must be given.
po The prose treatise is addressed to a group of nuns, some of
whom have English names, while others have adopted the names
of virgin saints. They are headed by Hildelitha, who afterwards
became abbess of Barking. We have, first, a thanksgiving for the
learning and virtue of the community, a lengthy comparison of
nuns to bees and a panegyric on the state of virginity, with a
warning against the eight principal vices. Then follows the main
| body of the work, consisting of a number of examples of men and
women who have excelled in chastity. The first order of these is
taken from the Old Testament (Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Daniel,
the Three Children); the second from the New (John Baptist,
John Evangelist, Thomas, Paul, Luke). From the subsequent
history of the church come Clement of Rome, Sylvester, Ambrose,
Martin, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Felix. A group of hermits and
monks follows: Antony, Paul, Hilarion, John, Benedict. Then,
some who suffered for chastity as confessors (Malchus, Narcissus,
Athanasius) or as martyrs (Babylas, Cosmas and Damian, Chrys-
anthus and Daria, Julian and Basilissa). Last among the male
examples are two more hermits, Amos and Apollonius. Next
follow the heroines : the Virgin Mary, Cecilia, Agatha, Lucy,
Justina, Eugenia, Agnes, Thecla, Eulalia, Scholastica, Christina,
Dorothea, Constantina, Eustochium, Demetrias, Agape, Irene and
Chionia, Rufina and Secunda, Anatolia and Victoria. In most of
these cases the substance of the saint's history is given, sometimes
at considerable length.
After this, a few examples are cited of persons who were in
some way notable in connection with chastity, though not all
celibate : Joseph, David, Samson, Abel, Melchizedek are brought
forward. A warning against splendour of attire occupies some
space and is followed by an apology for the style of the work, as
having been written under the pressure of many occupations.
The conclusion of the whole is a request for the prayers of the
recipients.
The poetical form of the treatise is later than the prosaic. It
begins with a very elaborate double acrostic, the initials and finals
of the lines forming one and the same hexameter verse: the initials
are to be read downwards and the finals upwards. The book is this
## p. 75 (#95) ##############################################
Aldhelm's Style
75
time addressed to an abbess Maxima, whose English name does
not appear to be known. The arrangement of the poem coincides
generally, but not exactly, with that of the prose book. The pre-
liminary praise of virginity is shorter. Some examples (Thomas,
Felix, Christina, Dorothea) are omitted, and a couple (Gervasius
and Protasius, and Jerome) added.
After the story of Anatolia and Victoria the poem diverges
from the prose and gives a description of the eight principal vices,
modelled, not very closely, upon Prudentius's Psychomachia. It
ends by deprecating criticism and by asking for the prayers of
the reader.
The sources and style of these books are the chief matters
which engage our attention. With regard to the sources of the prose
treatise in particular, we see that Aldhelm had access to a very
considerable library of Christian authors. It included (taking the
citations as they occur in the text) an unidentified work in which
an angel appears as speaker (not The Shepherd of Hermas),
Isidore, Pseudo-Melito’s Passion of John, Acts of Thomas, Revela-
tion of Paul (in the fullest Latin text), Recognitions of Clement,
Acts of Sylvester, Paulinus's Life of Ambrose, Sulpicius Severus,
lives of Gregory and Basil, Athanasius's Life of Antony, Vitae
Patrum, Gregory's Dialogues, Rufinus's version of Eusebius,
Jerome's letter and his Life of Malchus, and an extensive col-
lection of Passions of Martyrs. Among poets, Vergil and Prosper
are prominent. In this enumeration only the obvious sources
have been reckoned. A list of the books whose influence is
perceptible in phrases or allusions would be of equal length.
The style recalls the intricate ornamentation of the Celtic
manuscripts of the time. The thought is simple, as are the
ingredients of the patterns in the manuscripts; but it is in-
volved in exhausting periods, and wonderful words are dotted
about in them like spangles. We have seen that, to some scholars
in this age, learning meant chiefly the knowledge of strange words.
Aldhelm is not free from this delusion. A fairly close rendering
of a paragraph from the prose treatise will convey a better idea of
his manner than many lines of description.
Paul, formerly Saul, the Benjamin of the prophesy, at morning devouring
the prey and at evening dividing the spoil; who, by his fearsome bidding,
compelled the pythoness, prophesying the vanities of deceit through the spirit
of necromancy and thereby heaping up in abundance the sumptuous wealth
of her lords and enriching them to satiety with the pleasant treasures of her
gains to set before her impudent lips the door of dumb silence; and who,
marvellous to tell, spent anhurt four times six hours in the deep bottom of
the sea, and bore four times forty blows, less one, by the sharp torment of
## p. 76 (#96) ##############################################
76
Latin Writings in England
ornelty: was it not in virtue of his prerogative of intact purity that, exploring
the third heaven, he beheld the souls of the citizens above with virgin glances,
and sought out the hidden things of the celestial host in an experience of
matters that might not be spoken: though the Revelation (as they call it) of
Paul babbles of his visiting the delights of flowery paradise in a golden ship.
Yet the divine law forbids the followers of the catholic faith to believe any-
thing beyond what the ordinance of canonical truth publishes, and the decisions
of orthodox Fathers in written decretals have commanded us to give up
utterly and banish far from us this and other fevered fancies of spurious
books, as thundering words horrifying to the ear.
Another important production of our author-important as
exemplifying his secular learning, though it never attained the
popularity of his other works—is the Letter to Acircius (king
Aldfrith of Northumbria), which contains a disquisition on the
number seven, a treatise on the hexameter and a collection of
riddles in verse. The portion of the book which deals with metre
is illustrated by very many examples from Latin poets. A large
number of the classical quotations must, no doubt, be put down to
the credit of the grammarian Audax, from whom much of the
text is borrowed; but a very considerable proportion is, certainly,
derived from Aldhelm's own reading. We may be sure, for in-
stance, that he had access to Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Cicero, Pliny,
Sallust, Solinus. The list of Christian poets is astonishing :
Juvencus, the author of the versified Latin Old Testament, who is
now called Cyprianus, Sedulius, Arator, Alcimus Avitus, Prudentius,
Prosper, Corippus, Venantius Fortunatus, Paulinus of Périgueux
and an otherwise unknown Paulus Quaestor are all used. A little
group of Spanish authorities, in particular the grammatical work
of Julian of Toledo, is a curious feature. The traces of Horace,
Juvenal, Persius, Seneca, Dracontius, Sidonius are slight. Orosius,
Lactantius, Junilius and a number of grammarians may close our
catalogue, which, it will be recognised, is a very impressive one.
The riddles which occur in the midst of this treatise are among
the most attractive part of Aldhelm's work. They are modelled
on those of Symphosius (a fifth century writer) but are not, like
his, confined to the limits of three lines apiece. They are, for
the most part, ingenious little descriptions of simple objects :
e. g. to take a series at random-the locust, the nightcrow, the
gnat, the spindle, the cupping-glass, the evening, the dagger,
the bubble. That this form of wit-sharpening made a great
appeal to the mind of our ancestors is amply evident from many
passages in the Old English literature, notably The Dialogue
of Salomon and Saturn, and the documents related thereto;
and are not the periphrases of all early Scandinavian poetry
## p. 77 (#97) ##############################################
Aldhelm's Literary Work
77
exemplifications of the same tendency? As we have seen,
Aldhelm's riddles were copiously imitated by Englishmen in later
centuries?
We have seen something of the number of Latin authors who
were known to Aldhelm. It may be added here that, in a letter to
Hedda, bishop of Winchester, he describes himself, apparently, as
engaged in the study of Roman law, and, certainly, as occupied
with metres and with the science of astronomical calculation.
It would be interesting to be able to show that, besides
knowing the Greek language (as we are sure he did), he pos-
sessed Greek books, apart from Latin versions ; but it is not
really possible to find much evidence to this effect. He once
cites Judith "according to the Septuagint"; in another place he
calls the Acts of the Apostles the Praxapostolos ; elsewhere he
gives the name of a work of St Basil in Greek, and mentions
Homer and Hesiod. Not much can be built on these small
foundations. The probability is that he read Greek books when
studying under Hadrian, but that in later life he possessed none
of his own.
Summing up the literary work of Aldhelm, we find in him a
good representative of the pupils of Theodore and Hadrian, on
whom both Roman and Greek influences have been exercised;
and we see in him also one for whom the grandiloquence of the
Celt, the love of an out of the way vocabulary, of sound rather at
the cost of sense, had great attraction. We cannot truly declare
that the literature of the world would be much the poorer for the
loss of his writings; but it is fair to say that there is in them,
despite all their affectation, a great deal of freshness and vigour;
that they are marked by the faults of youth rather than by those
of senescence. That they were immensely popular we can see
from the number of existing copies of the treatise on virginity
and the letter to Aldfrith. Most of these are early and are
distinguished by the beauty of their script. One, now at Lambeth,
has a rather well-known frontispiece representing the author and
a group of nuns.
Additional evidence of the importance of Aldhelm as a
literary figure is afforded by the existence of what we may call
the Aldhelmian school of English Latinists. The works of these
are neither many in number nor large in compass; but the dis-
tribution of the writers covers a fairly considerable space both
geographically and in time. Little attention has hitherto been
? See ante, Chapter IV, p. 60.
## p. 78 (#98) ##############################################
78
Latin Writings in England
paid to them in this country, and, on all accounts, they deserve
notice.
First among them may be reckoned a series of five interesting
little poems which have been preserved (as have several of Ald-
helm's letters) among the correspondence of St Boniface. They
are written in pairs of eight-syllabled lines.
The first of these' has in its opening couplet an allusion to
Aldhelm's name, and seems to be addressed to him by a cantor at
Malmesbury. In a very spirited fashion it describes a storm in
late June, which unroofed the dormitory or some other of the
buildings of a monastery where the writer was. It is not easy to
see whether this place was Malmesbury abbey or a monastic house
in Devonshire. The second poem is, as appears from an accompany-
ing letter, by one Aethilwald (usually, but not rightly, identified
with Ethelbald, king of the Mercians from 716 to 757) and describes
a visit to Rome, dwelling with great particularity upon some silken
fabrics which the pilgrims had brought back with them. Of the re-
maining three, one is a short prayer, the next an address to Aldhelm,
who is called Cassis prisca (i. e. Old helmet), most likely by Aethil-
wald, and the last is supposed to be Aldhelm's reply thereto. These
poems are very favourable specimens of the Aldhelmian style.
Two direct imitators of Aldhelm, Tatwin and Eusebius, come
next under consideration. Both were men of eminence : Tatwin
died archbishop of Canterbury in 734, and Eusebius is almost
certainly identical with Hwaetberct, abbot of Wearmouth and
Jarrow from 716. Two collections of riddles in Latin hexameters
by these persons have survived. In that of Tatwin ingenuity is
prominent: he makes the initials and finals of the first line of
each riddle into an acrostic of hexameters. That of Eusebius is
supplementary to Tatwin's; it makes up the forty riddles of
the latter to one hundred, the number contained in Aldhelm's
collection, which had undoubtedly served as a model to both
writers. St Boniface (d. 755) is the last noteworthy individual
who can be claimed as a member of this school. He employs the
short eight-syllabled lines as the vehicle of an acrostic on the
words Nithardus vive felix; and he writes a series of enigmas
on the virtues and vices, in hexameters, in which the acrostic is
extensively employed. Some of his letters, too, are couched in
the true Aldhelmian style. Several of his correspondents, more-
over, and the authors of a good many letters not addressed to
him which are nevertheless preserved with his own, bear the
same stamp. Among them are three or four short poems in
1 See note on p. 87.
## p. 79 (#99) ##############################################
Bede
79
eight-syllabled metre. Especially noteworthy are a letter from
Lul and others to an abbess Cuneburga and an anonymous letter
to an abbess and a nun.
The Aldhelmian school, with the single exception of Eusebius
(Hwaetberct), consists of men nurtured in the south and west of
England. The two other great men who remain to be considered
are representatives of the north. We have hinted already that
the Latin culture of the northern English was more directly de-
pendent upon Rome, than was that of Canterbury, with its eastern
flavour, or that of the west, where Celtic influence may be sus-
pected. We do not forget Aidan's work in the north; yet that
had but faint effects upon literature; and the fact remains that
the eccentricities and affectations of Aldhelm have no parallel in
the work of Bede.
Bede is by far the greatest name which our period presents.
Like the later Alcuin, he was of European reputation ; but he
owed that reputation to the sheer excellence of his books.
Alcuin occupied a great and influential position, and used the
opportunities which it gave him with the best effect. But he has
left no writing which we value much for its own sake. Bede, on the
other hand, made an indelible mark on the literature of succeeding to
centuries, and our debt to him can hardly be exaggerated.
Not many lives of great men have been less eventful. It seems
probable that the longest journey he ever took was from Jarrow
to York, and that the greatest crisis of his life was the pestilence
in 686 which decimated the monks of Jarrow. He died in 735 at
Jarrow, where, practically, his whole life of sixty-three years had
been spent. The story of his last hours, as Cuthbert (afterwards
abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow) tells it in his famous letter to
Cuthwin, is of unapproached beauty in its kind. One of the latest
utterances of the great scholar is an index to the tone and temper
of the whole man.
get free from the tieshaand moto Him who
" It is time,” he said, “ if so it seem good to my Maker, that I should be
set free from the flesh, and go to Him who, when I was not, fashioned me out
of nothing. I have lived a long time, and my merciful Judge has ordained
my life well for me. The time for me to be set free is at hand, for indeed my
soul much desires to behold my King Christ in His beauty. "
Over and over again has the life of Bede been sketched, and
the long and varied list of his works reviewed and discussed. By
none has this been better done than by Plummer, in connection
with his admirable edition of the History. From this source we
## p. 80 (#100) #############################################
80 Latin Writings in England
borrow the chronology of Bede's writings which will be here set
forth.
To the period between 691 and 703 belong the tracts on ortre,
on figures of speech in Scripture, on orthography; to 703, the
small work De Temporibus ; to 708, the letter to Plegwin on the
six ages. The metrical life of Cuthbert was written before 705.
In or before 716 fall the commentaries on the Apocalypse, Acts,
catholic Epistles, Luke, Samuel and two exegetical letters to
Acca; after 716, the history of the abbots of Wearmouth and
Jarrow, and commentary on Mark; about 720, the prose life of
Cuthbert and commentary on Genesis ; before 725, the book De
Natura Rerum ; in 725, the large work De Temporum Ratione ;
in 725—731, commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah, and books on
the Tabernacle and the Temple; the Ecclesiastical History of the
English Race in 731; Retractationes on the Acts and the letter
to Egbert must be placed after this. For the following works no
date can be accurately fixed : on the Holy Places, questions on
the books of Kings, commentaries on Proverbs, Canticles, the
Song of Habakkuk, Tobit, the martyrology, homilies, hymns and
a few minor tracts.
The names of these books suggest to us, first of all, Bede's
industry and, next, his wide range of interests. Theology, no
doubt, is a dominant factor in the list, but we have, besides,
i natural science, grammar and history; nor is poetry excluded.
It is not possible here to do more than briefly characterise the
mass of his works. Of the grammatical treatises and those which
relate to natural science it may be said that they are, to a very
large extent, compilations. To Pliny and Isidore, in particular,
Bede owes much in the book De Natura Rerum. Similarly, his
commentaries are often little more than catenae of extracts from
the four Latin Doctors. Probably, the supplementary comment on
the Acts, called Retractationes, is one of the most interesting to
us of the series, since it demonstrates Bede's knowledge of Greek,
and shows that he had before him, when writing, the Graeco-
Latin copy of the Acts already mentioned, which is now in the
Bodleian.
The historical works are, of course, those which distinguish
Bede above all others. There are four books which come under
this head. Two of them may be very shortly dismissed. First, the
Martyrology. We cannot be sure how much of this, in its present
form, is Bede's, for it has been enlarged, as was natural enough, by
many hands. The popularity of it is evident from the fact that it
## p. 81 (#101) #############################################
Bede's Ecclesiastical History 81
formed the basis of recensions by Florus of Lyons, Rabanus of
Mainz, Ado of Vienne, Notker of St Gall and Usuard. Next,
the short work De Temporibus, written in 705. This consists of
a few brief chapters on the divisions of time and the calculations
connected with the observance of Easter, and ends with a very
curt chronicle of the chief events in the six ages of the world's
history. In 725, Bede expanded this little tract into a much larger
book De Temporum Ratione, and the chronicle of the six ages of
the world with which this concludes has been one of the most
far-reaching in its influence of all his works. It served as a
model, and as a source of information, to numberless subsequent
chroniclers. "In chronology," says Plummer, “Bede has the
enormous merit of being the first chronicler who gave the date
from Christ's birth, in addition to the year of the world : and thus
introduced the use of the Dionysian era into western Europe. "
One of the main topics of the book, the methods of calculating the
date of Easter, is one which interested the men of his day far more
than ourselves. A principal reason for this lies in the nearness and
urgency of the controversies which long divided the Celtic,
from the English, church on this subject. It was also one of the
few which brought the mathematical side of men's intellects into
play in the service of religion.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Race is, as we know,
Bede's greatest and best work. If a panegyric were likely to
induce our readers to turn to it for themselves, that panegyric
should be attempted here. Probably, however, a brief statement
of the contents and sources of the five books will be more to the
purpose. The first book, then, beginning with a description of
Britain, carries the history from the invasion of Julius Caesar to
the year 603, after the arrival of Augustine. Among the sources
used are Pliny, Solinus, Orosius, Eutropius, Marcellinus Comes,
Gildas, probably the Historia Brittonum, a Passion of St Alban
and the Life of St Germanus of Auxerre by Constantius.
The second book begins with the death of Gregory the Great,
and ends in 633, when Edwin of Northumbria was killed and
Paulinus retired to Rochester.
It is in this book that the wonderful scene is described in which
Edwin of Northumbria takes counsel with his nobles as to the
acceptance or rejection of the Gospel as preached by Paulinus ;
and here occurs the unforgetable simile of the sparrow flying out
of the winter night into the brightly-lighted hall, and out again
into the dark.
E. L. I. CH. v.
i-
## p. 82 (#102) #############################################
X2
Latin Writings in England
In the third book we proceed as far as 664. In this section
the chief actors are Oswald, Aidan, Fursey, Cedd and Wilfrid.
The fourth book, beginning with the death of Deusdedit in 664
and the subsequent arrival of his successor Theodore, with abbot
Hadrian, deals with events to the year 698. The chief figures are
Chad, Wilfrid, Ethelburga, Etheldreda, Hilda, Caedmon, Cuthbert.
In the fifth and last book we have stories of St John of
Beverley, of the vision of Drythelm, and others, accounts of
Adamnan, Aldhelm, Wilfrid, the letter of abbot Ceolfrid to
Nechtan, king of the Picts, the end of the paschal controversy,
a statement of the condition of the country in 731, a brief
annalistic summary and a list of the author's works.
In the dedication of the History to Ceolwulf, king of North-
umbria, Bede enumerates the friends who had helped him in the
collection of materials, whether by oral or written information.
The chief of these were Albinus, abbot of Canterbury, Nothelm
afterwards archbishop, who, among other things, had copied docu-
ments preserved in the archives of Rome, and Daniel, bishop of
Winchester. Bede used to the full, besides, his opportunities of
intercourse with the clergy and monks of the north who had
known the great men of whom he writes. .
It is almost an impertinence, we feel, to dwell upon the great
qualities which the History displays. That sincerity of purpose
and love of truth are foremost in the author's mind we are always
sure, with whatever eyes we may view some of the tales which he
records. “Where he gives a story on merely hearsay evidence, he
is careful to state the fact"; and it may be added that where he
has access to an original and authoritative document, he gives his
reader the full benefit of it.
From the literary point of view the book is admirable. There
is no affectation of learning, no eccentricity of vocabulary.
It
seems to us to be one of the great services which Bede rendered
to English writers, that he gave currency to a direct and simple
style. This merit is, in part, due to the tradition of the northern
school in which he was brought up; but it is to his own credit
that he was not led away by the fascinations of the Latinity of
Aldhelm.
The popularity of the History was immediate and great. Nor
was it confined to England. The two actually oldest copies which
we possess, both of which may have been written before Bede
died, were both produced, it seems, on the continent, one (now
at Namur) perhaps at St Hubert's abbey in the Ardennes, the
## p. 83 (#103) #############################################
Bede's Letter to Egbert 1
83
other (at Cambridge) in some such continental English colony as
Epternach
The two lives of St Cuthbert and the lives of the abbots of
Wearmouth and Jarrow must not be forgotten. The last-named,
based to some extent upon an anonymous earlier work, has very
great beauty and interest; not many pictures of monastic life are
80 sane, so human and, at the same time, so productive of reverence
and affection in the reader.
The two lives of St Cuthbert are less important in all ways. 7
The metrical one is the most considerable piece of verse attempted
by Bede; that in prose is a not very satisfactory expansion of an
earlier life by a Lindisfarne monk.
Enough has probably been said to give a general idea of the
character of Bede's studies and acquirements. Nothing could be
gained by transcribing the lists of authors known to him, which
are accessible in the works of Plummer and of Manitius. There
is nothing to make us think that he had access to classical or
Christian authors of importance not known to us. He quotes
many Christian poets, but not quite so many as Aldhelm, and,
clearly, does not take so much interest as his predecessor in
pagan authors.
The letter to Egbert of York, perhaps the latest document
we possess from Bede's pen, deserves a special and separate
mention. It is, in brief, a pastoral epistle; and it gives (what we
could only gather indirectly from his other works) the clearest
evidence of Bede's lively interest in the religious life of the people
at large, and his wise and noble conception of the duties of a
Christian minister. His advice to Egbert is prompted by “a real
and unassuming spirit of humility and affection," and it is
thoroughly practical in its statement, alike of the abuses which
need reform, and of the means of reforming them. The suggestions
offered by Bede are those of a man at once spiritually minded and
versed in the affairs of his time; they are, moreover, based on
an intimate knowledge of the history of the church with which he
is dealing. Rarely as he may have trodden the regions outside the
walls of his monastery, it is plain from this letter alone that Bede
may be reckoned as one of the most effective contributors, by his
advice and influence, to the spreading of Christianity in northern
England
No enumeration of works, no accumulation of epithets will give
the picture of a man's mind. And it is the personality of Bede
which we come to regard with affection, when we have read the
6-2
## p. 84 (#104) #############################################
84
Latin Writings in England
book into which he has infused most of his own character. That
book is the History, and from the study of it few will rise without
the feeling that Bede was one of the best of men.
It cannot be maintained that the influence of Alcuin's writings
upon the literature of his country was very important. As a
product of the great school of York, he does, indeed, bear witness
to the admirable training which that school could furnish. The
debt which the schools of Charles the Great owed, through Alcuin,
to England must never be forgotten. This is the central fact,
so far as England is concerned, in Alcuin's career. His written
works, mostly produced on the continent, were not of a kind to
affect very markedly the development of literature; and the
condition of England during the period of Alcuin's residence
abroad was such that English scholars could make no use of what
he was able to impart. The fact is that, very shortly before Alcuin
left England for ever, the Scandinavians had begun that desolating
series of raids upon this country which ended by exterminating the
learning and literature of Northumbria and paralysed intellectual
effort all over the land.
In an often quoted poem on the saints of York, Alcuin
enumerates the principal authors whose works were to be found
in the library collected there by Egbert and Albert. Within
a generation after the poem was written, that library had ceased
to exist; and so had that earlier treasury of books at Wearmouth
which Benedict Biscop commended in the last years of his life
to the special care of his monks. The end of the eighth century
and the course of the ninth saw learning gradually obliterated in
England, until the efforts of Alfred revived an interest in the things
of the mind among his countrymen.
Had it not been for this catastrophe we might have found
English scholars taking part with Alcuin in the adoptionist
controversy, or contributing to the revision of the Vulgate which
is associated with his name. As it is, the ninth century, to the
historian of our Latin literature, is almost a blank.
Alcuin, to resume, was not a great writer. The clearest
indications of his general culture and his manifold activities may,
perhaps, be gathered from his numerous poems and his letters.
These latter, with some of his grammatical works, were the only
part of his writings which attained popularity in England. His
controversial books are of less enduring interest: it is given to
few to follow with intelligent appreciation the dispute which he
## p. 85 (#105) #############################################
Alcuin
waged with Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo upon the
question whether Christ, in His human nature, was or was not
to be called the "adoptive” Son of God. The liturgical works,
again—the homiliary, lectionary and sacramentary-which made
a deep mark upon the church-life of the continent, are works of
compilation. As to the revision of the text of the Latin Bible,
clear evidence that it was the work of Alcuin is not yet producible;
but the probability is very strong that he was at least prominent,
if not supreme, in the undertaking.
But, though the tale of Alcuin's labours is an imposing one,
it is the intellectual stimulus which he imparted, and the long
line of scholars which owed to him its existence, that forms his
true monument. He ranks with Bede as an inspirer of men; but
the vehicle by which his inspiration was conveyed was rather the
voice of the teacher than the written words.
With Alcuin we close the list of the considerable authors who
fall within our period. But there still remain some few writings
of the eighth and ninth centuries which demand a word of notice.
These consist mainly of lives of saints, visions, poems and
devotional literature.
The anonymous lives of the abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow,
and the life of Cuthbert by a Lindisfarne monk-both ex-
tensively used by Bede-have been mentioned already. The
earliest life of Gregory the Great, to which an English origin is
attributed, should not be forgotten here. It is discussed by
Plummer in an appendix to the edition of Bede's History.
More important than this, from the literary point of view, are
the lives of Wilfrid of York by Eddius Stephanus, and of Guthlac
by Felix. Both of these belong to the eighth century. The
former begins in a way which may indicate either indolence or
modesty on the part of its author, who transcribes, with few
alterations and without acknowledgment, the preface of the
anonymous life of Cuthbert. The reading of the life will pro-
bably conduce to the most favourable interpretation being placed
upon this proceeding; for, unflinching partisan as he is, Eddius
makes us think of him kindly. Many a man would have spoken
much more bitterly of the opponents of his hero; and, though
Eddius persistently and gallantly disguises that hero's faults, we
do not feel so much that he is a bad historian, as that he is a
wrongly faithful friend.
Felix, the biographer of Guthlac, is far more picturesque in
style than Eddius. Unlike the latter, he has fallen under the
## p. 86 (#106) #############################################
86
Latin Writings in England
spell of Aldhelm. He has been fascinated, too, by the tales of the
demon hordes who haunted the lonely hermit of the fens, and has
portrayed them in language which, whether directly or not, was
reproduced in vernacular poetry not many generations later.
Closely connected with these biographies of saints are the
visions of the next world. Several of them are reported by Bede,
notably the vision of Fursey, the Irish hermit, and of Drythelm.
Two more (one of them in a fragmentary condition) are preserved
among the correspondence of Boniface. Like the life of Guthlac
these apocalypses had firm hold upon the popular imagination,
and some of them appear in the homilies of Aelfric in an English
dress. They owed their origin, it may be remarked, in great
measure to the Dialogues of Gregory and the apocryphal Revelation
of Paul—which latter, as we have seen, was known to Aldhelm.
It is possible that the far older Revelation of Peter may have
survived in some form accessible to the English church of the
seventh and eighth centuries. Evidence is not wanting to show
that an Italian apocalypse of the seventh century, that of
St Barontus of Pistoja, was studied in England not long after
our period'.
In the department of poetry the only considerable work which
remains to be mentioned is the poem of one Ethelwulf upon the
history of a monastery, the identity of which is not yet certainly
established. The house in question was clearly connected with
Lindisfarne, and is thought to have been at Crayke near York.
The poem is dedicated to Egbert, who was bishop of Lindisfarne
in the first quarter of the ninth century, and is constructed on
the model of Alcuin's versified history of the saints of the
church of York. It contains, among other things, an account of
a vision of the next world, similar to those mentioned in the last
paragraph.
Of devotional literature, by which we mean more particularly
collections of prayers and hymns for private use, there is a fairly
large quantity preserved in manuscripts which belong to the
period under consideration. The most remarkable of these is,
perhaps, the volume called the Book of Cerne, now in the
University Library at Cambridge. Both Celtic and Spanish
influences have been traced in many of the compositions in this
and other like works. Much light may, eventually, be thrown
1 See a passage towards the end of an 11th (? ) century Old English MS, Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, 367, quoted in The Sources of Abp Parker's MSS at
C. C. C. O. , James, M. R. , Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1899, p. 62.
## p. 87 (#107) #############################################
Bede and Alcuin
by this class of literature upon the intellectual, as well as the
religious, surroundings of the clergy and monks of the eighth and
ninth centuries.
A not inconsiderable portion of the Latin writings of these
same centuries consists of documents connected with church law.
Books called Penitentials exist under the names of Theodore, Bede
and Egbert of York; and there are, besides, canons of church
councils and the like. But these have really no claim to the name
of literature, and a mere mention of them must suffice.
These, then, are the chief remains of the Latin literature which
was produced in England before the time of Alfred. The period
of greatest activity lasted, we have seen, for about a hundred
years, from A. D. 690 to 790. It is marked by the rise of two
great schools, those of Canterbury and York, and by the work
of one great scholar. The south of England produced works
characterised by a rather perverted and fanciful erudition. It was
the north which gave birth to Bede, the one writer of that age a
whose works are of first-rate value, and to Alcuin, whose influence
was supreme in the schools of the continent.
Note to p. 78. Henry Bradley has pointed out (English Historical Review, 1900,
p. 291) that the first poem is, most likely, addressed to Helmgisl, not Aldhelm, and
that the fifth is by Aethilwald and addressed to one Oua.
## p. 88 (#108) #############################################
CHAPTER VI
ALFRED AND THE OLD ENGLISH PROSE OF HIS
REIGN
THE reign of Alfred acquired its chief glory from the personality
of the king. He had many titles to fame. His character was
made up of so many diverse elements that he seemed, at one and
the same time, to be military leader, lawgiver, scholar and saint,
and these elements were so combined that the balance of the
whole was never disturbed. In the minds of posterity Alfred
lives as the type of an ideal Englishman.
In each of the departments of his activity the king's work was
of permanent value. His efforts, though essentially pioneer in
character, laid a solid and permanent foundation for the super-
structure which was to be raised by his successors. As king, he
ruled a portion only of modern England and left much to be com-
pleted by his descendants. But the centralising policy which he
inaugurated and successfully realised—the policy of making Wessex
the nucleus of England's expansion-alone made possible the
growth of an enlarged kingdom. Alfred's ideals for Wessex re-
flect a large vision and much practical wisdom, and the reign is
as remarkable for its educational as for its political progress. His
conceptions were cosmopolitan rather than insular. He never lost
sight of the importance of keeping his kingdom in organic relation
with European civilisation-a lesson stamped upon his mind ever
since, in his early years (856), during the pontificate of one of the
greatest of the popes, Leo IV, he had visited Rome and the court
of Charles the Bald. This visit made a vivid impression upon
Alfred's mind. His father's marriage with the emperor's daughter,
Judith, cemented relationships with the continent and the
insularity of Britain was henceforth broken down. The import-
ance for literature of this emergence from isolation cannot be
over-estimated. Charles the Great had gathered round him at
Aachen a cultured circle of scholars and writers, and had pro-
moted a renascence of classical study, the influence of which was
## p. 89 (#109) #############################################
Asser's Life of Alfred 89
still powerful in the days of Charles the Bald. The illuminated
MSS of the French court of the ninth century—the St Denis
and Metz Bibles, the Psalter and book of Gospels, in particular-
are conspicuous examples of artistic skill. After his accession
Alfred looked to the Frankish empire for assistance in his task
of reviving learning in Wessex. At his request, Grimbald, a
monk of St Bertin in Flanders, and John of Corbie came
over to Britain, and were appointed abbots of Winchester and
Aethelney respectively. The king diligently promoted scholarship, -
and himself undertook to translate into West Saxon recognised
works in Latin prose. At the same time he increased the number
of monasteries and reformed the educational side of these institu-
tions by the introduction of teachers, English and foreign. The
story of Grimbald's visit to Oxford and of the existence there of a
community of scholars is, however, not supported by any evidence.
The legend was interpolated in an edition of Asser's Life of
Alfred, based on Parker's text, which Camden published in
1602—3. No MS, or other authority, is known to support
Camden's statement. The consequence of the educational and
literary activity of Alfred's reign was to transfer the centre of 4
learning from Northumbria to Wessex. The monastic communities
of Lindisfarne, Evesham and Croyland had fostered scholarship
in the north, and, in the seventh century, Whitby had produced
Caedmon. In 674, Benedict Biscop had built the monastery of
St Peter at Wearmouth and, in 682, a second house at Jarrow, at
both of which large libraries were collected. The arts of glass-
making, gold-work and embroidery were introduced from the
continent. Northumbria had thus become “the literary centre)
of western Europe," producing scholars of the type of Bede, the
master of the learning of his day, and Alcuin, the scholarly helper
of Charles the Great. But with the appearance of the Danes began
the decline of learning in the north. So much did scholarship suffer
in consequence of the viking raids that, at the date of Alfred's
accession, there was no scholar even south of the Thames who could
read the mass-book in Latin. The revival of letters in Wessex was
the direct result of the king's enthusiasm and personal efforts, and
his educational aims recall irresistibly the work of Charles the Great.
The authorities for the life of Alfred are many, but of unequal
value. His own works, reflecting as they do his personal
character and convictions, furnish the most important data, the
Chronicle and the Life by Asser ranking next in value. Asser, L
a Welsh cleric, was, in all probability, educated at St David's to
## p. 90 (#110) #############################################
go
The Prose of Alfred
He had already been in communication with Alfred regarding the
defence of his monastery when he was summoned by the king to
assist him in his educational schemes. According to his own
account, Asser arranged to stay with Alfred for six months of
each year, spending the remaining six in Wales. He became the
king's most intimate friend and diligently assisted him in his
study of Latin. He was eventually appointed bishop of Sherborne,
and died some ten years after the king. The authenticity of
Asser's book has been much disputed. The unique MS survives
only in charred and illegible fragments, but it is clear from
external evidence that Parker's edition (1574) contains large
editorial alterations and interpolations from the Lives of St Neots.
Formidable evidence in support of the genuineness of the original
Asser has been collected by Stevenson and others. The Welsh and
Latin forms and the scriptural quotations point to the early part of
the tenth century, and, at the same time, attest the Celtic nationality
of the author. The chronology is based on a primitive version of
the Chronicle, which the author supplements by details which none
but an eye-witness could have supplied. The very incompleteness
of the book is an argument against its being a forgery. Its abrupt
beginning and conclusion, and its awkward combination of extracts
from the Chronicle with original matter, may have been due to the
choice of Frankish models, such as Einhart's Life of Charles the
Great or Thegan's Life of Ludwig the Pious. Asser's book holds
a unique position as “the earliest biography of an English layman. ”
Florence of Worcester is valuable as illustrating the genuine text
. . of Asser, since he ignores what was, apparently, interpolated. The
later chroniclers, Simeon of Durham and William of Malmesbury,
throw occasional light on incidents in the king's career, but, on
the whole, are responsible for the growth of the Alfred legend.
The chronological order of Alfred's works is difficult to
determine. Depending, as we do, mainly upon internal evidence,
there is no absolute test whereby to fix the priority of one work
over another. Evidence of style is notoriously untrustworthy.
There are, however, a few considerations on the basis of which a
general arrangement may be attempted, though scarcely two
critics are in entire agreement as to the final order. Of these
considerations the most important is ability to reproduce in West
Saxon prose the spirit of the Latin original. A comparatively
close translation is, in Alfred's case, a sign of the 'prentice hand;
his latest work is marked by great freedom of rendering and large
insertions. Some further light is thrown on the problem by the
## p. 91 (#111) #############################################
Alfred's Pastoral Care
91
character of the prefaces to the various books. The chroniclers
are of little assistance in the determination of the relative
order.
The Handbook may safely be considered the earliest of Alfred's
compilations. Unfortunately, no trace of the book is now to be
found, though its existence is attested by external evidence. The
circumstances under which the formation of the Handbook was
begun make it clear that it was essentially a commonplace-book of
extracts from the Latin Bible and the Fathers. Asser, to whom
was due the suggestion that a book of this nature might be of
service to the king, describes it as an assemblage of flosculi,
culled from various sources. These extracts Alfred wrote down
in Latin, in the first instance, and, aſterwards, began to render them
into English. The first entries were made on 11 November 887,
in venerabili Martini solemnitate. William of Malmesbury
refers to the common-place book, quem patria lingua Handboc
(Encheiridion) i. e. manualem librum appellavit. Further, there
is in Florence of Worcester's Chronicle a reference to certain
Dicta regis Aelfredi, whereby the Handbook may, possibly, be
meant. There would, however, be no justification for identifying
the Dicta with the Handbook, were it not for the fact that
Malmesbury uses the latter as an authority for the life of Aldhelm.
It is quite conceivable that Alfred inserted among his notes an
account of Aldhelm, with whose verses he was probably acquainted.
But no importance whatever is to be attached to Florence of
Worcester's suggestion that the Handbook was a record of West
Saxon genealogy. It is possible that neither chronicler is to be
relied upon in this matter. The formation of the Handbook
was of literary importance merely : it afforded Alfred valuable
literary training and indirectly stimulated him to try his hand
at more extensive translation.
The translation of Gregory's Cura Pastoralis may be considered
the first of Alfred's literary works, properly so called. Grein,
Pauli and Bosworth awarded first place to Boethius, but internal
evidence is altogether in favour of the priority of the Pastoral
Care. The decay of learning consequent upon Danish raids made it
imperative that an attempt should be made to revive the education
of the clergy. No work of the Middle Ages seemed better adapted
to enlighten the church than Gregory's treatise, designed to serve
as a spiritual guide for the conscience of the priest. In Moralia
· Gesta Regum Anglorum, u, § 123.
## p. 92 (#112) #############################################
92
The Prose of Alfred
first of a series ultimately all th might be insta
England, who order that ultimbooks which the
Gregory had indulged to the full his passion for allegory; Cura
Pastoralis is less dominated by the tendency to allegorise, though
it contains some gross examples of the practice—the explanation,
for example, of Ezekiel's injunction to the priests not to shave
their heads. But the allegorical method of the church reformer
does not altogether obscure a vigorous and healthy tone, and this
in spite of Gregory's expressed contempt for the technical side
of letters. Cura Pastoralis appealed to Alfred by its spiritual
insight; consequently, he began to turn into West Saxon “the
book called in Latin Pastoralis and in English Hierdeboc, some
times word for word, sometimes sense for sense. " In so doing he
availed himself of the help of his teachers, Plegmund and Asser,
Grimbald and John, and, as he understood their explanations,
he rendered the matter into English.
The preface, which gives this particular account of the
origin of the Pastoral Care, is of great importance in another
respect. An earlier passage makes it clear that the present was
only the first of a series of books which the king intended to
translate, in order that ultimately all the free-born youths of
England, who had the necessary leisure, might be instructed in
their own tongue. The preface to the Pastoral Care is thus a
preface to the whole series of translations. At the same time it
ranks among the most important of Alfred's original contributions
to literature. It gives an account of the decay of learning in
Britain, and sets forth the king's determination to reform the
schools of Wessex. It defends the use of the vernacular by
showing how the Old Testament was written first in Hebrew, then
translated into Greek and subsequently into Latin, and how all
other Christian nations had turned some portion of ancient
literature into their own tongue. From a literary point of view,
the preface is the first important piece of prose in English;
linguistically, it is, on account of its age, of unique value. A
passage in alliterative verse, containing a glowing tribute to
Gregory, “Christ's warrior, the Pope of Rome,” forms a kind of
second preface. It closes with a reference to the despatch of a
copy to each bishop in the land.
The style of the Pastoral Care has just those characteristics
which might have been expected in an early work. Alfred's con-
ception of the translator's province never limited him to a very
close rendering ; but, compared with his later work, there are signs
of restraint in this effort that suggest inexperience. The double
versions and the anacolutha in the text have given rise to the
## p. 93 (#113) #############################################
Alfred's Orosius
93
ingenious suggestion that the translation was dictated. A close
comparison of the Latin text and the West Saxon version throws
further light on the king's methods. His English audience is
always kept in view, and, for their benefit, he inserts brief ex-
planatory notes. Thus, he interprets“ manna" as "the sweet meat
which came down from heaven," "shittim wood” as “the tree
which never decays," " purple" as "the royal robe. ” Occasionally,
he Teutonises the terms of the Latin original by identifying
Hebrew institutions and social grades with their nearest analogues
in West Saxon civilisation. Plateis he renders by "herestraetum,"
David is described as a “salm-sceop,” Uriah as a “thegn. ”
Naturally, blunders are to be met with, as, for example, in the
derivation of sacerdotes—"in English cleansers because they are
to act as guides of believers and govern them. ” Compared with
later translations, Alfred's Pastoral Care is very close to the
original.
Hebrew, and we need not spend time in examining the remark
about Vergil. In spite of this and similar exaggerations, the
fact remains that Aldhelm's learning is really very great for
his time.
The writings of his which we possess are the following:
1. A number of letters. 2. A prose treatise on the praise of
virginity. 3. A versification, in hexameters, of the same treatise.
4. A prose book on the number seven and on metres, especially
the hexameter, containing also a collection of one hundred riddles
in verse. 5. Occasional poems, principally inscriptions for altars
or the like.
. Of the letters (several of which have been preserved among
the correspondence of St Boniface) two are of particular interest.
The first of these, addressed to the Welsh king Geraint, complains
of the irregularities of the British clergy in regard to the form of
the tonsure and the observance of Easter, and of their unchristian
attitude towards the English clergy, with whom they refuse to
hold any intercourse. It warns the king of the dangers incurred
by those who are out of communion with the church of Peter, and
begs him to use his influence in favour of union. The style and
vocabulary of this letter are unusually plain and straightforward.
Few words appear to be inserted simply for the sake of adorning
the page. It is a sincere and business-like document.
The other offers a wide contrast. It is written to one Eahfrid
on his return from Ireland, whither he had gone for purposes of
study, and is intended to show that equally good teaching could
be obtained in England. With this in view, Aldhelm pours out
all the resources of an extremely rich and varied vocabulary upon
his correspondent. In the opening lines the figure of alliteration
is employed to an alarming extent: out of sixteen consecutive
words fifteen begin with p. Once or twice, the writer breaks
without rime or reason into Greek (the phrase ad doxam
onomatis kyrië is a good example); and Latinised Greek words
stud the text, together with unfamiliar Latin. Elaborate passages
of metaphor, too, occur-one about bees, of which Aldhelm is
specially fond—and the whole affords as concentrated a sample of
the author's "learned” style as it is possible to find in a small
compass. An interesting feature in the theme is a panegyric on
Theodore and Hadrian, who are extolled as capable of routing
and putting to shame all the scholars of Ireland.
It is evident that this letter was much admired, for it survives
## p. 74 (#94) ##############################################
74
Latin Writings in England
in a good many copies, in juxtaposition with the treatise on
virginity, with which it has no connection.
The two books in prose and verse on virginity were the most
popular of Aldhelm's writings. A short sketch of their contents
must be given.
po The prose treatise is addressed to a group of nuns, some of
whom have English names, while others have adopted the names
of virgin saints. They are headed by Hildelitha, who afterwards
became abbess of Barking. We have, first, a thanksgiving for the
learning and virtue of the community, a lengthy comparison of
nuns to bees and a panegyric on the state of virginity, with a
warning against the eight principal vices. Then follows the main
| body of the work, consisting of a number of examples of men and
women who have excelled in chastity. The first order of these is
taken from the Old Testament (Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Daniel,
the Three Children); the second from the New (John Baptist,
John Evangelist, Thomas, Paul, Luke). From the subsequent
history of the church come Clement of Rome, Sylvester, Ambrose,
Martin, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Felix. A group of hermits and
monks follows: Antony, Paul, Hilarion, John, Benedict. Then,
some who suffered for chastity as confessors (Malchus, Narcissus,
Athanasius) or as martyrs (Babylas, Cosmas and Damian, Chrys-
anthus and Daria, Julian and Basilissa). Last among the male
examples are two more hermits, Amos and Apollonius. Next
follow the heroines : the Virgin Mary, Cecilia, Agatha, Lucy,
Justina, Eugenia, Agnes, Thecla, Eulalia, Scholastica, Christina,
Dorothea, Constantina, Eustochium, Demetrias, Agape, Irene and
Chionia, Rufina and Secunda, Anatolia and Victoria. In most of
these cases the substance of the saint's history is given, sometimes
at considerable length.
After this, a few examples are cited of persons who were in
some way notable in connection with chastity, though not all
celibate : Joseph, David, Samson, Abel, Melchizedek are brought
forward. A warning against splendour of attire occupies some
space and is followed by an apology for the style of the work, as
having been written under the pressure of many occupations.
The conclusion of the whole is a request for the prayers of the
recipients.
The poetical form of the treatise is later than the prosaic. It
begins with a very elaborate double acrostic, the initials and finals
of the lines forming one and the same hexameter verse: the initials
are to be read downwards and the finals upwards. The book is this
## p. 75 (#95) ##############################################
Aldhelm's Style
75
time addressed to an abbess Maxima, whose English name does
not appear to be known. The arrangement of the poem coincides
generally, but not exactly, with that of the prose book. The pre-
liminary praise of virginity is shorter. Some examples (Thomas,
Felix, Christina, Dorothea) are omitted, and a couple (Gervasius
and Protasius, and Jerome) added.
After the story of Anatolia and Victoria the poem diverges
from the prose and gives a description of the eight principal vices,
modelled, not very closely, upon Prudentius's Psychomachia. It
ends by deprecating criticism and by asking for the prayers of
the reader.
The sources and style of these books are the chief matters
which engage our attention. With regard to the sources of the prose
treatise in particular, we see that Aldhelm had access to a very
considerable library of Christian authors. It included (taking the
citations as they occur in the text) an unidentified work in which
an angel appears as speaker (not The Shepherd of Hermas),
Isidore, Pseudo-Melito’s Passion of John, Acts of Thomas, Revela-
tion of Paul (in the fullest Latin text), Recognitions of Clement,
Acts of Sylvester, Paulinus's Life of Ambrose, Sulpicius Severus,
lives of Gregory and Basil, Athanasius's Life of Antony, Vitae
Patrum, Gregory's Dialogues, Rufinus's version of Eusebius,
Jerome's letter and his Life of Malchus, and an extensive col-
lection of Passions of Martyrs. Among poets, Vergil and Prosper
are prominent. In this enumeration only the obvious sources
have been reckoned. A list of the books whose influence is
perceptible in phrases or allusions would be of equal length.
The style recalls the intricate ornamentation of the Celtic
manuscripts of the time. The thought is simple, as are the
ingredients of the patterns in the manuscripts; but it is in-
volved in exhausting periods, and wonderful words are dotted
about in them like spangles. We have seen that, to some scholars
in this age, learning meant chiefly the knowledge of strange words.
Aldhelm is not free from this delusion. A fairly close rendering
of a paragraph from the prose treatise will convey a better idea of
his manner than many lines of description.
Paul, formerly Saul, the Benjamin of the prophesy, at morning devouring
the prey and at evening dividing the spoil; who, by his fearsome bidding,
compelled the pythoness, prophesying the vanities of deceit through the spirit
of necromancy and thereby heaping up in abundance the sumptuous wealth
of her lords and enriching them to satiety with the pleasant treasures of her
gains to set before her impudent lips the door of dumb silence; and who,
marvellous to tell, spent anhurt four times six hours in the deep bottom of
the sea, and bore four times forty blows, less one, by the sharp torment of
## p. 76 (#96) ##############################################
76
Latin Writings in England
ornelty: was it not in virtue of his prerogative of intact purity that, exploring
the third heaven, he beheld the souls of the citizens above with virgin glances,
and sought out the hidden things of the celestial host in an experience of
matters that might not be spoken: though the Revelation (as they call it) of
Paul babbles of his visiting the delights of flowery paradise in a golden ship.
Yet the divine law forbids the followers of the catholic faith to believe any-
thing beyond what the ordinance of canonical truth publishes, and the decisions
of orthodox Fathers in written decretals have commanded us to give up
utterly and banish far from us this and other fevered fancies of spurious
books, as thundering words horrifying to the ear.
Another important production of our author-important as
exemplifying his secular learning, though it never attained the
popularity of his other works—is the Letter to Acircius (king
Aldfrith of Northumbria), which contains a disquisition on the
number seven, a treatise on the hexameter and a collection of
riddles in verse. The portion of the book which deals with metre
is illustrated by very many examples from Latin poets. A large
number of the classical quotations must, no doubt, be put down to
the credit of the grammarian Audax, from whom much of the
text is borrowed; but a very considerable proportion is, certainly,
derived from Aldhelm's own reading. We may be sure, for in-
stance, that he had access to Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Cicero, Pliny,
Sallust, Solinus. The list of Christian poets is astonishing :
Juvencus, the author of the versified Latin Old Testament, who is
now called Cyprianus, Sedulius, Arator, Alcimus Avitus, Prudentius,
Prosper, Corippus, Venantius Fortunatus, Paulinus of Périgueux
and an otherwise unknown Paulus Quaestor are all used. A little
group of Spanish authorities, in particular the grammatical work
of Julian of Toledo, is a curious feature. The traces of Horace,
Juvenal, Persius, Seneca, Dracontius, Sidonius are slight. Orosius,
Lactantius, Junilius and a number of grammarians may close our
catalogue, which, it will be recognised, is a very impressive one.
The riddles which occur in the midst of this treatise are among
the most attractive part of Aldhelm's work. They are modelled
on those of Symphosius (a fifth century writer) but are not, like
his, confined to the limits of three lines apiece. They are, for
the most part, ingenious little descriptions of simple objects :
e. g. to take a series at random-the locust, the nightcrow, the
gnat, the spindle, the cupping-glass, the evening, the dagger,
the bubble. That this form of wit-sharpening made a great
appeal to the mind of our ancestors is amply evident from many
passages in the Old English literature, notably The Dialogue
of Salomon and Saturn, and the documents related thereto;
and are not the periphrases of all early Scandinavian poetry
## p. 77 (#97) ##############################################
Aldhelm's Literary Work
77
exemplifications of the same tendency? As we have seen,
Aldhelm's riddles were copiously imitated by Englishmen in later
centuries?
We have seen something of the number of Latin authors who
were known to Aldhelm. It may be added here that, in a letter to
Hedda, bishop of Winchester, he describes himself, apparently, as
engaged in the study of Roman law, and, certainly, as occupied
with metres and with the science of astronomical calculation.
It would be interesting to be able to show that, besides
knowing the Greek language (as we are sure he did), he pos-
sessed Greek books, apart from Latin versions ; but it is not
really possible to find much evidence to this effect. He once
cites Judith "according to the Septuagint"; in another place he
calls the Acts of the Apostles the Praxapostolos ; elsewhere he
gives the name of a work of St Basil in Greek, and mentions
Homer and Hesiod. Not much can be built on these small
foundations. The probability is that he read Greek books when
studying under Hadrian, but that in later life he possessed none
of his own.
Summing up the literary work of Aldhelm, we find in him a
good representative of the pupils of Theodore and Hadrian, on
whom both Roman and Greek influences have been exercised;
and we see in him also one for whom the grandiloquence of the
Celt, the love of an out of the way vocabulary, of sound rather at
the cost of sense, had great attraction. We cannot truly declare
that the literature of the world would be much the poorer for the
loss of his writings; but it is fair to say that there is in them,
despite all their affectation, a great deal of freshness and vigour;
that they are marked by the faults of youth rather than by those
of senescence. That they were immensely popular we can see
from the number of existing copies of the treatise on virginity
and the letter to Aldfrith. Most of these are early and are
distinguished by the beauty of their script. One, now at Lambeth,
has a rather well-known frontispiece representing the author and
a group of nuns.
Additional evidence of the importance of Aldhelm as a
literary figure is afforded by the existence of what we may call
the Aldhelmian school of English Latinists. The works of these
are neither many in number nor large in compass; but the dis-
tribution of the writers covers a fairly considerable space both
geographically and in time. Little attention has hitherto been
? See ante, Chapter IV, p. 60.
## p. 78 (#98) ##############################################
78
Latin Writings in England
paid to them in this country, and, on all accounts, they deserve
notice.
First among them may be reckoned a series of five interesting
little poems which have been preserved (as have several of Ald-
helm's letters) among the correspondence of St Boniface. They
are written in pairs of eight-syllabled lines.
The first of these' has in its opening couplet an allusion to
Aldhelm's name, and seems to be addressed to him by a cantor at
Malmesbury. In a very spirited fashion it describes a storm in
late June, which unroofed the dormitory or some other of the
buildings of a monastery where the writer was. It is not easy to
see whether this place was Malmesbury abbey or a monastic house
in Devonshire. The second poem is, as appears from an accompany-
ing letter, by one Aethilwald (usually, but not rightly, identified
with Ethelbald, king of the Mercians from 716 to 757) and describes
a visit to Rome, dwelling with great particularity upon some silken
fabrics which the pilgrims had brought back with them. Of the re-
maining three, one is a short prayer, the next an address to Aldhelm,
who is called Cassis prisca (i. e. Old helmet), most likely by Aethil-
wald, and the last is supposed to be Aldhelm's reply thereto. These
poems are very favourable specimens of the Aldhelmian style.
Two direct imitators of Aldhelm, Tatwin and Eusebius, come
next under consideration. Both were men of eminence : Tatwin
died archbishop of Canterbury in 734, and Eusebius is almost
certainly identical with Hwaetberct, abbot of Wearmouth and
Jarrow from 716. Two collections of riddles in Latin hexameters
by these persons have survived. In that of Tatwin ingenuity is
prominent: he makes the initials and finals of the first line of
each riddle into an acrostic of hexameters. That of Eusebius is
supplementary to Tatwin's; it makes up the forty riddles of
the latter to one hundred, the number contained in Aldhelm's
collection, which had undoubtedly served as a model to both
writers. St Boniface (d. 755) is the last noteworthy individual
who can be claimed as a member of this school. He employs the
short eight-syllabled lines as the vehicle of an acrostic on the
words Nithardus vive felix; and he writes a series of enigmas
on the virtues and vices, in hexameters, in which the acrostic is
extensively employed. Some of his letters, too, are couched in
the true Aldhelmian style. Several of his correspondents, more-
over, and the authors of a good many letters not addressed to
him which are nevertheless preserved with his own, bear the
same stamp. Among them are three or four short poems in
1 See note on p. 87.
## p. 79 (#99) ##############################################
Bede
79
eight-syllabled metre. Especially noteworthy are a letter from
Lul and others to an abbess Cuneburga and an anonymous letter
to an abbess and a nun.
The Aldhelmian school, with the single exception of Eusebius
(Hwaetberct), consists of men nurtured in the south and west of
England. The two other great men who remain to be considered
are representatives of the north. We have hinted already that
the Latin culture of the northern English was more directly de-
pendent upon Rome, than was that of Canterbury, with its eastern
flavour, or that of the west, where Celtic influence may be sus-
pected. We do not forget Aidan's work in the north; yet that
had but faint effects upon literature; and the fact remains that
the eccentricities and affectations of Aldhelm have no parallel in
the work of Bede.
Bede is by far the greatest name which our period presents.
Like the later Alcuin, he was of European reputation ; but he
owed that reputation to the sheer excellence of his books.
Alcuin occupied a great and influential position, and used the
opportunities which it gave him with the best effect. But he has
left no writing which we value much for its own sake. Bede, on the
other hand, made an indelible mark on the literature of succeeding to
centuries, and our debt to him can hardly be exaggerated.
Not many lives of great men have been less eventful. It seems
probable that the longest journey he ever took was from Jarrow
to York, and that the greatest crisis of his life was the pestilence
in 686 which decimated the monks of Jarrow. He died in 735 at
Jarrow, where, practically, his whole life of sixty-three years had
been spent. The story of his last hours, as Cuthbert (afterwards
abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow) tells it in his famous letter to
Cuthwin, is of unapproached beauty in its kind. One of the latest
utterances of the great scholar is an index to the tone and temper
of the whole man.
get free from the tieshaand moto Him who
" It is time,” he said, “ if so it seem good to my Maker, that I should be
set free from the flesh, and go to Him who, when I was not, fashioned me out
of nothing. I have lived a long time, and my merciful Judge has ordained
my life well for me. The time for me to be set free is at hand, for indeed my
soul much desires to behold my King Christ in His beauty. "
Over and over again has the life of Bede been sketched, and
the long and varied list of his works reviewed and discussed. By
none has this been better done than by Plummer, in connection
with his admirable edition of the History. From this source we
## p. 80 (#100) #############################################
80 Latin Writings in England
borrow the chronology of Bede's writings which will be here set
forth.
To the period between 691 and 703 belong the tracts on ortre,
on figures of speech in Scripture, on orthography; to 703, the
small work De Temporibus ; to 708, the letter to Plegwin on the
six ages. The metrical life of Cuthbert was written before 705.
In or before 716 fall the commentaries on the Apocalypse, Acts,
catholic Epistles, Luke, Samuel and two exegetical letters to
Acca; after 716, the history of the abbots of Wearmouth and
Jarrow, and commentary on Mark; about 720, the prose life of
Cuthbert and commentary on Genesis ; before 725, the book De
Natura Rerum ; in 725, the large work De Temporum Ratione ;
in 725—731, commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah, and books on
the Tabernacle and the Temple; the Ecclesiastical History of the
English Race in 731; Retractationes on the Acts and the letter
to Egbert must be placed after this. For the following works no
date can be accurately fixed : on the Holy Places, questions on
the books of Kings, commentaries on Proverbs, Canticles, the
Song of Habakkuk, Tobit, the martyrology, homilies, hymns and
a few minor tracts.
The names of these books suggest to us, first of all, Bede's
industry and, next, his wide range of interests. Theology, no
doubt, is a dominant factor in the list, but we have, besides,
i natural science, grammar and history; nor is poetry excluded.
It is not possible here to do more than briefly characterise the
mass of his works. Of the grammatical treatises and those which
relate to natural science it may be said that they are, to a very
large extent, compilations. To Pliny and Isidore, in particular,
Bede owes much in the book De Natura Rerum. Similarly, his
commentaries are often little more than catenae of extracts from
the four Latin Doctors. Probably, the supplementary comment on
the Acts, called Retractationes, is one of the most interesting to
us of the series, since it demonstrates Bede's knowledge of Greek,
and shows that he had before him, when writing, the Graeco-
Latin copy of the Acts already mentioned, which is now in the
Bodleian.
The historical works are, of course, those which distinguish
Bede above all others. There are four books which come under
this head. Two of them may be very shortly dismissed. First, the
Martyrology. We cannot be sure how much of this, in its present
form, is Bede's, for it has been enlarged, as was natural enough, by
many hands. The popularity of it is evident from the fact that it
## p. 81 (#101) #############################################
Bede's Ecclesiastical History 81
formed the basis of recensions by Florus of Lyons, Rabanus of
Mainz, Ado of Vienne, Notker of St Gall and Usuard. Next,
the short work De Temporibus, written in 705. This consists of
a few brief chapters on the divisions of time and the calculations
connected with the observance of Easter, and ends with a very
curt chronicle of the chief events in the six ages of the world's
history. In 725, Bede expanded this little tract into a much larger
book De Temporum Ratione, and the chronicle of the six ages of
the world with which this concludes has been one of the most
far-reaching in its influence of all his works. It served as a
model, and as a source of information, to numberless subsequent
chroniclers. "In chronology," says Plummer, “Bede has the
enormous merit of being the first chronicler who gave the date
from Christ's birth, in addition to the year of the world : and thus
introduced the use of the Dionysian era into western Europe. "
One of the main topics of the book, the methods of calculating the
date of Easter, is one which interested the men of his day far more
than ourselves. A principal reason for this lies in the nearness and
urgency of the controversies which long divided the Celtic,
from the English, church on this subject. It was also one of the
few which brought the mathematical side of men's intellects into
play in the service of religion.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Race is, as we know,
Bede's greatest and best work. If a panegyric were likely to
induce our readers to turn to it for themselves, that panegyric
should be attempted here. Probably, however, a brief statement
of the contents and sources of the five books will be more to the
purpose. The first book, then, beginning with a description of
Britain, carries the history from the invasion of Julius Caesar to
the year 603, after the arrival of Augustine. Among the sources
used are Pliny, Solinus, Orosius, Eutropius, Marcellinus Comes,
Gildas, probably the Historia Brittonum, a Passion of St Alban
and the Life of St Germanus of Auxerre by Constantius.
The second book begins with the death of Gregory the Great,
and ends in 633, when Edwin of Northumbria was killed and
Paulinus retired to Rochester.
It is in this book that the wonderful scene is described in which
Edwin of Northumbria takes counsel with his nobles as to the
acceptance or rejection of the Gospel as preached by Paulinus ;
and here occurs the unforgetable simile of the sparrow flying out
of the winter night into the brightly-lighted hall, and out again
into the dark.
E. L. I. CH. v.
i-
## p. 82 (#102) #############################################
X2
Latin Writings in England
In the third book we proceed as far as 664. In this section
the chief actors are Oswald, Aidan, Fursey, Cedd and Wilfrid.
The fourth book, beginning with the death of Deusdedit in 664
and the subsequent arrival of his successor Theodore, with abbot
Hadrian, deals with events to the year 698. The chief figures are
Chad, Wilfrid, Ethelburga, Etheldreda, Hilda, Caedmon, Cuthbert.
In the fifth and last book we have stories of St John of
Beverley, of the vision of Drythelm, and others, accounts of
Adamnan, Aldhelm, Wilfrid, the letter of abbot Ceolfrid to
Nechtan, king of the Picts, the end of the paschal controversy,
a statement of the condition of the country in 731, a brief
annalistic summary and a list of the author's works.
In the dedication of the History to Ceolwulf, king of North-
umbria, Bede enumerates the friends who had helped him in the
collection of materials, whether by oral or written information.
The chief of these were Albinus, abbot of Canterbury, Nothelm
afterwards archbishop, who, among other things, had copied docu-
ments preserved in the archives of Rome, and Daniel, bishop of
Winchester. Bede used to the full, besides, his opportunities of
intercourse with the clergy and monks of the north who had
known the great men of whom he writes. .
It is almost an impertinence, we feel, to dwell upon the great
qualities which the History displays. That sincerity of purpose
and love of truth are foremost in the author's mind we are always
sure, with whatever eyes we may view some of the tales which he
records. “Where he gives a story on merely hearsay evidence, he
is careful to state the fact"; and it may be added that where he
has access to an original and authoritative document, he gives his
reader the full benefit of it.
From the literary point of view the book is admirable. There
is no affectation of learning, no eccentricity of vocabulary.
It
seems to us to be one of the great services which Bede rendered
to English writers, that he gave currency to a direct and simple
style. This merit is, in part, due to the tradition of the northern
school in which he was brought up; but it is to his own credit
that he was not led away by the fascinations of the Latinity of
Aldhelm.
The popularity of the History was immediate and great. Nor
was it confined to England. The two actually oldest copies which
we possess, both of which may have been written before Bede
died, were both produced, it seems, on the continent, one (now
at Namur) perhaps at St Hubert's abbey in the Ardennes, the
## p. 83 (#103) #############################################
Bede's Letter to Egbert 1
83
other (at Cambridge) in some such continental English colony as
Epternach
The two lives of St Cuthbert and the lives of the abbots of
Wearmouth and Jarrow must not be forgotten. The last-named,
based to some extent upon an anonymous earlier work, has very
great beauty and interest; not many pictures of monastic life are
80 sane, so human and, at the same time, so productive of reverence
and affection in the reader.
The two lives of St Cuthbert are less important in all ways. 7
The metrical one is the most considerable piece of verse attempted
by Bede; that in prose is a not very satisfactory expansion of an
earlier life by a Lindisfarne monk.
Enough has probably been said to give a general idea of the
character of Bede's studies and acquirements. Nothing could be
gained by transcribing the lists of authors known to him, which
are accessible in the works of Plummer and of Manitius. There
is nothing to make us think that he had access to classical or
Christian authors of importance not known to us. He quotes
many Christian poets, but not quite so many as Aldhelm, and,
clearly, does not take so much interest as his predecessor in
pagan authors.
The letter to Egbert of York, perhaps the latest document
we possess from Bede's pen, deserves a special and separate
mention. It is, in brief, a pastoral epistle; and it gives (what we
could only gather indirectly from his other works) the clearest
evidence of Bede's lively interest in the religious life of the people
at large, and his wise and noble conception of the duties of a
Christian minister. His advice to Egbert is prompted by “a real
and unassuming spirit of humility and affection," and it is
thoroughly practical in its statement, alike of the abuses which
need reform, and of the means of reforming them. The suggestions
offered by Bede are those of a man at once spiritually minded and
versed in the affairs of his time; they are, moreover, based on
an intimate knowledge of the history of the church with which he
is dealing. Rarely as he may have trodden the regions outside the
walls of his monastery, it is plain from this letter alone that Bede
may be reckoned as one of the most effective contributors, by his
advice and influence, to the spreading of Christianity in northern
England
No enumeration of works, no accumulation of epithets will give
the picture of a man's mind. And it is the personality of Bede
which we come to regard with affection, when we have read the
6-2
## p. 84 (#104) #############################################
84
Latin Writings in England
book into which he has infused most of his own character. That
book is the History, and from the study of it few will rise without
the feeling that Bede was one of the best of men.
It cannot be maintained that the influence of Alcuin's writings
upon the literature of his country was very important. As a
product of the great school of York, he does, indeed, bear witness
to the admirable training which that school could furnish. The
debt which the schools of Charles the Great owed, through Alcuin,
to England must never be forgotten. This is the central fact,
so far as England is concerned, in Alcuin's career. His written
works, mostly produced on the continent, were not of a kind to
affect very markedly the development of literature; and the
condition of England during the period of Alcuin's residence
abroad was such that English scholars could make no use of what
he was able to impart. The fact is that, very shortly before Alcuin
left England for ever, the Scandinavians had begun that desolating
series of raids upon this country which ended by exterminating the
learning and literature of Northumbria and paralysed intellectual
effort all over the land.
In an often quoted poem on the saints of York, Alcuin
enumerates the principal authors whose works were to be found
in the library collected there by Egbert and Albert. Within
a generation after the poem was written, that library had ceased
to exist; and so had that earlier treasury of books at Wearmouth
which Benedict Biscop commended in the last years of his life
to the special care of his monks. The end of the eighth century
and the course of the ninth saw learning gradually obliterated in
England, until the efforts of Alfred revived an interest in the things
of the mind among his countrymen.
Had it not been for this catastrophe we might have found
English scholars taking part with Alcuin in the adoptionist
controversy, or contributing to the revision of the Vulgate which
is associated with his name. As it is, the ninth century, to the
historian of our Latin literature, is almost a blank.
Alcuin, to resume, was not a great writer. The clearest
indications of his general culture and his manifold activities may,
perhaps, be gathered from his numerous poems and his letters.
These latter, with some of his grammatical works, were the only
part of his writings which attained popularity in England. His
controversial books are of less enduring interest: it is given to
few to follow with intelligent appreciation the dispute which he
## p. 85 (#105) #############################################
Alcuin
waged with Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo upon the
question whether Christ, in His human nature, was or was not
to be called the "adoptive” Son of God. The liturgical works,
again—the homiliary, lectionary and sacramentary-which made
a deep mark upon the church-life of the continent, are works of
compilation. As to the revision of the text of the Latin Bible,
clear evidence that it was the work of Alcuin is not yet producible;
but the probability is very strong that he was at least prominent,
if not supreme, in the undertaking.
But, though the tale of Alcuin's labours is an imposing one,
it is the intellectual stimulus which he imparted, and the long
line of scholars which owed to him its existence, that forms his
true monument. He ranks with Bede as an inspirer of men; but
the vehicle by which his inspiration was conveyed was rather the
voice of the teacher than the written words.
With Alcuin we close the list of the considerable authors who
fall within our period. But there still remain some few writings
of the eighth and ninth centuries which demand a word of notice.
These consist mainly of lives of saints, visions, poems and
devotional literature.
The anonymous lives of the abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow,
and the life of Cuthbert by a Lindisfarne monk-both ex-
tensively used by Bede-have been mentioned already. The
earliest life of Gregory the Great, to which an English origin is
attributed, should not be forgotten here. It is discussed by
Plummer in an appendix to the edition of Bede's History.
More important than this, from the literary point of view, are
the lives of Wilfrid of York by Eddius Stephanus, and of Guthlac
by Felix. Both of these belong to the eighth century. The
former begins in a way which may indicate either indolence or
modesty on the part of its author, who transcribes, with few
alterations and without acknowledgment, the preface of the
anonymous life of Cuthbert. The reading of the life will pro-
bably conduce to the most favourable interpretation being placed
upon this proceeding; for, unflinching partisan as he is, Eddius
makes us think of him kindly. Many a man would have spoken
much more bitterly of the opponents of his hero; and, though
Eddius persistently and gallantly disguises that hero's faults, we
do not feel so much that he is a bad historian, as that he is a
wrongly faithful friend.
Felix, the biographer of Guthlac, is far more picturesque in
style than Eddius. Unlike the latter, he has fallen under the
## p. 86 (#106) #############################################
86
Latin Writings in England
spell of Aldhelm. He has been fascinated, too, by the tales of the
demon hordes who haunted the lonely hermit of the fens, and has
portrayed them in language which, whether directly or not, was
reproduced in vernacular poetry not many generations later.
Closely connected with these biographies of saints are the
visions of the next world. Several of them are reported by Bede,
notably the vision of Fursey, the Irish hermit, and of Drythelm.
Two more (one of them in a fragmentary condition) are preserved
among the correspondence of Boniface. Like the life of Guthlac
these apocalypses had firm hold upon the popular imagination,
and some of them appear in the homilies of Aelfric in an English
dress. They owed their origin, it may be remarked, in great
measure to the Dialogues of Gregory and the apocryphal Revelation
of Paul—which latter, as we have seen, was known to Aldhelm.
It is possible that the far older Revelation of Peter may have
survived in some form accessible to the English church of the
seventh and eighth centuries. Evidence is not wanting to show
that an Italian apocalypse of the seventh century, that of
St Barontus of Pistoja, was studied in England not long after
our period'.
In the department of poetry the only considerable work which
remains to be mentioned is the poem of one Ethelwulf upon the
history of a monastery, the identity of which is not yet certainly
established. The house in question was clearly connected with
Lindisfarne, and is thought to have been at Crayke near York.
The poem is dedicated to Egbert, who was bishop of Lindisfarne
in the first quarter of the ninth century, and is constructed on
the model of Alcuin's versified history of the saints of the
church of York. It contains, among other things, an account of
a vision of the next world, similar to those mentioned in the last
paragraph.
Of devotional literature, by which we mean more particularly
collections of prayers and hymns for private use, there is a fairly
large quantity preserved in manuscripts which belong to the
period under consideration. The most remarkable of these is,
perhaps, the volume called the Book of Cerne, now in the
University Library at Cambridge. Both Celtic and Spanish
influences have been traced in many of the compositions in this
and other like works. Much light may, eventually, be thrown
1 See a passage towards the end of an 11th (? ) century Old English MS, Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, 367, quoted in The Sources of Abp Parker's MSS at
C. C. C. O. , James, M. R. , Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1899, p. 62.
## p. 87 (#107) #############################################
Bede and Alcuin
by this class of literature upon the intellectual, as well as the
religious, surroundings of the clergy and monks of the eighth and
ninth centuries.
A not inconsiderable portion of the Latin writings of these
same centuries consists of documents connected with church law.
Books called Penitentials exist under the names of Theodore, Bede
and Egbert of York; and there are, besides, canons of church
councils and the like. But these have really no claim to the name
of literature, and a mere mention of them must suffice.
These, then, are the chief remains of the Latin literature which
was produced in England before the time of Alfred. The period
of greatest activity lasted, we have seen, for about a hundred
years, from A. D. 690 to 790. It is marked by the rise of two
great schools, those of Canterbury and York, and by the work
of one great scholar. The south of England produced works
characterised by a rather perverted and fanciful erudition. It was
the north which gave birth to Bede, the one writer of that age a
whose works are of first-rate value, and to Alcuin, whose influence
was supreme in the schools of the continent.
Note to p. 78. Henry Bradley has pointed out (English Historical Review, 1900,
p. 291) that the first poem is, most likely, addressed to Helmgisl, not Aldhelm, and
that the fifth is by Aethilwald and addressed to one Oua.
## p. 88 (#108) #############################################
CHAPTER VI
ALFRED AND THE OLD ENGLISH PROSE OF HIS
REIGN
THE reign of Alfred acquired its chief glory from the personality
of the king. He had many titles to fame. His character was
made up of so many diverse elements that he seemed, at one and
the same time, to be military leader, lawgiver, scholar and saint,
and these elements were so combined that the balance of the
whole was never disturbed. In the minds of posterity Alfred
lives as the type of an ideal Englishman.
In each of the departments of his activity the king's work was
of permanent value. His efforts, though essentially pioneer in
character, laid a solid and permanent foundation for the super-
structure which was to be raised by his successors. As king, he
ruled a portion only of modern England and left much to be com-
pleted by his descendants. But the centralising policy which he
inaugurated and successfully realised—the policy of making Wessex
the nucleus of England's expansion-alone made possible the
growth of an enlarged kingdom. Alfred's ideals for Wessex re-
flect a large vision and much practical wisdom, and the reign is
as remarkable for its educational as for its political progress. His
conceptions were cosmopolitan rather than insular. He never lost
sight of the importance of keeping his kingdom in organic relation
with European civilisation-a lesson stamped upon his mind ever
since, in his early years (856), during the pontificate of one of the
greatest of the popes, Leo IV, he had visited Rome and the court
of Charles the Bald. This visit made a vivid impression upon
Alfred's mind. His father's marriage with the emperor's daughter,
Judith, cemented relationships with the continent and the
insularity of Britain was henceforth broken down. The import-
ance for literature of this emergence from isolation cannot be
over-estimated. Charles the Great had gathered round him at
Aachen a cultured circle of scholars and writers, and had pro-
moted a renascence of classical study, the influence of which was
## p. 89 (#109) #############################################
Asser's Life of Alfred 89
still powerful in the days of Charles the Bald. The illuminated
MSS of the French court of the ninth century—the St Denis
and Metz Bibles, the Psalter and book of Gospels, in particular-
are conspicuous examples of artistic skill. After his accession
Alfred looked to the Frankish empire for assistance in his task
of reviving learning in Wessex. At his request, Grimbald, a
monk of St Bertin in Flanders, and John of Corbie came
over to Britain, and were appointed abbots of Winchester and
Aethelney respectively. The king diligently promoted scholarship, -
and himself undertook to translate into West Saxon recognised
works in Latin prose. At the same time he increased the number
of monasteries and reformed the educational side of these institu-
tions by the introduction of teachers, English and foreign. The
story of Grimbald's visit to Oxford and of the existence there of a
community of scholars is, however, not supported by any evidence.
The legend was interpolated in an edition of Asser's Life of
Alfred, based on Parker's text, which Camden published in
1602—3. No MS, or other authority, is known to support
Camden's statement. The consequence of the educational and
literary activity of Alfred's reign was to transfer the centre of 4
learning from Northumbria to Wessex. The monastic communities
of Lindisfarne, Evesham and Croyland had fostered scholarship
in the north, and, in the seventh century, Whitby had produced
Caedmon. In 674, Benedict Biscop had built the monastery of
St Peter at Wearmouth and, in 682, a second house at Jarrow, at
both of which large libraries were collected. The arts of glass-
making, gold-work and embroidery were introduced from the
continent. Northumbria had thus become “the literary centre)
of western Europe," producing scholars of the type of Bede, the
master of the learning of his day, and Alcuin, the scholarly helper
of Charles the Great. But with the appearance of the Danes began
the decline of learning in the north. So much did scholarship suffer
in consequence of the viking raids that, at the date of Alfred's
accession, there was no scholar even south of the Thames who could
read the mass-book in Latin. The revival of letters in Wessex was
the direct result of the king's enthusiasm and personal efforts, and
his educational aims recall irresistibly the work of Charles the Great.
The authorities for the life of Alfred are many, but of unequal
value. His own works, reflecting as they do his personal
character and convictions, furnish the most important data, the
Chronicle and the Life by Asser ranking next in value. Asser, L
a Welsh cleric, was, in all probability, educated at St David's to
## p. 90 (#110) #############################################
go
The Prose of Alfred
He had already been in communication with Alfred regarding the
defence of his monastery when he was summoned by the king to
assist him in his educational schemes. According to his own
account, Asser arranged to stay with Alfred for six months of
each year, spending the remaining six in Wales. He became the
king's most intimate friend and diligently assisted him in his
study of Latin. He was eventually appointed bishop of Sherborne,
and died some ten years after the king. The authenticity of
Asser's book has been much disputed. The unique MS survives
only in charred and illegible fragments, but it is clear from
external evidence that Parker's edition (1574) contains large
editorial alterations and interpolations from the Lives of St Neots.
Formidable evidence in support of the genuineness of the original
Asser has been collected by Stevenson and others. The Welsh and
Latin forms and the scriptural quotations point to the early part of
the tenth century, and, at the same time, attest the Celtic nationality
of the author. The chronology is based on a primitive version of
the Chronicle, which the author supplements by details which none
but an eye-witness could have supplied. The very incompleteness
of the book is an argument against its being a forgery. Its abrupt
beginning and conclusion, and its awkward combination of extracts
from the Chronicle with original matter, may have been due to the
choice of Frankish models, such as Einhart's Life of Charles the
Great or Thegan's Life of Ludwig the Pious. Asser's book holds
a unique position as “the earliest biography of an English layman. ”
Florence of Worcester is valuable as illustrating the genuine text
. . of Asser, since he ignores what was, apparently, interpolated. The
later chroniclers, Simeon of Durham and William of Malmesbury,
throw occasional light on incidents in the king's career, but, on
the whole, are responsible for the growth of the Alfred legend.
The chronological order of Alfred's works is difficult to
determine. Depending, as we do, mainly upon internal evidence,
there is no absolute test whereby to fix the priority of one work
over another. Evidence of style is notoriously untrustworthy.
There are, however, a few considerations on the basis of which a
general arrangement may be attempted, though scarcely two
critics are in entire agreement as to the final order. Of these
considerations the most important is ability to reproduce in West
Saxon prose the spirit of the Latin original. A comparatively
close translation is, in Alfred's case, a sign of the 'prentice hand;
his latest work is marked by great freedom of rendering and large
insertions. Some further light is thrown on the problem by the
## p. 91 (#111) #############################################
Alfred's Pastoral Care
91
character of the prefaces to the various books. The chroniclers
are of little assistance in the determination of the relative
order.
The Handbook may safely be considered the earliest of Alfred's
compilations. Unfortunately, no trace of the book is now to be
found, though its existence is attested by external evidence. The
circumstances under which the formation of the Handbook was
begun make it clear that it was essentially a commonplace-book of
extracts from the Latin Bible and the Fathers. Asser, to whom
was due the suggestion that a book of this nature might be of
service to the king, describes it as an assemblage of flosculi,
culled from various sources. These extracts Alfred wrote down
in Latin, in the first instance, and, aſterwards, began to render them
into English. The first entries were made on 11 November 887,
in venerabili Martini solemnitate. William of Malmesbury
refers to the common-place book, quem patria lingua Handboc
(Encheiridion) i. e. manualem librum appellavit. Further, there
is in Florence of Worcester's Chronicle a reference to certain
Dicta regis Aelfredi, whereby the Handbook may, possibly, be
meant. There would, however, be no justification for identifying
the Dicta with the Handbook, were it not for the fact that
Malmesbury uses the latter as an authority for the life of Aldhelm.
It is quite conceivable that Alfred inserted among his notes an
account of Aldhelm, with whose verses he was probably acquainted.
But no importance whatever is to be attached to Florence of
Worcester's suggestion that the Handbook was a record of West
Saxon genealogy. It is possible that neither chronicler is to be
relied upon in this matter. The formation of the Handbook
was of literary importance merely : it afforded Alfred valuable
literary training and indirectly stimulated him to try his hand
at more extensive translation.
The translation of Gregory's Cura Pastoralis may be considered
the first of Alfred's literary works, properly so called. Grein,
Pauli and Bosworth awarded first place to Boethius, but internal
evidence is altogether in favour of the priority of the Pastoral
Care. The decay of learning consequent upon Danish raids made it
imperative that an attempt should be made to revive the education
of the clergy. No work of the Middle Ages seemed better adapted
to enlighten the church than Gregory's treatise, designed to serve
as a spiritual guide for the conscience of the priest. In Moralia
· Gesta Regum Anglorum, u, § 123.
## p. 92 (#112) #############################################
92
The Prose of Alfred
first of a series ultimately all th might be insta
England, who order that ultimbooks which the
Gregory had indulged to the full his passion for allegory; Cura
Pastoralis is less dominated by the tendency to allegorise, though
it contains some gross examples of the practice—the explanation,
for example, of Ezekiel's injunction to the priests not to shave
their heads. But the allegorical method of the church reformer
does not altogether obscure a vigorous and healthy tone, and this
in spite of Gregory's expressed contempt for the technical side
of letters. Cura Pastoralis appealed to Alfred by its spiritual
insight; consequently, he began to turn into West Saxon “the
book called in Latin Pastoralis and in English Hierdeboc, some
times word for word, sometimes sense for sense. " In so doing he
availed himself of the help of his teachers, Plegmund and Asser,
Grimbald and John, and, as he understood their explanations,
he rendered the matter into English.
The preface, which gives this particular account of the
origin of the Pastoral Care, is of great importance in another
respect. An earlier passage makes it clear that the present was
only the first of a series of books which the king intended to
translate, in order that ultimately all the free-born youths of
England, who had the necessary leisure, might be instructed in
their own tongue. The preface to the Pastoral Care is thus a
preface to the whole series of translations. At the same time it
ranks among the most important of Alfred's original contributions
to literature. It gives an account of the decay of learning in
Britain, and sets forth the king's determination to reform the
schools of Wessex. It defends the use of the vernacular by
showing how the Old Testament was written first in Hebrew, then
translated into Greek and subsequently into Latin, and how all
other Christian nations had turned some portion of ancient
literature into their own tongue. From a literary point of view,
the preface is the first important piece of prose in English;
linguistically, it is, on account of its age, of unique value. A
passage in alliterative verse, containing a glowing tribute to
Gregory, “Christ's warrior, the Pope of Rome,” forms a kind of
second preface. It closes with a reference to the despatch of a
copy to each bishop in the land.
The style of the Pastoral Care has just those characteristics
which might have been expected in an early work. Alfred's con-
ception of the translator's province never limited him to a very
close rendering ; but, compared with his later work, there are signs
of restraint in this effort that suggest inexperience. The double
versions and the anacolutha in the text have given rise to the
## p. 93 (#113) #############################################
Alfred's Orosius
93
ingenious suggestion that the translation was dictated. A close
comparison of the Latin text and the West Saxon version throws
further light on the king's methods. His English audience is
always kept in view, and, for their benefit, he inserts brief ex-
planatory notes. Thus, he interprets“ manna" as "the sweet meat
which came down from heaven," "shittim wood” as “the tree
which never decays," " purple" as "the royal robe. ” Occasionally,
he Teutonises the terms of the Latin original by identifying
Hebrew institutions and social grades with their nearest analogues
in West Saxon civilisation. Plateis he renders by "herestraetum,"
David is described as a “salm-sceop,” Uriah as a “thegn. ”
Naturally, blunders are to be met with, as, for example, in the
derivation of sacerdotes—"in English cleansers because they are
to act as guides of believers and govern them. ” Compared with
later translations, Alfred's Pastoral Care is very close to the
original.
