CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PE 1075.R71 Origins of the English people and the En 3 1924 026 570 840 DATE DUE JAfcM** "8802 - imjjtfT ^(WF^^ 1 - GAYLORO P8INTEO IN U. S.A. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924026570840 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMPILED FROM THE BEST AND LATEST AUTHORITIES BY JEAN ROEMER, LL. D. PROFESSOR OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY LONDON: PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1888 ® 'CORNELL^ UNIVERSlTYll x LIBRARY /J Copyright, 1887, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. PREFAC E The history of a language is, in a great measure., the history of the people who speak it, and of those who have spoken it. It is the history of the many populations, different in origin, manners, and in speech, who have at various epochs occupied the soil conjointly, sometimes in friendly, but more often in hostile, relations, until people of another race, more powerful than any, have crushed them all, and, taking possession of the land, have di- vided it among themselves, exterminating all who resist- ed them, and allowing the rest to live only on condition of their being quiet and doing all the work. In this movement of successive invasions, the elder races, dis- persed and reduced in number, have often been compelled to make room for others, who, conquered in their turn, have become serfs of the soil which they once occupied as masters and as rulers. It is to these conquests, kept up throughout the Middle Ages, that the majority of Euro- pean nations owe their geographical limits and even their present names. Their establishment was mainly the re- sult of greed and military power ; new societies have been formed out of the wrecks of the older ones violently de- stroyed, but in the work of reconstruction they have always retained something of their previous existence i v PREFACE. in their internal constitution, and especially in their lan- guage. Languages, like nations, have their periods of growth, maturity, and decay, but while nineteen-twentieths of the vocabulary of a people lives in the literature and speech of the cultured classes only, the remainder has a robust life in the daily usage of the sons of toil ; and this limited but more persistent portion of the national speech never fails to include the names of those objects which are the most familiar and the most beloved. Such are, for in- stance, the names of nearest relatives, father, mother, brother ; of the parts of the body ; of two or three of the commoner metals, tools, weapons, cereals, domestic ani- mals ; of the house, and things found in and near it ; of the most striking features in the landscape, the mountain peaks and ranges, the valleys, lakes, and rivers; of the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, the clouds, etc. ; and as at all times, and in every region of the world, these names have had the same clear and well-defined meanings, their visible forms stand as a sort of material lexicon, explaining not only the more archaic forms of living languages, but even of tongues that have ceased to be vernacular. Many nations have left no written records, and their history would be a blank volume, or nearly so, were it not that in the places where they have sojourned they have left traces of their migrations sufficiently clear to enable us to reconstruct the main outline of their history. The hills, the valleys, and the rivers are, in fact, the only writ, ing-tablets on which unlettered nations have been able to inscribe their annals, and these may be read in the names that still cling to the sites, and often contain the records of a class of events as to which written history is for the PREFACE. v most part silent. These appellations, which originally had a descriptive import, referring mostly to the physical features of the land, have even the advantage over the common names of a nation's speech of being less subject to the process of phonetic decay. They seem to be en- dowed with a sort of inherent and indestructible vital- ity which makes them survive the catastrophes which overthrow empires, and outlive devastations which are fatal to almost everything else. Wars can trample down or extirpate whatever grows upon a soil, excepting only its native plants and the names of those sites upon which man has found a home. Seldom is a people utterly ex- terminated, for the proud conqueror has need of some at least of the natives to till the soil anew ; and these en- slaved outcasts, though they may hand down no memory of the splendid deeds of the nation's heroes, yet retain a most tenacious recollection of the names of the hamlets which their ignoble progenitors inhabited, and near to which their fathers were interred. Geographical nomen- clature is, therefore, an important factor in all that con- cerns a nation's early history, and it often furnishes most effectual aid in the solution of linguistic problems. If, then, we would trace the English language to its sources, the course to be pursued is clearly marked out. The subject, which covers a wide range of interesting studies, involves, first of all, a critical inquiry into the origin, character, and distribution of the various races of men — Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans — -who at various epochs have found their way into the British islands — their idioms and forms of religion, their social and political differences, their relative progress in the arts of civilized life. From the complexity of the subject, it vi PREFACE. is obvious that the knowledge we possess of all these de- tails is not the fruit of any one man's learning, but the result of long and patient labors of many specialists in each of these branches. Availing ourselves of the latest researches of the distinguished scholars whose names we quote as our authorities in the list appended, and whose acknowledged learning and accuracy need no commenda- tion, we here present to the student, who has not time to make a close study of their numerous works, a digest of their substance, so arranged as to be neither reduced to the skeleton of a mere abridgment, nor extended to the huge dimensions of a learned work. Supposing the read- er to be familiar with at least the outlines of early English history, we will not follow it throughout its continuity, but rather dwell on those great epochs of national strug- gle in which we find two peoples of different origin and speech, meeting first in deadly strife, and then continuing to live on the same soil in hostile relation for many gen- erations, until, in course of time, common interests, by drawing them together, brought about a corresponding fusion of their idioms, the traces of which are still so clearly marked as not only to reveal, in almost every instance, the character and extent of each successive con- quest, but even to indicate the degree of power and tenacity to national speech and customs which was dis- played by each race in their amalgamation. History and language, thus studied by the light which they shed upon each other, will impress the reader all the more vividly as the scenes depicted more truly rep- resent the men of by-gone ages as living beings who think and speak and act, with motives for their actions. Individual celebrities are here of less account, and need PREFACE. v ii be noticed only as centers around which the great facts of history are grouped; whereas an inquiry into the sources of the language will bring us more immediately among the people, and lead us to observe the social exist- ence of the masses in their daily relations of life. Thus considered, and divested in our imagination of the illu- sions of distance in time and place, the various popula- tions which will be brought to view, either simultaneously or successively, will excite in us all the interest and sym- pathy with which we would look upon immediate neigh- bors whose collective existence is filled, like our own, with alternations of happiness and grief, of hope and of dejection. In thus reanimating past generations, our own thoughts, acts, and motives will be to some extent the measure by which we can judge theirs ; and in placing ourselves in their midst we shall find that their speech also, in which they are living yet, exhibits in all its changes and vicissitudes the same phenomena which we may ob- serve immediately around us, under our own eyes, and in our very homes. The vast amount of immigration into this country from all parts of the world, and the various idioms and dialects we hear all around us, and which in course of time must all change into English, will fur- nish us in this respect with an abundance of instances and illustrations. By thus viewing the subject in its historical aspect mainly, and as it were identifying ourselves with the peo- ple whose speech we are investigating, we shall the better understand their inner life, their wants, and their ideas, their gradual progress in civilization, and at the same time the outward garb in which, at different epochs of their national existence, they have contrived to clothe their viii PREFACE. thoughts and feelings. Thus, even in its rudest forms, the language, as it once was used, will become the object of our deepest interest when, tracing it through all its vicissitudes, we finally see it emerge from comparative obscurity to take its place among the world's leading idioms, producing masterpieces in every department of literature, and rapidly becoming the means of general intercourse among all civilized nations. From this brief outline of the plan and scope of this work, it will be readily perceived that it is not presented as a treatise on either Early English History, or English Language and Literature, but rather as an adjunct to the former, an introduction to the latter, and an assistance, we hope, in the rational study of both. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN. Gaels, Gauls, and pre-historic occupants of Britain — Origin of the names " Britain " and " Britannia " — Natural division of the island into north and south — The northern part called Alben — The southwestern part called Cymry — The eastern and southern parts called Llaegria — The primitive population driven to the west into Wales, and to the north into Caledonia — Part of the fugitives cross the sea into the isle of Erin and the smaller western islands — Albion, Ieme, and the smaller islands known to the an- cients as the " Bretannic Isles" — Cambrians, Loegrians, and Britons — Early invasions of Britain — The Belgaa — The Coritani — Invasion of Diviti- acus, King of Soissons — The four Gaulish kingdoms of Kent — The Trino- bantes — The Iceni — The Catuvellaunian confederacy — Civilization of the Gaulish settlers — Their dwellings — A chiefs house — Physical appearance — Dress — Ornaments — Equipments in war and peace — Scythed chariots — Agriculture — Horses — Cattle — Domestic life. Gaelic settlements in western and northern Britain — Climate and phys- ical appearance of the country — The tribes of the southwest — The Dam- nonians and Durotriges — Their superior culture — Their foreign trade — Description of their ships — The other tribes of the west are of low civili- zation and of mixed blood — The Silurians of South Wales — The Demetse — The Dobuni — The Cornavii — The Ordovices of North Wales — They are of Gaelic descent — The central tribes — The Coritavi, a name applied to sever- al distinct races, some semi-barbarous, others utterly so — The ruder tribes are migratory, disfigure themselves with woad, and live by war and plun- der — The Confederate tribes of the north, called Brigantes by the Ro- mans — Their prowess in war — Tacitus's opinion of the British nations as enemies. Non-Celtic tribes — Tacitus ascribes to them a Spanish origin — Irish legends on the subject — The Fir-Bolgs — Fair and dark races — Survivals of the pre-Celtic stocks — The nations of pre-historic Britain — How classi- fied — The Stone or Pre-metallic Age — The Bronze Age — The Iron Age — x CONTENTS. PAGE Evidence of sequence in the use of metal — Remains of the Paleolithic Age — Relics of the Neolithic Age — Tombs of the kings — Cromlechs, dolmens, standing-stones — Superstitious notions concerning them — Classification of barrows— Chamhered and unchambered varieties — Picts' houses in Scot- land, and Clochans in Ireland — Contents of the tombs — Physical charac- teristics of the people who built them — Commencement of the Bronze Age — Evidences of an invasion of men of Finnish type — Their peaceful re- lations with the earlier occupants of the country — Contents of their bar- rows — Implements — Ornaments — Agriculture and general civilization — Their incoiporation with the Celtic people, and probable influence on the Celtic languages of Britain. The Celtic languages — Their living forms in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Man, and Brittany — Dead forms : Pictish, Cornish, Welsh of Stratclyde, Gaulish, Thracian, Galatian, and Celtiberian — Literature of the surviving Celtic dialects — Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Manx versions of St. Luke, chap, vii, v. 11-17 — Difference between the British dialects and the Brezonec of Brittany — The difference but slight in Caesar's time, and even as late as the twelfth century — Similarity of the Welsh and Gaulish languages — Like- ness between the older forms of Welsh and Irish — Welsh and Irish prob- ably at first one nation — Their separation and contact with other peoples leads to a difference of form in their languages. Religion of the British tribes — Its influence on the literature of ro- mance — Theories about Druidism — The Welsh Triads — Their date and authority — Legend of Hugh the Mighty — Mythological poems of the Welsh bards — Religion of the Gauls — Its nature — The greater gods — Local deities and inferior gods — Origin of Druidism — Insular and Continental Druids — Doctrines of the British Druids — Their ceremonies and human sacrifices — Relics of the old creed still found among the country people, in heroic poems, and in nursery tales — Metempsychosis— Sacred animals — Prohibi- tion of certain kinds of food — Connected with claims of descent from animals — Totemism — Extent of this superstition in ancient and modern times. A general idea of the country and its people at the time of the first Ro- man invasion essential to a correct understanding of the vicissitudes which subsequently befell the British nations I Chapter ii. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. Character of the Roman conquest — The century of peace after Caesar's invasion — Increase of commerce with Gaul — Fresh settlements of Gauls in Britain — The Atrebates — The Belgae — The Parisii — Temporary pros- perity of the native states — Silver coinage ; precious ores ; exports — Ro- man greed — End of the peace — The capture of Camulodunum — The Tri- umph of Claudius — Massacre of the captives — Enrolment of British CONTENTS. x i regiments — Tyrannical administration — Revolt of the Iceni — Victory of Paullinus — The province constituted — Agricola's beneficial government Extent of the Roman conquest after his retirement — The Caledonian tribes — The Picts and Scots — Their hostile enterprises — Hadrian sum- moned to Britain — His headquarters at Eburacum, the site of modern York — Roman camps the origin of many English towns — Their sites and system of fortification — Hadrian's wall — Description of its remains — The expedition of Severus — Death of the emperor at York — The revolt of Ca- rausius — Growing influence and final defeat of the Franks in Britain — Diocletian's scheme of government — Reigns of Constantius and Constan- tine the Great — Division of Roman Britain into five provinces — Effect of the new constitution — Increase of taxation and extreme wretchedness of the natives — Establishment of Christianity in Britain — Gradual decay of Paganism — Pantheistic religions — State of the frontiers — Renewed attacks of the Picts and Scots — The Franks and Saxons — Victories of Theodosius — The revolt of Maximus — His successful campaign against the Picts and Scots — He raises a large army of Britons and Gauls, crosses over to the Continent, and establishes himself at Treves as Emperor of the West — His drain upon the native population a cause of weakness to the country — Believed to have been the proximate cause of the English conquest — Combined attacks of Scots, Picts, and Saxons — Repulsed by Stilicho — Usurpation of Constantine — The treason of Gerontius — The cities of Brit- ain repel a German invasion — They refuse to return to their former subjec- tion — Honorius releases them from further allegiance — The independence of Britain. Effects of four hundred years of Roman occupation upon the native Celtic language — Agricola endeavors to introduce Roman civilization among the native chiefs — Roman schools in Britain inferior to those in Gaul — British students frequenting the Gaulish law schools — No Latin author of distinction among the Britons — Latin indispensable to the native business people — In official transactions, imperative — Ancient British coins are stamped with Roman capitals — British monumental inscriptions in Latin — Latin words traceable in the Cambrian dialect — Few words in modem English of Latin origin referable to the early British period 34 CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. Troubles of the independent Britons — They organize under their an- cient chiefs of tribes — The Chief of chiefs — The office a source of internal dissension — Fresh invasions of Picts and Scots— The Saxon pirates — The Halleluia victory — Engagement of foreign soldiers as auxiliaries in the British service — Beginnings of the English conquest — British and Saxon accounts compared — Early Welsh poems — Nennius ; Gildas ; Bede — The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — Character of the authorities — Jutes — Doubtful x ii CONTENTS. origin of the name — The legend of Hengist and Horsa— The Saxon invasions— Britain full of German settlements— Its wealth and commerce attract the continental pirates— The whole of British coasts open to their enterprises— Count of the Saxon frontier — His powers and jurisdiction —The North German coast from the Scheldt to the Elbe— Holland as it was and as it is — The Batavi in Csesar's time— Their bravery and faith as Roman allies — The Franks — Not known to either Csesar or Tacitus — First heard of in A. D. 241 — Originally found along the upper Rhine — They gradually spread westward to the sea — Their naval expeditions against Britain and down the coast of Gaul — Their physical appearance, their institutions, and equipments in war — Their weapons found in Kent and elsewhere in England — The Friesians — They occupy originally the entire coast from the Scheldt to Denmark — Friesians and Hollanders essentially the same people — In the third century they form a confederacy with the Chauci and yield the southern part of Holland to the Franks — The Saxons — First mentioned by Ptolemy — The name derived from their national weapon — Their warlike character — They often act in concert with the Friesians and the Franks — Their early raids into Gaul and Britain — The Saxons at home and the Saxons in England — The aggressive power of the former destroyed by Charlemagne — The Angles — Only incidentally mentioned by Tacitus — Ptolemy places them on the middle Elbe among the Hermunduri — Believed by some to have been a branch of the Her- munduri — They spread along the lower Elbe into Holstein — Ida's expedi- tion — The Angles in the interior join the Varini, and, conjointly with them, take the name of Thuringi — The name of Angles not derived from the Angulus in Sleswick — Theories as to other invading tribes — Their general character described by Orosius, Zosimus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Sidonius Apollinaris, and others — Their extraordinary daring and savage cruelty — Their moral qualities and national sense of honor — Their sur- roundings in their continental homes contrasted with those of people liv- ing in milder climes — The influence of climate on civilization and on lan- guage — The Gothic stock of languages — Specimen of Moeso-Gothic — The Teutonic branch and its subdivisions — The Scandinavian branch and its subdivisions — German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish compared — Britain invaded by the Low-Dutch speaking people — Time of the first invasion uncertain — The invasion slow and gradual — Participation of foreign resi- dents — Condition of the Britons under Saxon rule — The sack of Anderida — Fate of the Roman towns — Social and political relations of the Saxon tribes in England — Their advance in agriculture — Their institutions and form of government — The freemen and the serfs — Various degrees of serf- dom — Saxon slaves in the slave-mart at Rome — They attract the attention of Pope Gregory the Great — He conceives the idea of educating some as missionaries to Britain — They fail to answer his expectation — He intrusts the mission to Augustin — He provides him with letters to the Frankish kings, Theodoric and Theodebert, who assist him on his journey to Britain — Curious reference in these letters to the Saxons in Britain as subjects of the CONTENTS. Franks — Augustin takes with him, as interpreters to communicate with the people of Kent, some Saliau Franks who spoke the ancient idiom of Hol- land — He lands in Britain on the isle of Thanet — Ethelbert, King of Kent, meets him there in the open air for fear of magic — The king is eventu- ally converted to Christianity — Slow progress of the new religion among the Saxons — The converts often relapse into idolatry — Heathen survivals — Character of Saxon Paganism — Heathen songs crowded out by stirring Christian hymns — Caedmon — Character of early Anglo-Saxon poetry — Christianity the cradle of English national literature — Celtic influence on the language — It is more literary than lexical — Common nouns of Celtic origin — Celtic local names — Roman local names — The Celtic population of England — Runes and Ogham inscriptions — Their origin and gradual dis- appearance — The Roman alphabet — The Irish alphabet — Early Anglo- Saxon writing formed after the Irish model — Earliest specimens of Anglo- Saxon date back no farther than the end of the seventh century — They belong to the Anglian district — All tribal denominations abolished by Egbert, and the names of England and English for the country and its inhabitants proclaimed by royal decree, A. D. 827 — Probable reason for the measure CHAPTER IV. THE DANES IN ENGLAND. The Danes — Known by various names — Their origin and continental homes — Their national character — Their skalds and bards — Their con- firmed idolatry and hatred of the converted Saxons accounted for — Their numerous kings and petty kingdoms reduced to three separate monarchies — The Vikingr — Their piratical associations — Early Danish expeditions against England — Danish invasion of Cornwall supported by the Britons — Repulse of the Danes — They effect a settlement in the northeast of Eng- land — Another expedition lands in East Anglia — They march on York, and occupy the whole country around it — Northumberland ceases to be an Eng- lish kingdom, and becomes a rallying point of the Danes— After three years' preparation they move southward with overwhelming forces — Fearful destruction of churches, monasteries, books, manuscripts, and everything connected with Christian worship — Their national fanaticism is directed especially against the clergy — Many native English relapse into idolatry — East Anglia becomes a Danish kingdom — The English population reduced to a state of semi-servitude— Nearly all England overrun by the Danes — Wessex alone remains an English kingdom — The Danes pass the Thames — iEthelred, King of Wessex, dies of wounds received in battle — His brother Alfred succeeds him — The latter repels the Danes, and maintains the boundary line of the Thames — His excessive rigor alienates his sub- jects — He deserts the people who had deserted him — The Danes enter Wessex — Many inhabitants take refuge in Gaul or in Ireland — Those who Xlll 57 xiv CONTENTS. PAGE remain pay tribute, and labor for the Danes — Alfred, known to a few friends only, keeps up a guerilla warfare against the Danes — The unknown chief is joined by many partisans — He makes himself known, and strongly reinforced, he drives out the Danes — Their King Guthrum and his captains receive baptism, as by treaty, and withdraw to East Anglia — All parts of England, not occupied by the Danes, form henceforth one single state — Bad faith of the Danes — They join new expeditions against the southern English — Their constant wars and incessant depredations fatal to civ- ilization. Deterioration of the vernacular English — Lack of culture among the English people in Alfred's time — His endeavor to rescue his dominions from illiteracy and ignorance — He invites the most learned men from abroad to come as teachers to England — The studies that were cultivated in those ages — Alcuin and his methods — Dialectic differences in early Eng- lish — Like differences still existing in cognate idioms — Friesian and Dutch compared with modern English — The written Anglo-Saxon a conglomerate of various dialects — Its grammar, vocabulary, and literature — The scholars of the eighth and ninth century write mainly for the learned — Their writing only in Latin is detrimental to the progress of the vernacular language — Anglo-Saxon versions of the Gospel — Eighth and tenth century specimens of Anglo-Saxon scriptural language — A Northumberland gloss of the same passage — Danish influence on early English — Traceable especially in the dialects of northern England — Common names of Scandinavian origin — Proper names, descriptive of Scandinavian localities — Proper names, de- scriptive of Anglo-Saxon localities — Identity of local and patronymic names in England, Holland, Friesland, Westphalia, Belgium, and Northern France, showing identity of origin and race — The extent of Danish occu- pation best ascertained from geographical nomenclature — The presence of the Danes prejudicial to the development of national character — Low con- dition of the nation at the time of the Norman conquest 143 CHAPTER V. THE NORMANS IN GAUL. Origin of the Normans— King Harald Harfager prohibits piracy in his states — Hrolf, the son of a favorite chief, disregards the law and is banished — He is joined by other Norwegian exiles and emigrants — They organize at the Hebrides, and form a piratical association — They effect a landing in England, and winter in the island — After plundering Flanders, they sail up the Seine, and ravage the surrounding country — Rouen capit- ulates — The Normans make it their headquarters, and establish themselves all over Neustria — Rollo, first duke of Normandy — His character as a leader — The eighth century Danes and tenth century Normans compared — The Normans in Gaul become a French-speaking people — The Scandi- navian idiom kept up longest at Bayeux — The Normans before and after CONTENTS. xv PAGE their conversion to Christianity — Their Pagan superstitions — Elves, mount- ain-dwarfs, were-wolves, etc. — Growth of Normau civilization — Normandy the principal center of religion and of science in Europe — Its schools of Rouen, Caen, Fontenelle, Fecamp, Lisieux, etc. — The abbeys of Bee and Jumieges — Lanfranc — Anselm — The Normans in the Holy Land and Sicily — Their old Norse spirit of war and adventure — Roger de Toesny ; Robert Guiscard — The Norman character painted by a contemporary historian — Their lavishness and greed — Their fortitude in war and en- durance of hardship — Their taste for fine speaking and brilliant mili- tary display — Their fondness for law and legal forms — Their strict at- tendance to religious observances, and wide bounty to religious founda- tions — Their honest dealings with each other — Long residence of Ed- ward among the Normans in Normandy before his election to the English throne 201 CHAPTER VI. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Election of Edward to the throne of England — He marries Edith, the daughter of Godwin and sister of Harold — Re-establishment of the old English laws — Norman favorites at court — Their arrogant manners arouse the people's hostility — William, Duke of Normandy — His visit to England — Honor done him by Edward and his Norman courtiers — His ambitious projects — Death of Godwin — Harold visits Normandy — He is received at Rouen with great honor by Duke William — The duke speaks to him of Edward's promise to make him his heir to the crown of England, and asks his assistance for the accomplishment of that promise — Harold accedes to his request, and swears his oath on sacred relics — His return to England — Uneasiness of Edward on hearing Harold's account of William's reception — Superstitious terror of the English people — Remembrance of fatal pre- dictions — Death of King Edward — Election of Harold to the succession — Exchange of messages between King Harold and Duke William — The dis- pute referred to the Pope — The latter decides in favor of Duke William — Rupture of negotiations, and declaration of war — Great military prepara- tions — Enrollment of men from all parts in William's army — Departure of the Norman fleet — Landing of the Norman army at Pevensey — The Eng- lish army moves to meet the enemy — The opposite armies in camp the night before battle — The battle of Hastings — Victory of the Normans — Death of Harold — Battle Abbey — The Norman army moves on to London — Ravages and cruelties committed by the conquering soldiery — William pro- claimed King of England — Immediate results of the conquest — Confisca- tion of property — Division of the spoils among the Normans — Seizure of English domains — Disposal of English heiresses — Great wealth and high titles bestowed on William's followers — The native population re- duced to beggary — The whole country covered with Norman citadels and xvi CONTENTS. PAGE fortified castles— Fearful sufferings of the native English— More than one hundred thousand die from hunger and disease — Some of the survivors, once illustrious among their countrymen, sell themselves and their families into perpetual slavery to escape starvation — Others emigrate to the north and south of Europe, or take to the forests and the mountains — Cruel pun- ishment of English partisans and political outlaws — Great influx of French adventurers into England — Introduction of foreign prelates into English bishoprics — Contemptuous treatment of the natives by the foreign clergy — Threatened insurrection of the English— Shrewd concessions of William — He revives the laws of Edward — Futility of the concessions — Treacherous applications of the law — Norman greed and spoliation — Towns and vil- lages farmed out to the highest bidders — Final disposal of all landed prop- erty — The domesday-book — General aspect of the conquered country — Various conquests compared — Nature of the Norman conquest — William's advantage in the enterprise — English opinions as regards the justice of his claim — His original plans of occupation modified by circumstances — Eventual results of the conquest — Development of the national resources — Establishment of schools and institutions of learning — Rich endowments for their maintenance — Establishment of abbeys and monasteries — Nor- man activity in the cause of education — Erection of magnificent edifices — Old churches demolished and restored on a grander scale — Improved taste in art and in works of permanent utility — Agriculture — Commerce — Tyran- nical enforcement of the law 214 CHAPTER VII. GROWTH AND DECLINE OF THE NORMAN FRENCH IN ENGLAND. The distinction of race between Normans and English kept up by the difference of language long after the assimilation of social and political in- terests — The teachers for a long time are nearly all French clergymen — French and Latin are the only languages taught — Neglect of the native English idiom — Wealth, power, and higher intellect in England remain French for many generations — The working classes are among the first to pick up some words of French — Shopkeepers and tradesmen find it to their interest to know some French to secure Norman custom — The larger cities soon become bilingual — The most eminent French poets and minstrels re- pair to England — Anglo-Norman compositions take the lead in French literature — They impart a greater uniformity to the French as spoken in England — Its first degeneration owing to an admixture of English words and to a loss of accent — Both become noticeable in thirteenth century documents — The wrong accent is followed by the contraction of words and the omission of certain vowel-sounds — English words applying to English matters occur in the laws of William — English words be- come very numerous in the statutes at large — Statute of Edward III making English the national language — Is drawn up in French, and so CONTENTS. xv ii PAGB all statutes continue to be during the reign of Edward III and Richard II — Their letters and dispatches are all in French — Oxford students con- fined in conversation to either French or Latin — The first great cause of the decline of Anglo-Norman French to be found in the separation of Nor- mandy from England — The emigration of French literary men and poets becomes less easy and less frequent — Anglo-Norman poets lose their for- mer grace and facility — Native poets begin to write French poetry — Some translate imported French literature — Others compose in their vernacular English— French and English compositions of the time compared — The study of English introduced into the schools — The increased currency of English sensibly affects the Norman-French — Its decline is for a time re- tarded by the presence in England of Charles of Orleans and the nobles and poets in their suite who were made prisoners at Azincourt — The use of French becomes more and more confined to the court and the aristocra- cy — It remains the official language in the high courts of Parliament — Civil cases continue to be tried in English, and recorded in French — Lawyers' French — Anglo-Norman French in Chaucer's time — English gradually takes its place — In the first half of the fifteenth century public acts begin to be drawn up indifferently in English or in French — The first English bill in the lower house of Parliament bears date A. D. 1485 — The last pub- lic document in French bears date A. D. 1488 — Letters, wills, epitaphs, law reports, etc., are found written in French up to A. D. 1600— The fashionable use of French begins to be more a French fashion than a Norman tradition — Henry VIII, the last English king who proclaimed French the court language and required a knowledge thereof in all persons applying for office— The first French grammar written under his auspices by Palsgrave, and published in London, A. D. 1530 — The first French dic- tionary published also in England by Cotgrave, A D. 16 11 — The royal assent to acts of Parliament is still given in French 252 CHAPTER VIII. SPECIMENS OF ANGLO-NORMAN FRENCH. Remarks on the reading of Anglo-Norman manuscripts — A knowledge of modem French insufficient for a correct understanding of Anglo-Nor- man French — The Lord's Prayer, from the psalter of William the Conqueror — Laws of William the Conqueror — Henry I, Urbanus ou I home poly — Ge- offroi Gaimar, Histoire des Rois Anglo-Normands — Robert Wace, Roman de Rou — Beneoit de Sainte-More, Histoire des dues de Normandie — Evrard, Distiques de Caton — Guijlaume Herman, La Criation — Guichard de Beau- lieu, Nativite du Christ— Richard Cceur de Lion, Servantois — Marie de France, Fable— Robert Gfosse-Teste, Alligorie— Gauter de Bibblesworthe, Anglo-Norman Grammar— Political Song in French and English, mixed — Hymn to the Virgin in French and Latin, mixed — Political Song in French, Latin, and English, mixed — Statute of Edward III authorizing 2 xviii CONTENTS. PAGE the use of English in civil suits— John Gower, Ballade— -Peter Langtoft, Histoire des Bretons — Norman Proverbs, etc., still current in English — Will of a Gentleman at the end of the fourteenth century 269 CHAPTER IX. FUSION OF ANGLO-NORMAN FRENCH AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLISH. The history of the vernacular English literature almost a blank for a century and a half after the Norman conquest — French and Latin are the principal literature of the period — The great mass of early French litera- ture was published in England — For a time, French threatens to displace the old vernacular English — It is eventually absorbed by the latter — Changes in the vernacular English when it re-appears in written form — The changes involve, I, an infusion of Norman words and idioms, and, 2, a general disintegration of the older forms of language — Infusion of foreign words and phrases — Commenced even before the Conquest — After the Conquest, a knowledge of French is indispensable for the transaction of public business — William tries to learn English — He does not attempt to make French the universal language of his subjects — The decline of the native English is incidental only — Widespread disintegration of the native English after the generation who had seen the arrival of the Norman had died out — Words relating to ordinary life subsist ; literary terms are for- gotten — Without schools or cultivated classes it is impossible to keep up a standard of correct speaking and writing — Neglect of grammatical rules and admixture of foreign terms appear even in the Anglo-Saxon Chroni- cle — The English people begin to adopt French Christian names — Eng- lish family names — Their origin and meaning. After the loss of Normandy, the blending of families and interests leads to a blending of idioms — The use of French words in early English trans- lations shows that such words were then generally understood — The mixed language begins to be used by the Normans themselves — After the statute of Edward III, proclaiming English the national language, the influx of French words and phrases is greater than ever before — Causes of this increasing admixture of foreign terms — Agencies at work to produce the fusion of both idioms — Business and fashion — The clergy — The doctors — The lawyers — The arts of war and chivalry — Fashionable literature — The growing love for foreign terms and euphemism — The mixture of French and English words in the sentences extends also to the words themselves and parts thereof — English roots with French suffixes — French roots with English suffixes — French verbs with English terminations conjugated after English fashion — French words thus Anglicized become part and parcel of the new national language — Some are found even in the earliest English compositions after the Norman conquest — The land of Cockaigne — Robert of Gloucester — Adam Davie — The earl of Warwick — Robert of Brunne — CONTENTS. xi x PAGE Richard Hampole — William Langland — Wyclif — Chaucer — The language of Chaucer — Great difference between northern and southern English — Works written in one of these dialects need translation to be understood by people speaking the other — The midland counties partake of the peculi- arities of both — Many anomalies in modern English are owing to this diversity of speech — Words of Norman origin especially subject to mispro- nunciation — Strange instances thereof — Disguised origin of many words of Norman importation. Nature and amount of Norman influence in transforming the ancient speech of England into modern English — Loss of inflections and neglect of grammatical rules found in Anglo-Saxon English long before the Nor- man conquest — Difference between the spoken and the written language in the seventh and eighth centuries — Great dialectic differences the cause of grammatical inaccuracy — Intermingling of dialects destructive to inflec- tions — Laying the accent on or near the initial syllable may be traced to Danish influence — It causes the concluding syllable to fall into obscurity — The leveling of the terminal vowels involves the loss of inflections — The use of prepositions in combination with inflections occurs in Anglo-Saxon writings — Phonetic changes in English words due far more to Danish than to Norman influence — Great license of language and of spelling found in Anglo-Saxon writings — Anomalies of Anglo-Saxon grammar — Changes which mark the transformation of the old speech of England into modem English — Similar changes have taken place in the cognate continental idi- oms — Natural tendency of every language to replace inflections by prepo- sitions — Modern English substantially formed by the end of the fourteenth century 292 CHAPTER X. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS VOCABULARY. The English loss of territory on the continent favorable to the improve- ment of the national language — Introduction of the art of printing — It produces a greater uniformity of language — The fifteenth century not fa- vorable to the cultivation of letters in England — The revival of learning — The French mania for antiquity finds its way also into England — Great influx of Greek and Latin words — English fondness for new and foreign terms — Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation — Theological controversy carried on in the people's language — French controversial pamphlets translated into English — They lead to an increased use of French and Latin terms— Many foreign words thus introduced have not been retained in the language — The immoderate use of foreign terms dis- countenanced by leading English authors — New influx of French words with the Restoration — Most French words of that period relating to art, criticism, and fashion have been retained — Swift's opposition to the ex- cessive use of French and Latin words in English — To protect the Ian- xx CONTENTS. PAGE guage from further corruption, he proposes the establishment of an Acade- my in imitation of the Academic Francaise — Addison's satire on the use of French words and military phrases in official reports — Johnson's dictionary — Gibbon's vocabulary — Modern technology — Revival of old English words preserved in local dialects — Proportion of words of various origins in the English vocabulary — However composite, the language is English not the less, and remains classified as a member of the Low-Dutch division of Ger- man — Reasons for this classification — The term ' ' Anglo-Saxon " used to designate modern English, and "Latin" to denote the language of the Normans, may mislead students — Importance of a correct classification of words according to their origin — The language of « people is of itself alone no test of race — The history of the formation of a language is essen- tially the history of the people who speak it and of those who have spoken it — They mutually shed light upon each other, and may be studied con- jointly to great advantage 360 CHAPTER XI. SPECIMENS OF EARLY ENGLISH. Remarks on the reading of ancient English manuscripts — The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle — Nothing known about its origin and history up to the end of the ninth century — King Alfred its probable originator — Its first and its last entry — Facsimile of a manuscript page of the Chronicle pre- served in the British Museum — The Lord's Prayer in Anglo-Saxon from Eadfrith, A. D. 700 ; from Alfred, A. D. 875 ; in Danish-Saxon, A. D. 900 ; in Old English, A. D. 1160 — An Old English homily — Layamon's Brut — The Ormulum — The Ancren Riwle — Version of Genesis and Exodus — The Owl and the Nightingale — Havelok the Dane — Robert of Gloucester — Rob- ert Mannyng — Richard Hampole — Laurence Minot — William Langlaud — John Maundeville — John de Trevisa — John Wyclif — Peres the Plough- man's Crede — Thomas Wymbelton — English and Latin lines mixed — John Gower — Jeffrey Chaucer — John Barbour — Thomas Occleve — John Lydgate — The Maister of Oxford' s catechism — Bill of fare in 1452 — Old English gastronomy — Miscellaneous scraps — Proverbs — Receipts — Notes of ownership — William Caxton 377 CONTENTS. xx i APPENDIX. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. PAGE Early inhabitants of Gaul — Celts ; Iberians ; Aquitanians ; Gauls ; Bel- gians — The Gauls outnumber all the other tribes — The Greek colonies in Gaul — The Roman conquest — Gaul becomes a. Roman province — Spread of Latin throughout all Gaul — Roman schools and Gallic Latin authors — The establishment of Christianity assists in spreading the Latin lan- guage — The native Celtic idiom gradually dies out — It survives in Brittany, where it is still vernacular — The universality of Latin detrimental to its purity — Difference between popular and literary Latin — Spread of the for- mer among the country people — The Teutonic invasions — Franks; Bur- gundians ; Visigoths — Conversion of Clovis to Christianity — Extent of the Frankish dominion — The Salian and Ripuarian Franks speak the ancient Dutch and Flemish ; the Austrasian Franks speak the old High-German — The former mingle more freely with their Gallo-Roman subjects, and more readily fall in with their manners and their language — Franks and Romans compared — The leading men among the Franks learn to speak and write Latin — The Lingua Romana Rustica — Is a mixture of Celtic, Latin, and Teutonic, varying in every locality — It originated in Neustria, and spread from there throughout all Gaul — The Church sees its importance, and adopts it in its teachings — Various councils prescribe the use of Rustic Latin in the pulpit — The term Romance — Fragments of early Romance in litanies, scat- tered sentences, and glossaries — The Oath of Louis the German — Recorded by Nithard, a grandson of Charlemagne, and preserved in the Library of the Vatican — It represents the language of Neustria in A. D. 842 — The name of Gallo-Romans superseded everywhere by the name of Franks — Latin Franks and German Franks — First Norman invasion — Dismemberment of the empire of Charlemagne — New states formed — Limits and populations of the kingdom of France — Second Norman invasion under the leadership of Rollo — The French nation in the tenth century — Hugh Capet speaks only French, and allows no other language at his court — Langue d'oil and Langue a"oc — Leading differences between the two — Principal dialects of the Langue d'oil — The dialect of the Ile-de-France becomes the court dia- lect — The terms " dialect " and " patois " — The study of the latter impor- tant to philologists — Medieval French— The University of Paris— The re- vival of learning in France— The " Pleiade "— Ronsard and his followers at home and abroad — The Renaissance— The Reformation — Italian influ- ence — Spanish influence — French proclaimed the only official language in the country — Religious polemics — Pulpit eloquence — Philosophy— The Aca- dimie Fran$aise 457 xxii CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. ETYMOLOGY. PAGE Etymology ; Philology ; Linguistics — Strong family resemblance be- tween French and Latin — The French vocabulary — Its foreign element — Words of Celtic origin — Some of them introduced through the Latin — The order of ideas to which they generally refer — The Celtic still a living lan- guage in Brittany as it is in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — Celtic local names — Celtic literature — Nature and amount of Celtic influence on the formation of the French language — Words of Teutonic origin — They de- note habits, manners, and occupations quite different .from those of Celtic origin — They bear the stamp of the conqueror, and belong to a. higher order of ideas — Their nature and classification — Teutonic and Scandi- navian local names — Teutonic influence on the formation of the French language — Words of Greek origin — First introduced through the literary Latin ; next through the Christian Church and the Crusades — Sayings and proverbs common to both Greek and French — Modern technology mainly derived from the Greek — Words of Semitic origin — Hebrew ; Turkish ; Arabic — Words of Italian origin — Their nature and classification — Words of Spanish origin — Their nature and classification — Words of English origin — Their nature and classification — The main bulk of the French vocabulary, and the leading features of the language, are of Latin deri- vation — Origin of the Latin language — The written and the spoken Latin — The latter becomes the Lingua Romana Rustica, and is the foundation of the French language — Ecclesiastical and mediaeval Latin — Low Latin — The parts of speech — How changed from Latin into French — Permutation of vowels and consonants — Quantity and accent — List of words illustrating the transformation of Latin terms into French — Principal characteristics of the French language 517 CHAPTER III. SPECIMENS OF EARLY FRENCH. Remarks on the reading of ancient French manuscripts — The Oath of Louis the German — Facsimile of the original MS. in the Vatican Library — Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie — Chanson de Roland — Admonition — Sermon — Traduction des Psaumes — Les quatre Livres des Rois — Saint Bernard — Maurice de Sully — The Lord's Prayer in twelfth century French — Reg- nault de Coucy — Joffroi de Villehardouin — Thibaut IV de Navarre — Guillaume de Lorris — Jehan de Meung — Translation of the Stabat Mater in thirteenth century French — Jehan de Joinville — Jehan Froissart — Charles d'Orleans — Olivier Basselin — Francois Villon — Philippe de Comines — Clement Marot — Francois Rabelais — Pierre de Ronsard — Le Loyal Servi- teur — Pierre de Brant6me — Michel de Montaigne 59a LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED AND QUOTED WITHOUT CONTINUED REFERENCE. J. Bosworth, Anglo-Saxon and English Dictionary. K. Bartsch, Chrestomatie de VAncien Francois. A. de Belloquet, Ethnoginie gaulois. -A. Brachet, Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Francaise. - G. R. Burguy, Grammaire de la Langue (TOil. A. de Chevallet, Origine et Formation de la Langue Francaise. R. Cotgrave, A French and English LHctionnarie (1611). A. de Courson, Histoire des Peuples Bretons. ' G. L. Craik, Manual of English Lit- erature. L'Abbe de la Rue, Essais Historiques sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, et les Trotiveres. M. Depping, Histoire des Expeditions Maritimes des Normands. -F. Diez, Etymologisches Worterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen. -Ch. Du Cange, Glossarium media et infimce Latinitatis. -J. Earle, The Philology of the English Language. ~C. Elton, Origins of English History. -E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England. 'J. R. Green, The Making of England. ~E. Guest, On the Early English Settle- ments in South Btitain. ■~R. Hallam, Europe during the Middle Ages. A. Houze, Atlas universel historique et ge'ographique. -J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in Eng- land. J. F. A Kinderling, Geschichte der Neidersachsischen oder sogenammten Plattdeutschen Sprache. C. Knight, Pictorial History of Eng- land. J. Ten Doorkaat Koolman, Worter- buch der Ostfriesischen Sprache. S. Laing, The Heimskringla ; trans- • lated from the Icelandic of Snorro Sturleson. J. M. Lappenberg, Geschichte von- England P. Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire uni-~ versel du XIX' siecle. E. Le Hericher, Glossaire Etymolo- gique Anglo-Norman. R. G. Latham, The Ethnology of the - British Islands. S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early - Constitution of Universities. H. Leo, Local Nomenclature of the A nglo- Saxons. E. Littre, Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise. P. H. Mallet, Histoire du Danemarc. G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English- Language. E. Matzner, Altcnglishe Sprachproben.- G. Metivier, Dictionnaire Franco-Nor- ma?id. P. Meyer et G. Paris, Romania. R. Morris, Specimens of Early Eng- ■ lish. E. Miiller, Etymologishes Worterbuch der Englischen Sprache. F. Max Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language. F. L. K. Oliphant, Old and Middle English. F. Palgrave, Hiitory of Normandy and ■ England. J. Palsgrave, Lesclaircissement de la Langue Francoyse (1530). R. Pauli, Pictures of Old England. M. Raynouard, Lexique Roman. J. Rhys, Celtic Britain. xxiv LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED AND QUOTED. -J. B. B. Roquefort, Glossaire de la Langue Romane. "G. Saintsbury, History of French Lit- erature. -A. H. Sayce, Introduction to the Sci- ence of Language. M. Scheie de Vere, Studies or Glimpses of the Inner Life of our Language. A. Scheler, La Transformation Iran- faise des Mots Latins. A. Schleicher, Sprachvergleichende Un- tersuchungen. •W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dic- tionary of the English Language. W. F. Skene, The Highlanders of Scotland. W. Spalding, History of English Lit- erature. - Spruner-Menke, Hand-Atlas fur die geschichte des Mittelalters und der neueren Zeit. F. H. Stratmann, A Dictionary of the Old English language. r W. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England. H. A. Taine, Histoire de la Litte'rature - Anglaise. I. Taylor, Greeks and Goths ; a Study of the Runes. Am. Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois. Aug. Thierry, Histoire de la ConquUe - de I 'Angleterre par les Normands. B. Thorpe, Northern Mythology. Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo- Saxons. T. Tyrwhitt, An Essay on the Lan- - guage and Versification of Chaucer. F. Warton, History of English Poetry. - H. Wedgwood, A Dictionary of Eng-- lish Etymology. W. D. Whitney, Language and the - Theory of Language. J. J. A. Worsase, The Danes and Nor- - wegians in England. T. Wright, The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon. Wright and Halliwell, Reliquice An- tiques. K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nach- barstdmme. ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN. Europe has been peopled by successive immigrations from the East. Five great waves of population have rolled in, each in its turn urging the flow which had preceded it farther and farther toward the West. The mighty Celtic inundation is the first which we can trace in its progress across Europe, forced onward by the succeeding deluges of Roman, Teutonic, and Sclavonic peoples, till at length it was driven forward into the far western ex- tremities of Europe. The Celts found in Britain at the time of the Roman invasion were of two kinds, namely : the Gauls, that is, the Celts who came from what is now France and Bel- gium ; and the Gaels or Celts of an earlier migration, whose colonies were found in every part of the British Islands that was not held by the Gaulish nations. Dis- persed among all these various tribes of Celtic origin, there were remnants of other nations of pre-historic times, and traces of these races are still discoverable here and there among the living. It was once a general belief among the English peo- ple that they were the lineal descendants of the Low- German tribes which, during the fifth and sixth centuries, came from the shores and flats between the Rhine and the Elbe, and who in history are known by the name of Anglo-Saxons. This belief, however, has' not been sus- tained by evidence ; it being now shown that the early English conquest, which was assumed to have been one of extermination, extended only over half the island of 2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Great Britain, and never touched Ireland. Indeed, the older races, which still chiefly occupy their ancient homes, but are infused into the English by a thousand ties of intercourse and intermarriage, have long since formed a vital part of the nation, as much so as the Danes and the Normans, who subsequently came to England, and, like them, left their impress on the national character and language. Thus many anomalies in the vernacular will be best accounted for by the fact that the English nation is compounded of the blood of many different races, and might claim a personal interest not only in the Gaelic and Belgic tribes, who struggled with the Roman legions, but even in the first cave-men, who sought their prey by the slowly-receding ice-fields, and in the many forgotten peoples whose relics are explored in the sites of lake-vil- lages, or sea-side refuse-heaps, or. in the funeral mounds, and whose memory is barely preserved in the names of mountains and rivers. For it is hardly possible that a race should ever be quite exterminated or extinguished ; the blood of the conquerors must in time become mixed with that of the conquered ; and the preservation of men for slaves, and of women for wives, will always insure the continued existence of the inferior race, however much it may lose of its original appearance, manners, or language. According to the authors of the earliest Triads, 1 the island which now bears the name of Great Britain was originally called the Country of Green Hills, afterward the Island of Honey, and later, again, the Island of Bryt or Prydain, from which latter word, Latinized, the names of Britain and Britannia are supposed to have been derived. 3 1 The Triads of the Welsh bards are poetical histories in which the facts recorded are grouped in threes, three things or circumstances of a kind being mentioned together. s The Celtic aborigines do not seem to have called themselves Britons, nor can any complete and satisfactory explanation of the name be discovered in any of the Celtic dialects. Its earliest occurrence is found in the pages of Greek and afterward Latin writers. The word, however, is foreign both to the Greek and Latin speech, but belongs to that family of languages of which the Lapp and the Basque are the sole living representatives ; and hence it is inferred that the earliest knowledge of the island which was possessed by any of the civilized inhabitants of Europe must have been derived from the Iberic mariners of Spain, who either in their own ships, or in those of their Punic masters, coasted along to Brittany, and thence crossed to Britain, at some dim pre-historic period. The name Br-«7a»-ia contains, it would seem, the Euskarian suffix etan, which is used to signify a district or country. We find this suffix in the names of many of the districts known to, or occupied by, the Iberic race. It occurs in Aqu-*7a«-ia or Aquitaine, in Lus-z7a«-ia, the ancient name of Portu- gal, in Maur-^/a»-ia, the " country of the Moors," as well as in the names of AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3 From the remotest antiquity the Island of Prydain or Bntain appeared to those who visited it to be divided, from east to west, into two almost equal portions, of which the rivers Forth and Clyde formed the common bound- ary. The northern part was called Albert, 1 signifying re- gion of mountains; the other, to the west, bore the name of Cymry ; and that of Llcegwria, to the east and south. These two denominations were not derived, like the for- mer, from the nature and appearance of the soil, but from the names of the two races of people who conjointly occu- pied almost the whole extent of Southern Britain. These were the Cymry* and the L/cegwry, 3 or, according to Latin orthography, the Cambrians and the Logrians. The Cambrian nations claimed the higher antiquity. They had come in a body from the eastern extremities of Europe, across the German Ocean. One part of the emigrants had landed on the coast of Gaul; the other had chosen the opposite shore of the strait, 4 and colonized Britain. There they found men of another origin and a different language, evidences of which exist even now in the names of places foreign to the Cambrian language, as well as in the ruins of an unknown age. 5 This primitive population of Britain was gradually forced upon the west into Wales, and north into Caledonia, by the successive invasions by strangers who landed in the east. Some of the fugitives crossed the sea, and reached the very many of the tribes of ancient Spain, such as the Cen-etan-i, Aus-etan-i, Lal-etan-i, Cos-etan-i, Vesc-itan-i, ~Lac-etan-i, Carp-etan-i, Oi-etan-i, Bust-itan-i, Txxid-etan-i, Suess-irfBB-i, JLd-etan-i, and others. 1 Albert, Alban, Albyn, in Latin Albania, are the various forms of the Celtic Alb or Alp, " a high mountain," " Gallorum lingua, alpes montes alti vocantur." — Isidore of Seville, Orig., 14. ' The name, pronounced very nearly like Cumry among the modern Welsh, has been adopted by them to denote their "new nation" in the political sense of the word. It is the plural of Cymro, and means " fellow-countrymen," or "confederates"; and the country is called CymrS, "a federation." " A word of protest, once for all, against the modern affectation of writing Kelt and Kymry. The former violates the sound principle of following the Latin orthography of names made familiar by classic usage, and also attempts the vain task of changing a customary pronunciation. The letter stands self- convicted of the absurdity of spelling a Welsh name with a letter (K) that does not exist in the language." — The Quarterly Review, April, 1885. It may be here the proper place to state that, while the text presents the subject in its leading features, the notes are intended to afford such additional information as will satisfy the wants of the more advanced student. 3 Supposed to mean " men coming from the Loire." 4 Fretum Gallicum ; Fretum Morinorum. 6 These ruins are commonly called Cyttiau y Gwyddelad, " houses of the Gaels." 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE large island which was called Erin^ by its inhabitants, and spread to the other western isles, peopled, it is most likely, by men of the same race and language as the abo- riginal Britons. Those who retreated into North Brit- ain found an impregnable asylum in the high mountains which stretch from the banks of the Clyde to the extremi- ties of the island, and here they maintained their independ- ence under the name of Gaels, 2 which they still bear. The time at which these movements of population took place is uncertain ; but it was at a later period that the men called Logrians made their descent, according to the British annals, on the southern coast of the island. From the same records it appears that they emigrated from the southwest coast of Gaul, and derived their ori- gin from the same primitive race as the Cambrians, with whom their language made it easy for them to communi- cate. It would seem that they were kindly received, as, to make room for the new-comers, the first colonists spread themselves along the borders of the western sea, which region thenceforward took exclusively the name of Cambria, while the Logrians gave their own name to the southern and eastern parts, over which they were dis- tributed. After the founding of this second colony there arrived a third body of emigrants, sprung from the same primitive Celtic race, and likewise speaking the same lan- guage, or a dialect differing but little from it. They had previously inhabited that portion of Western Gaul in- cluded between the Seine and the Loire, and, like the Logrians, they obtained lands in Britain without any vio- lent contests. To them the ancient annals and national poems especially apply the name of Brythons, or Britons, which in foreign tongues served to designate, in a gen- eral manner, all the inhabitants of the island. 8 These nations of one common origin were visited at intervals, either in a pacific or hostile manner, by various tribes. A band, coming from that part of Gaul which 1 Ire, Eire, Erie, " west " ; hence Erin, " western island " ; in Latin, ler- nia, Hibemia. 8 More correctly Gadhels, or Gwyddyh. 3 In ancient times the whole group of islands were called Britain, or the Britannic Isles, the two largest being even then distinguished by the names of Albion and lerne. The " Book of the World," a very ancient compilation, which was long attributed to Aristotle, describes them in the following passage : " In the ocean are two islands of great site, Albion and Ieme, called the Bre- tannic Isles, lying beyond the Celti ; and not a few smaller islands around the Bretannic Isles and around Iberia encircle as with a crown the habitable world, which itself is an island in the ocean." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 5 is now called Flanders, compelled to leave their native country in consequence of a great inundation, crossed the sea, and landed on the Isle of Wight and the adjacent coast, first as guests and then as invaders. Another band, called Coranians, 1 who were of Teutonic descent, and emigrated from a country which the British annals desig- nate as " the Land of the Marshes;" sailed up the gulf formed by the mouth of the Humber, and established themselves on the banks of that river and along the east- ern coast, thus separating into two portions the territory of the Logrians. Fifty years or more before the Roman invasions began, Divitiacus, king of Soissons, and the most powerful of all Gaul, extended his dominion over the kindred tribes already settled in Southern Britain. 2 At a period not very remote from the life time of Qesar himself, several Belgian tribes had invaded the island for purposes of devastation and plunder ; and finding the country to their liking, they had remained as colonists and cultivators of the soil. Caesar could recognize the names of several clans, and could point out the continent- al states from which the several colonies had proceeded. 8 The Gauls of a later generation pushed far to the north and west ; but in Caesar's age they had not yet, generally, advanced to any great distance from the shores of the Ger- man Ocean. The four kingdoms of the Cantii stretched across East Kent and East Surrey, between the Thames and the Channel, and the whole southeastern district was doubtless under their power. The Tri?iobantes, another Belgian tribe, had settled in such parts of the modern Middlesex and Essex as were not covered by the oak- forests or overflowed by the sea. North of them lay the territory of the Iceni, also a Gaulish nation, who had seized and fortified the broad peninsula which fronted the North Sea and the confluence of rivers at the Wash, and was cut off in almost every other direction by the tidal marshes and the great Level of the Fens. This region included all the dry and higher-lying portions of the dis- 1 In Celtic, Corraniaid ; in Latin, Coritani, ! Apud eos (Suessiones) fuisse regem, nostra etiam memoria, Divitiacum, totius Galliae potentissimum, qui cum magnae partis harum regionem turn etiam Britannia; imperium obtinuerit. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., ii, c. 4. * Britannia; pars interior ab iis incolitur quos natos in insula ipsa memoria proditum dicunt ; maritima pars ab iis qui praedae ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgis transierant, qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum appellantur quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et, bello illato, ibi remanserunt, atque agros colere cceperunt. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, v.. 14, 6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE trict which was afterward known as East Anglia. The other Gaulish nations in Caesar's time were included in the Catuvellaunian State, a central kingdom situated to the west of Icenia and the territory of the Trinobantes, and now generally known by the name of Catyeuchlany, or Capellani. All these nations, though nearly as much civilized as their continental neighbors, are reported to have been much simpler in their ways, probably on account of their not yet having gained wealth by a conquest of the min- eral districts. They had not even learned to build regu- lar towns, though their kinsmen in Gaul had already founded cities with walls, and streets, and market-places. What they called a town, or dunum, was still no more than a refuge for times of war, a stockade on a hill-top or in the marshy thickets. 1 When peace was restored, they returned to their open villages, built of high bee-hive huts with roofs of fern or thatch, like those which might be seen in the rural parts of Gaul. 2 These wigwams were made of planks and wattle-work, with no external decora- tion except the trophies of the chase and the battle-field : for a chief's house, it seems, would be adorned with skulls of his enemies, nailed up against the porch, among the skins and horns of beasts. The practice was described by Posidonius as prevailing among northern nations, and he confessed that, though at first disgusted, he soon be- came accustomed to the sight. The successful warrior would sling his enemy's head at his saddle-bow ; and the trophies were brought home in a triumphal procession, and were either nailed up outside, or, in special cases, were embalmed and preserved among the treasures of the family. 3 As they had but recently settled on the island, we may suppose that in features and physique they resembled their kinsmen on the continent, and differed in many re- spects from the Britons of the preceding migration. All the Celts, according to a remarkable consensus of authori- ties, were tall, pale, and light-haired ; * but, as between the 1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 21. 4 Strabo, iv, 297. 3 The Museum of Aix contains bas-reliefs representing Gaulish knights car- rying home the heads of their enemies ; and on a coin of the .w ioiicbs £i\ov, Ik x«P&s oSk i£ iy/ciJXrjs cVpicjaeVoi', T7)\e- BfKdrepoy Kal pthovs, $ /uaAuTTa «al irpbs ras hpviuw xpS^Toi Siipas. — Strabo, iv, 197. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. g understood. It may be the weapon which is depicted on some Gaulish coins, where a horseman is seen throwing a lasso, to which a hammer-shaped missile is attached ; and, if the supposition is correct, it will explain many obscure pas- sages in ancient writings, where the weapon is described as returning to the hand of the person who cast it. 1 The scythed chariots, or covini, should be noticed in this connection. They seem to have been low, two- wheeled carts, drawn by two or four horses apiece, on which a number of foot-soldiers, or rather dragoons, could be carried within the enemy's line. The captain or driver of the chariot was in command of the party. The charioteers drove at full gallop along the enemy's front, and sought to confuse his ranks by the noise of the charge, and the danger of being run down or caught by the scythes attached to the chariots. The drivers in the mean time drew off and formed a line, behind which their men could rally in case of need. These tactics appear to have been peculiar to the British Gauls, the inland Brit- ons being accustomed to rely upon their infantry, and the continental Gauls being fonder of the cavalry arm. The Romans were not so much impressed with the use of the bronze scythes, which they had often seen in Gaul, as with the novelty of the whole manoeuvre and the wonder- ful skill of the drivers. " They could stop their teams at full speed on a steep incline, or turn them as they pleased at a gallop, and could run out on the pole and stand on the yoke, and get back to their place in a moment." 2 1 The mataris is described in the same passage of Strabo, Marapl? irdKrou ti eiSos. Cicero mentions it as a distinctive weapon of the Gauls. — Ad Her., iv, 32. Among the weapons which returned to the thrower were the club of Hercules, which was supposed to be attached to a lasso : see Servius on Virg., JEn., vii, 741, "Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateiam." In connection with the above, notice the following passage from the Origines of Isidore of Seville, which is chiefly remarkable for its omission of the lasso mentioned by Servius. "Clava est qualis fuit Herculis, dicta quod sit clavis ferreis invicem religata, et est cubito semis facta in longitudine. Hsec est cateia, quam Horatius Caiam elicit. Est genus Gallici teli ex materia quam maxime lenta : quae jactu qui- dem non Ionge, propter gravitatem evolat, sed ubi pervenit vi nimia perfringit. Quod si ah artifice mittatur, rursus redit ad eum qui misit. Hujus meminit Vir- gilius, dicens ' Teutonico ritu, etc.' Unde et eas Hispani ' Teutones ' vocant." — Isid. Otig., xviii, c. 7. The interest of the question lies in the fact that these reflexive missiles are sometimes confused with the Australian boomerang, which, if skilfully cast, will wheel back in the air to the thrower ; and several strange ethnological theories have been founded on this supposition. — See Ferguson's Essay on the Antiquity of the Boomerang. * Csesar, De Bell. Gall., iv, 33 ; Tac. Agric., c. 12 ; compare Lucan, " Optima gens flexis in gyrum Sequana frenis, Et docilis rector rostrati Belga covini." — Lucan, Pharsal., i, 425. 3 ro ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE The British Gauls appear to have been excellent farm- ers, skilled as well in the production of cereals as in stock- raising, and the management of the dairy. Their farms were laid out in large fields, without inclosures or fences ; but they had learned to make a separation of the pasture and arable land, and to apply the manures which were appropriate to each kind of field. Their stock was much the same as that which their successors used for many years afterward ; their cattle were mostly of the small Welsh breed, called the "Celtic short-horn"; and their horses, or ponies as we should rather call them, were used apparently for food as well as for purposes of draught. With the aid of these details, we can form a reason- ably clear idea of the life of the people, which will be further illustrated by the following lively sketch from a work in which all the descriptions are based on the au- thority of ancient writers. " The time of year is the end of the summer, when the oats and rye were reaped, and the lawns and meadows round the homesteads had been mown. The cattle are on the downs or in the hollows of the hills. Here and there are wide beds of fern, or breadths of gorse, and patches of wild raspberry with gleaming sheets of flowers. The swine are roaming in the woods and shady oak-glades, the nuts studding the brown-leaved bushes. On the sunny side of some cluster of trees is the herdsman's round wicker house, with its brown conical roof and blue wreaths of smoke. In the meadows and basins of the sluggish streams stand clusters of tall old elms waving with the nests of herons ; the bit- tern, coot, and water-rail are busy among the rushes and flags of the reedy meres. Birds are ' churming ' in the wood-girt clearings, wolves and foxes slinking to their covers, knots of maidens laughing at the water-spring, beating the white linen or flannel with their washing- bats, the children play before the doors of the round straw-thatched houses of the homestead, the peaceful abode of the sons of the oaky vale. On the ridges of the downs rise the sharp cones of the barrows, some glisten- ing in white chalk or red with the mold of a new burial, and others green with the grass of long years." 1 About one half of what is now England belonged in The scythed chariots were common in Gaul, and their remains have not unfre- quently been found in the tombs of the Gaulish chieftains. They are said to have been used in Persia, and may have been introduced by the Greeks of Mar- seilles. ' Barnes, Notes on Ancient Britain, 53. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. IT the time of Julius Caesar to tribes of Gaulish origin, and comprised the best and most fertile parts of the island. 1 The eastern and southern districts especially, having the advantage of climate and of a constant intercourse with Gaul, were among the more civilized ; they were densely populated,* and the people seem to have been compara- tively rich and prosperous. Different it was in the north- ern and western parts of Britain, where the climate was rude and the people poor. When the island fell under Roman power, its whole western and northern coasts were little better than a cold and watery desert. Ac- cording to all the accounts of the early travelers, the sky was stormy and obscured by continual rain, the air chilly even in summer, and the sun during the finest weather had little power to disperse the steaming mists. The trees gathered and condensed the rain ; the crops grew rankly but ripened slowly, for the ground and the atmos- phere were alike overloaded with moisture. The fallen timber obstructed the streams, the rivers were squan- dered in the reedy morasses, and only the downs and hill- tops rose above the perpetual tracts of wood. Under these circumstances, Gaels and Gauls vastly differed in manners, costumes, and in language, accord- ing to their surroundings and their mode of existence. Rich soil and pasturage make shepherds, dairy-men, and farmers ; the mountain and the forest, on the contrary, make warriors and hunters ; while the sea-shore, with its fishermen and sailors, has other aims and interests, which make them unlike both, though all may have been origi- nally of one blood and one speech. Thus the Gaelic tribes, while differing in many particulars from their Gaulish brethren, differed considerably among themselves, owing to local influences, which prevented their attaining a uniform standard of culture. Among the most civilized of the Gaelic tribes we no- tice, in the first place, the Damnonians of Devon and Corn- wall, and their neighbors, the Durotriges, who have left a vestige of their name in the modern Dorchester and Dor- set. Both these tribes, it seems, were isolated from their eastern neighbors by a wide marsh of woods and fens, 1 The tract of country over which the English, in the beginning of the sev- enth century, ruled south of the Humber, coincided almost exactly with the Gaulish portions of Britain. — L. Rhys, Lectures, 185. 8 Hominum est infinita multitudo, creberrimaque sedificia. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, 12. 12 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE which probably helped to preserve for them that superi- ority of culture which distinguished them from the inland tribes. Diodorus informs us that these southern nations had been taught to live " in a very hospitable and polite manner by their intercourse with the foreign merchants." The Greeks came for their minerals, the Gauls for furs and skins and the great wolf-dogs which they used in their domestic wars. There must have been many other sources of information from which the natives could learn what was passing abroad. There were students from Gaul constantly crossing to take lessons in the insular Druidism ; the slave-merchants followed the armies in time of war, the peddlers explored the trading-roads to sell their trinkets of glass and ivory, and the traveling sword-smiths and bronze-tinkers must have helped in a great degree to spread the knowledge of the arts of civil- ized society. Thus the Damnonians had the advantages of trade and travel. It appears from a passage in Ceesar's " Commentaries " that their young men were accustomed to serve in foreign fleets and to take part in the Continental wars. The nation had entered into a close alliance with the Veneti, or people of Vannes, whose powerful navy had secured the command of the Channel. A squadron of British ships took part in the great sea-fight which was the immediate cause or pretext of Cassar's invasion of the island ; and his description of the allied fleet shows the great advance in civilization to which the Southern Brit- ons had attained. " The enemy," he said, " had a great advantage in their shipping; the keels of their vessels were flatter than ours, and were consequently more con- venient for the shallows and low tides. The forecastles were very high, and the poops so contrived as to endure the roughness of those seas. The bodies of the ships were built entirely of oak stout enough to withstand any shock or violence. The banks for the oars were beams of a foot square, bolted at each end with iron pins as thick as a man's thumb. The sails were of untanned hide, either because they had no linen and were ignorant of its use, or, as is more likely, because they thought linen sails not strong enough to endure their boisterous seas and winds." * We are told by a later writer that the ships and their sails were painted blue, for the purpose of making them less conspicuous at a distance. 1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., iii, 9, 13. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 13 Advancing northward, we find the Silurians across the Severn Sea, the Demeta, the Dobuni of the Vale of Glou- cester, and the Cornavii, who held a narrow territory be- tween the Malvern Hills and the mouth of the Dee. None of these tribes appear to have shared in the culture which the Damnonians had gained from their intercourse with foreigners What little commerce they undertook was carried on in frail curraglis, in which they were bold enough to cross the Irish Sea. Boats of that kind are still used in Ireland, with the substitution of tarred can- vas for the original covering of bull's hide. All these tribes were probably of a mixed race, if we may judge from the persistence of the Silurian features among the modern population of the district. Their neighbors, the Ordovices, on the contrary, were a nation of Gaelic de- scent, and are sometimes described as holding all North Wales. Next we come to a central region, bounded on the south by the Gaulish kingdoms, and on the north by the Brigantian territories, and belonging to a mixed as- semblage of tribes, who became known under one name, as the nation of the Coritavi. They consisted in part of Celtic clans, and in part of the remnants of a ruder peo- ple. Caesar says that most of these people were mere savages, that they grew no grain at all, but lived on meat and milk, and were clad in the skins of beasts. 1 The Celts in the midland districts may possibly have lived in per- manent villages, raising crops of oats or some rougher kind of grain for food, and weaving themselves garments of hair or of coarse wool from their puny, many-horned sheep ; but the ruder tribes, who subsisted entirely by their cattle, would naturally follow the herd, living through the summer in booths on the higher pasture- grounds, and only returning to the valleys to find shelter from the winter storms. They were an utterly barbarous people, too careless to trouble themselves with agricult- ure* as if they had no patience to wait for the turn of the seasons, and preferred to trust to the chances of war for food and plunder. They disfigured themselves with woad, s and this fashion seems to have survived even in 1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 14 4 Tacitus, Ann., xiv, c. 38. * The woad-plant, called vitrum from its use in the manufacture of glass, has properties like those of indigo. " The herb usually yields m. blue tint, but when partially deoxidated it has been found to yield a fine green ; the black color was a third preparation, made by the application of a greater heat." — Herbert's Britannia, lvi. 14 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE some districts conquered by the Gauls. The men used it as a war-paint, staining their faces and limbs blue and green, to look more ghastly and terrible, for, like savages in general, they thought that an enemy could never with- stand an army of such grim aspect. 1 To the north of the Coritavi stretched a confederacy or collection of kingdoms, to which the Romans applied the name of Brigantia. We first hear of these confederate states about the year 50, when their combined territo- ries extended from one coast to the other, its northern boundary closely following the line of Hadrian's Wall. The people seem to have been comparatively rich and prosperous, and so eminent were they in war that they repeatedly repulsed the advance of the Imperial legions. Seneca boasted that the Romans had bound with chains of iron the necks of the blue-shielded Brigantes ; but it was long before these turbulent tribes were actually sub- dued, and even in the second century they seem to have preserved some remains of their ancient liberty. The story of Queen Cartismandua is the best illustra- tion of the character and habits of these people. The lux- ury of her court may have had no existence except in the fancy of Tacitus : but the barbarian queen was doubtless rich in her palace of wicker-work, in a herd of snow-white cattle covering the pastures of the royal tribe, an enam- eled chariot, a cap or a corselet of gold. She was the chief of one of the many tribes of which the Brigantian nation was composed. At a time when every valley had its king with an army of villagers, an ale-house council, and a precarious treasure of cattle gained and held by the law of the strongest, it was seldom possible for the nation to unite in any common design, even for the purpose of resisting the peril of a foreign invasion. The gathering of a national army was an affair of meetings, and treaties, and solemn sacrifices to the gods. When the sacred rites were fulfilled, the blood tasted, and the rival deities and chieftains united by a temporary bond, the noblest and bravest of the tribal leaders was chosen as a war-king or general in command. But as often as not the treaty failed and the clans fought or submitted as each might feel in- clined. " Our greatest advantage," said Tacitus, " in deal- 1 Tac. Germ., c. 43 ; Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, t. 14. Compare the "Virides Britannos " of Ovid, Amor., ii, 16, 39 ; the " Cserulum Saxona " of Sidonius, viii, 9 ; and the vermilion-painted Goths described by Isidore of Seville, Orig., xix, 23. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15 ing with such powerful nations is that they can not act in concert ; it is seldom that even two or three tribes will join in meeting a common danger ; and so, while each fights for himself, they are all conquered together." 1 As the Romans advanced westward in their British conquests, they observed that certain tribes were different in manners and appearance from the^ Gaulish and the In- sular Celts; and they were led, by a mistaken estimate of the vicinity of Ireland to Spain, to account for this fact by the hypothesis of a Spanish migration. " Who were the original inhabitants of Britain," says Tacitus, " and wheth- er they sprang from the soil or came from abroad, is unknown, as is usually the case with barbarians. Their physical characteristics are various, and from this con- clusions may be drawn. The red hair and large limbs of the Caledonians point clearly to a German origin. The dark complexion of the Silures, their curly hair, 2 and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are evidence that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied those parts." 8 The Irish bards had some remembrance of this passage, and played upon the similarity of such local names as Braganza and Brigantes, Hibernus and Iberia, Gallicia and Galway ; and it became an article of faith among their countrymen that the island was discov- ered soon after the flood by three Spanish fishermen, which tradition, even now, is not unfrequently pressed into the service of the theory that the dark population in parts of the British Islands and the Basques of the Pyrenees are descended from one common stock. No Spanish origin, however, is attributed in any of these legends to the Feru-Bolg or Fir-Bolgs, who are identified in many other traditions with the original stock, typified in the short and swarthy people of the western and southwestern parts of Ireland. 4 Whether or not the Fir-Bolgs of Irish tradition can be connected with the pre-Celtic tribes, it is certain that in 1 Olim regibus parebant, nunc per principes factionibus et studiis trahun- tur. Nee aliud adversus validissimas gentes pro nobis utilius quam quod in commune non consulunt, etc. — Tacit., Agr., xii. 8 Colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines. — Tacitus, Agric, u. ii. _ " Sylo- rum colorati vultus, torto plerique crine et nigro nascuntur .... qui Hispa- nis a quibusque attenduntur similes." — Jornandes, De Getar. Orig., c. ii. a Compare note, page 3. 4 A celebrated antiquary named Duald Mac Firbis, who compiled genea- logical works in 1650 and 1666, mentions the remnant of the Feru-Bolg. " There are many of their descendants till this very day in Ireland," he says, " but their pedigrees are unknown." 1 6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE many parts of Ireland there are now remnants of a short, black-haired stock, whose physical appearance is quite different from that of the tall, light Celts. The same thing has been observed in the Scottish Highlands and in the Western Isles, where the people have a " strange, foreign look," and are " dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and small in stature." 1 And it is a matter of familiar knowl- edge, that in many parts of England and Wales the people are also short and swarthy, with black hair and eyes, and with heads of a long and narrow shape. This is found to be the case not only in the ancient Siluria, but in sev- eral districts in the eastern Fen country, and in the south- western counties of Cornwall and Devon ; and the same fact has been noticed in the midland counties, where we would expect to find nothing but a population with light hair and eyes, and where the names of the towns and vil- lages show that the Saxon and Danish conquerors occu- pied the districts in overwhelming numbers. These facts render it extremely probable that some part of the Neo- lithic population has survived in England until the present time, with a constant improvement, no doubt, from its crossing and intermixture with the many other races who have successively passed into the island. The nations of pre-historic Britain have been classified according to a system derived from the history of the metals. The oldest races were in the pre-metallic stage, when bronze was introduced by a new nation, sometimes identified with the oldest Celts, but now more generally attributed to the Finnish or Ugrian stock. The periods of pre-historic time, the duration of which is unknown, but which are distinguished by the transitions from the possession of polished flint and bone to that of bronze, and afterward of iron and steel, are usually divided into, i, the Palaeolithic, or earlier portion of the Stone Age; 2, the Neolithic, or later portion of the Stone Age ; 3, the Bronze Age ; and 4, the Age of Iron — a division based 1 McLean, Highland Language and People, Journ. Anthr. Inst., vii, 76 : " In these respects the Highland people bear a strong resemblance to the Welsh, the Southwestern English, the Western and Southwestern Irish." — (Ibid.) Campbell, West Highland Tales, iii, 144, speaks of the short, dark natives of Barra: "Behind the fire sat a girl with one of those strange foreign faces which are occasionally to be seen in the Western Isles, a face which re- minded me of the Nineveh sculptures, and of faces seen in St. Sebastian. Her hair was as black as night, and her clear dark eyes glittered through the peat- smoke. Her complexion was dark, and her features so unlike those who sat about her, that I asked if she were a native of the island, and learned that she was a Highland girl." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1? upon a methodical examination of the various remains of these early ages found in different parts of the world. We need not describe in detail the relics of the Paleo- lithic tribes who ranged the country under an almost arc- tic climate, waging their precarious wars with the wild animals of the Quaternary Age. The searching of their caves and rock-shelters, and of the drifts and beds of loam and gravel, has brought to light great numbers of their flint-knives, stone-hammers, and adzes, and instruments for working on leather. Their rough dug-out canoes are found in the mouths of the estuaries. The beads and amulets, and the sketches of the mammoth and groups of reindeer which have been found in some deposits, show that they were not without some rudiments of intelli- gence and skill ; at any rate, they were equal to pressing necessity, and could trap and defeat the larger carnivo- rous animals of the time. The little we know as yet of these early tribes, renders it impossible to prove satisfac- torily any continuity of race between them and people now found in England or anywhere else in Europe. 1 In this respect far more is known of the Neolithic Age, on which so much research has been of late years expended, that we can form some clear idea of the habits of the people of that time, of the nature of their homes, and even of their physical appearance. The most important relics of that period are the great mounds or Tombs of the Kings, the vaults and tribal sepulchres, which remain still buried in earth or denuded, such as the cromlechs? dolmens, 3 and standing stones, all round the British Islands and along the opposite coasts. The mounds have been, in most cases, disturbed by early treasure-hunters, or by persons searching for saltpeter, or by farmers who required the mold for the purpose of agriculture. The massive structures of stone which were thus laid bare have been the subject of all kinds of fanci- ful theories about serpent-worship and the ritual of the Druids ; and in former ages they were generally regarded with superstitious feelings, which now linger among the most ignorant peasantry. The way in which the crom- 1 Good descriptions of the Palaeolithic societies will be found in L' Homme primiti/by Figuier, and in L 'Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre by Dupont. * In Welsh, " an incumbent flagstone," compounded from crom, " crooked, bending," hence, " laid across," and llech, " a flagstone." It was supported like a table by other stones set on end. * The usual name of these monuments in Brittany ; from the Celtic dot, "table," and men, " stone." 1 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE lechs were regarded by the Celts in Britain may be in- ferred from the archaic superstitions which survive among the Bretons of the Leonnais, a district chiefly colonized by emigrants from Britain, where the peasant-women make offerings for good fortune in marriage to the fairies and dwarfs who are believed to haunt these relics of past ages. The tombs of the Neolithic Age in England are of two kinds, distinguished by the absence or presence of a stone vault or a series of such vaults. The huge un- vaulted mounds of Dorset and South Wilts are thought to have been built as tribal graves by the earliest of the immigrants from Asia. They were built for the most part in picturesque and striking situations, that they might be seen from far and wide. The vaulted tombs, or the ruined remains of their chambers, are found in all parts of the south of England, in North Wales, and in the north of Scotland. According to a prevalent opinion, these vaulted tombs were copied from subter- ranean houses, constructed to supply the want of natural caves. It has been doubted, indeed, in many cases, whether the Picts-houses in Scotland, and the Irish Cloch- dns, which resemble them, were tombs or subterranean houses, some being furnished with seats and recesses, which can hardly be regarded as other than the abodes of the people by whom the barrow was constructed ; oth- ers being too narrow and ill-ventilated to serve for any- thing but tombs. It is seldom that relics of any great importance are found in British barrows of these early types. The list of discoveries includes a few delicate leaf-shaped arrow- heads, and some other articles of horn and polished stone, with some occasional deposits of buck's horns, the tusks of boars, skulls of oxen, etc. From the bones which have been taken from the tomb, the anatomists have concluded that the Neolithic Britons were not unlike the modern Es- quimaux. They were short and slight, with muscles too much developed for their slender and ill-nurtured bones ; and there is that marked disproportion between the sizes of the men and women which indicates a hard and miser- able life, where the weakest are overworked and con- stantly stinted in their food. The face must have been of an oval shape, with mild and regular features ; the skulls, though bulky in some instances, are generally of a long and narrow shape, depressed sometimes at the crown, ana AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. IQ marked with a prominent ridge from back to front, like the keel of a boat reversed. These sepulchral discoveries show that at some early time these Neolithic tribes were alone in their possession of Britain ; and that afterward they were invaded by the ' men of a different race, who had already seized the do- minions on the opposite coasts along the Atlantic; for suddenly, and without the appearance of any intermediary forms, the tombs are discovered to contain bronze weap- ons of a fine manufacture. Hence the appearance of these people in England seems to be coincident with the introduction of this metal ; for all the graves where it is found contain their remains, either alone or in company with those of the Neolithic people ; but where the bones of the Stone-Age men are buried by themselves, no trace of the metal weapons has ever yet been discovered. The people of this second race were tall men of the fair Finnish type that still prevails so largely among the modern inhabitants of Denmark and in the Slavonian countries. They differed remarkably from the straight- faced, oval-headed men who are identified with the Celts and Anglo-Saxons of early English history. They were large-limbed and stout, the women being tall and strong in proportion, as in a community where life was easy and food cheap. The men appear to have been rough-feat- ured, with large jaws and prominent chins, and skulls of a round, short shape, with the forehead, in many cases, rapidly retreating. They seem to have mingled peace- ably with the people of the older settlements, for the bar- rows of the Bronze Age contain almost an equal propor- tion of long-shaped and short-shaped skulls ; and it is reasonably argued that this is evidence that the new occupants agreed and intermarried with the people of the older type, especially as skulls have not unfrequently been found which combine the characteristics of these different kinds of men. The barrows of the Bronze Age are found in almost every part of England. They vary slightly in form, be- ing for the most part bowl-shaped in the north, and oval or bell-shaped in the south. Their exploration has pro- duced a great body of evidence to illustrate the life of the Bronze-Age Britons. It is clear that they were not mere savages, or a nation of hunters and fishers, or even a peo- ple in the pastoral and migratory stage. The tribes had learned the simpler arts of society, and had advanced to- 20 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ward the refinements of civilized life, before they were overwhelmed and absorbed by the dominant Celtic peo- ple. They were, for instance, the owners of flocks and herds ; they knew enough of weaving to make clothes of linen and wool, and, without the potter's wheel they could mold a plain and useful kind of earthenware. The stone hand-mills, and the seed-beds found in Wales and York- shire, show their acquaintance with the growth of some kind of grain ; while their pits and hut-circles prove that they were sufficiently civilized to live in regular villages. At what time and by what process they became incor- porated with the Celtic peoples must remain altogether uncertain. Where the rule of cremation has prevailed, it is difficult to distinguish their ornaments and weapons from those of the Celtic type ; and even where a round- headed population actually survives, it is usually hard to separate it from the stock of the later Danes. It is clear, however, that the older Bronze-Age tribes remained in some parts of England as late as the period of Roman in- vasion ; and it seems probable that future investigation will confirm the theory that the languages of the Celts in Britain were sensibly influenced by contact with the idioms of those Finnish tribes who were the earlier occu- pants of the country. The Celtic languages are for the most part dead, and of some even the tradition is now almost forgotten. Those which survive are found in Wales and Ireland, in some parts of the Scotch Highlands, in the Isle of Man, and in Brittany. Of those that are dead we may men- tion, for England, the Pictish and the Welsh 1 of Strat- 1 Welsh is not a Celtic word, but the name given by all Teutonic tribes to foreigners, and more particularly to the conquered Latin and Celtic nations. In Anglo-Saxon, weal, wealh, meant " a bondman, a slave " ; hors-wealh, " a groom " ; and wyln, wylhen, " a female slave " ; showing the low servile con- dition to which the old inhabitants of Britain had become reduced under Saxon dominion. Thus we read in the Leges Ina, art. 78 : " Si servus waliscus angli- cum hominem occidat." The Celtic idiom of Wales is still called Cymraeg by those who speak it ; but the Anglo-Saxons called it Wilsc, Willisc, Wcelisc, and the people who spoke it, Walas, whence the English Welsh and Wales. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, his French friends and visitors were called by the contemporary annalist " tha Welisce menu," and he himself was said by the chronicler to have come"hider to lande of Weallande." So the Germans of the Continent call all the Italians and their language Welsch. In Luther's ver- sion of the Bible, Acts x, i, we read: "Cornelius, ein Hauptmann von der Schaar, die da heist Welsche," for " Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band," as reads the English version. The name of Walloons in Bel- gium, of Canton Wallis in Switzerland, and Wallachia are probably so derived. Walsh is still in use as a surname. See pages 208 and 484. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 21 clyde, and the Cornish or West-Welsh, which died out in Devon in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and finally disap- peared in Cornwall a little more than a century ago, though many of the words are still in use among the country people. To this branch belongs the Bas-Breton or Brezonec of Brittany, which is still a living language there. 1 There are traces and remnants, besides, of sev- eral idioms which may be all classified as Gaulish ; simi- lar forms were once used in Thrace and Galatia, 2 and others in Celtiberia, of which we can only know that they were confused by intermixture with the lost languages of Spain. The surviving Celtic dialects, in England as well as in France, possess a large mass of literature, which is, in great part, no doubt, of comparatively modern production, but, some of it claiming in its substance, if not in the very form in which it now presents itself, an antiquity tran- scending any other native literature of which the country can boast. The following extracts are the Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and Manx versions of the passage in St. Luke, chapter vii, verses n to 17, which refers to the resurrec- tion of the widow's son at Nain, and which are extensive and varied enough to be taken as fair specimens of the dialects represented : SCOTCH-GAELIC IRISH. n. Agus tharladh an las 'na 11. Agus tharla an la'na dhi- dheigh sin, gu'n deachaidh e aigh sin, go ndeachaidh s6 chum baile d'an goirear Nain ; do'n Chathruigh d'a ngoirthear agus chaidh a dheisciobuil mail- Nairn : Agus do chuadar Moran le ris, agus sluagh mbr. d'a' dheisciobluibh leis, agus bui- dhean mhor. 12. A nis an uair a thainig 12. Agus an tan thdinig s£ a e'm fagus do gheatadh a' bhaile, ngar do dhoras na caithreach, feuch, ghiulaineadh a mach f6uc, do bhi deune marbh agi duine marbh, aon mhac a mha- bhreith amach, do bhi 'na don thar, agus bu bhantrach i ; agus mhac agd mhdthair, agus i 'na bha sluagh mbr do mhuinntir a' baintreabhaigh ; agus do bhf bhaile maille rithe. coimhthion61 m6r 6'n chath- ruigh 'na fochair. 13. Agus an nair a chunnaic 13. Agus ar na faicsin do'n an Tighearn i, ghabh e truas Tighearna, do ghabh truaige dith, agus thubhairt e rithe, Na mhor di 6, agus a dubhairt s6 guil. ria, Na gull. 1 See page 4&4- * See P a g e 457- 22 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 14. Agus thainig e agus bhean e ris a' ghiulan (agus sheas iad- san a bha 'ga iomchar) agus thubbairt e, Oganaich, a deirim riut dirich. 15. Agus dh'eirich an duine bha marbh 'na shuidhe, agus thbisich e air labhairt ; agus thug e d'a mhathair e. 16. Agus ghlac eagal lad uile ; agus thug lad gloir do Dhia, ag radh Dh' eirlch faidh mbr 'nar measg-ne ; agus, Dh'amhaire Dia air a Shluagh f6in. 17. Agus ehaidh an t-iom- radh so mach alrsan air feadh Judea uile, agus na ducha m'an cuairt uile. r4. Agus thainic se agus do bhean se ris an gcomhraidh : (agus do sheasadar an luchd do bhi aga iomchar), agus a dubhairt s6, A oganaigh, a dei- rim riot, dirigh. 15. Agus d'eirigh an duine marbh 'na Shuidhe, agus do thionnsgain s6 labhairt, agus do thug s6 d'a mhathair fein e. 16. Agus do ghabh eagla iad uile : agus tugadar gloir do Dhia, ag radh, d'6irghe faidh mor an ar measg : agus D'f6uch Dhia air a phobal f&n. 17. Agus do chuaidh au tua- rasgbhail so amach air feadh thire Iudaighe uile, agus air feadh gach emtire timcheall. WELSH. 11. A bu drannoeth, iddo ef fyned i ddinas, a elwid Nam ; a chyd ag ef ye aeth llawer r'i ddisgy blion, a thyefa fawr. 12. A phan ddaeth efe yn agos at borth y ddinas, wele un marw a ddygid allan yr hwn oedd unig fab ci fam a honno yn weddw : a bagad o bobl y ddinas vedd gyd a hi. 13. A'r Arglwydd pan y gwe- lodd hi, a gymmerodd, druga- redd ami, ac a ddywedodd wrthi, Nac wyla. 14. A phan ddaeth attynt, efe a gyffyrddodd a'r (elor a'r rhai oedd yn ei dwyn, a safasant), ac efe a ddywedodd y mab ieuange, yr wyf yn dywedyd wrthyt, Cyfod. 15. A'r marw a gyfodold yd ei eistedd, ac a ddechrenodd la- faru, ac efe a'l rhoddes i 'w fam. MANX. 11. As haink eh gy-kione yn laa er-giyn, dy jagh eh gys ard- valley va enmyssit Nain ; as hie ymmodee jeh e ynseydce marish, as mooarane sleih. 12. Nish tra haink eh erger- rey da giat yn ard-valley, cur-my-ner, va sleih cur lhien magh dooinney marrvo, va ny ynrycan mac da e voir, as v'eeish ny ben-treoghe : as va ymmodee jeh sleih yn ard-val- ley maree. 13. As tra honnick y Chiarn ee, ra chymmey echey urree, as dooyrt eh r'ee, Ny jean keay- ney. 14. As haink eh, as venn eh rish y carbyd (as hass adsyn va fo) as dooyrt eh, Ghooinney aeg, ta mee gra rhyt Trree. 15. As hoie yn dooinney mar- roo seose as ren eh toshiaght dy loayrt; as livrey eh eh gys e voir. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 23 16. Ac ofn a ddaeth ar bawb ; 16. As haink aggie orroo ooil- a hwy a ogoneddasant Dduw, ley ; as hug ad moylley da Jee, gan ddywedyd, Prophwyd mawr gra, Ta phadeyr mooar er n'irree a gyfododd yn ein plith; ac seose ny mast, ain; as Ta Jee Ymwelodd Duw a'l bobl. er yeeaghyn er e phobble. 17. A'r gair hwn a aeth allan 17. As hie yn geo shoh magh am dano trwy holl Judea, a my-e-chionc trovid ooilley Ju- thrwy gwbl o'r wlad oddi am- dea, as trovid ooilley yn cheer gylch. mygeayrt. In another part of this volume 1 we give the Breton version of the same passage, which, though coming near- est to the Welsh, differs from it as much as all modern Celtic dialects differ among themselves. Still, in Ceesar's time there was a striking similarity between the language of the Gauls on both sides of the straits, especially be- tween the dialect of the men of Kent and that of their kinsmen across the water, with only such differences as would naturally be found in colonies long separated from their parent-states. Tacitus informs us that these differ- ences were but slight, 2 and Pliny, having to mention a par- ticular soil by the name in which it was known in both countries, makes no distinction between the two idioms. 3 Finally, we know from Cassar that the Gaulish Druids who wished to obtain a more special knowledge of Druid- ism went to Britain to learn there by heart a large num- ber of verses containing the higher doctrines of the Brit- ish Druids. 4 This similarity, however, was confined to the Gaulish nations, there being, even at that early time, a marked difference between their dialect and the Welsh and Irish, though all bore marks of a common descent from some primitive Celtic original. At one time, it is true, the Welsh and the Gaulish much resembled each ' See page 543. 8 Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenae an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. ... In universum tamen aestimanti, Gallos vici- num solum occupasse credibile est ; eorum sacra deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione ; sermo hand multum diversus. — Tacitus, Agtic, xi. 3 Alia est ratio quam Britannia et Gallia invenere alendi earn (terrani) ipsa ; quod genus vocant margam. Spissior ubertas in ea intelligitur ; est autem qui- dam terne adeps, ac velut glandia in corporibus, ibi densante se pinguidinis nucleo. — Plin., xvii, 4. 4 Disciplina (druidum) in Britannia reperta, atque inde in Galliam translata esse existimatur ; et nunc, qui diligentius earn rem cognoscere volunt, plerum- que illo, discendi causa, proficiscuntur. — Caesar, De bello Gallico, vi, 13. Mag- num ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur (druides). Itaque nonnulli annos vicenos in disciplina permanent ; neque fas esse existimant ea litteris mandare. — Cassar, De bello Gallico, vi, 14. 24 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE other, and an intimate connection between the Welsh and Gaulish nations was inferred from the similarity of their languages, 1 especially in those points in which they both differed from the oldest Irish. But on closer investiga- tion it appears that the Welsh and Irish languages, centu- ries before, resembled each other in the very points in which they afterward differed ; and came, in fact, as near together as the Welsh afterward came to the Gaulish. Many forms of the ancient Welsh, moreover, have been recovered from sepulchral inscriptions, bearing epitaphs in the same Ogham character as is used in the oldest Irish inscriptions. 2 This identity between the earliest forms of Welsh and Irish renders it highly probable that the nations were once united. There are many indications that at one time they possessed a common stock of religious and social ideas ; nor, indeed, is there any evidence against their original unity, except the fact that their languages became differ- ent in form. But length of time and remoteness in place introduce wonderful changes in a language. In the lapse of centuries many differences would naturally grow up between the nations separated by the sea, and possibly in each case by contact with the peoples whom they found already in possession. One chief difference would, of course, consist in a gradual divergence of idiom. Every language must continually change and shift its form, ex- hibiting, like an organized being, its phases of growth, maturity, decline, and decay ; and, in the case of these divided peoples, it is hardly to be supposed that their un- written idioms would follow precisely the same course of phonetic alteration. There is no reason to disbelieve in their original unity, merely because the Welsh insensibly approached the Gaulish form ; the Welsh itself broke up, during the historical period, into several different dia- lects ; and the difference which we have already noticed between the modern Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Manx may 1 Even as late as the twelfth century, William of Malmesbury noticed but a slight difference between Welsh and Breton. " Lingua nonnihil a nostris Brittonibus degeneres." — Gesta, i, I. Giraldus, who wrote about the same time, calls the Breton an old-fashioned Welsh. " Magis antiquo linguee Britannicze idiomati appropriato." — Descr. Cambr., c. 6. * The Ogham character will be explained on page 135. The oldest of the Welsh MSS. is the " Juvencus Codex," assigned to the ninth century. There are several poems by authors who lived in the sixth century, and who described some of the incidents of the Anglo-Saxon Conquest ; but they survive in ver- sions of which the language has been considerably modernized. — Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales ; Villemarque, Manuscrits ties Anciens Bretons. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 t help us to understand how the change of the older lan- guage was effected. Although the Druids committed nothing to writing, the religion of the British tribes has exercised an impor- tant influence upon literature. The mediaeval romances and the legends; which for a long time stood for history, are full of the " fair humanities " and figures of its bright mythology. Unfortunately, the history of this religion has been obscured by many false theories, which have stood much in the way of discovering its true principles. According to some, traces of revealed religion have been found in the doctrines attributed to the Druids; others have invented for them the mission of preserving mono- theism in the West; while others, again, have credited them with the learning of Phoenicia and Egypt. Accord- ing to their opinion, the mysteries of the " Thrice-Great- Hermes " were transported to the northern oak-forests, and every difficulty was solved, as it rose, by a reference to Baal and Moloch. The lines and circles of standing- stones became the signs of a worship of snakes and dragons. The ruined cromlech was mistaken for an altar of sacrifice, with the rock-basin to catch the victim's blood, and a holed-stone for the ropes to bind his limbs. The Welsh Triads became the foundation for another theory. They profess to record the exploits of a being called " Hugh the Mighty," who led the Cymry from the Land of Summer to the islands of the Northern Ocean. It must be observed, however, that the date of these Triads has been approximately fixed by the form of their language and by other internal evidence, which prevents their being considered as of any authority on the subject of early Celtic mythology. Although some few date from the twelfth century, it is clear that they mostly belong to a period between the conquest of Wales and the rebellion of Owen Glendower, whose bard, " Jolo the Red," was the chief compiler of the legend of Hugh the Mighty, whom the Welsh call " Hu Gadarn." This Hugh seems to have been a solar god. His chariot is described as "an atom of glowing heat"; he is said to be "greater than all the worlds ; light his course and action ; great on the land and on the seas; and his two oxen are bright constellations in the firmament." The Welsh bards retained a stock of tropes and allu- sions, which derived their origin from the ancient British paganism ; but an examination of their poems shows that, 4 26 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE though their writings are full of mythological allusions, they contain nothing which can be treated as a real tra- dition of Druidic doctrine. They seem to have been founded, in several cases, on some myth of the moon and shadows. The white fairy Ceridwen, for instance, makes war upon the Prince of the Dwarfs. In one form of the story the fairy becomes an old witch, and the dwarf is a boy who watches the boiling cauldron. Three drops of the liquor of knowledge are tasted by Gwion. Pursued at once by the hag, he changes himself into a hare and flies ; but she transforms herself into a greyhound and turns him, whereupon he runs toward the river and be- comes a fish, and she, in the form of an otter, chases him under water till he is fain to become a bird of the air — and so on, in a series of equally interesting adventures, which appear in slightly different forms in the Irish sto- ries of Finn Mac Cumhal, and likewise among the adven- tures of Sigurd, in the " Song of the Nibelungs." The Welsh bard borrowed incidents and allusions from every kind of literature. The very legend of Hugh the Mighty is, in the main, but a travesty of the life of the Patriarch Noah, confused by an intermixture of the exploits of Hugh of Constantinople, a paladin of romance, who took part in the adventures of the legendary armies of Charlemagne. In these poems, figures of all times and countries pass in a strange procession, among which we recognize several personages who once were worshiped as gods in Ireland and Western Britain. But it is in vain we look for any- thing about the Druids, their very name having been for- gotten for centuries before the travesty of their doctrines was propounded under the title of Bardism. Nor, again, will anything be found about the Gaulish gods, wnose rites were transported to Britain, at first by the Belgian settlers, and afterward by Roman soldiers. For them we must rely on the classical descriptions, obscure and scanty as they are, to learn what little is known about the nature of Gaelic paganism. The religion of the Gauls appears to have borne some general resemblance to that of the Gaelic tribes. It has become known, in part, by the sketch in Cassar's " Com- mentaries," by Pliny's chapters on magic, and a few scat- tered allusions of the Latin poets ; but in a greater degree by the comparison, in modern times, of inscriptions upon ruined altars, and of legends and observances, in which some fragments of the old creed have been by chance re- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 y tained. The Roman writers, indeed, have left us little definite information on the subject. They seem to have felt a natural contempt for the superstitions of their bar- barous neighbors. Cicero, for example, was a friend of the Druid Divitiacus ; yet he did not think it worth while to record the result of their curious discussions. Julius Caesar was himself a pontiff, and published a book upon divination, but he noticed the foreign religions only so far as they were connected with public policy. He does not mention the British religion at all; and we owe his short sketch of the Gaulish Pantheon merely to the fact that, for political purposes, it was the same as that of the Roman world. The greater gods were revered, under various titles, by every nation in Gaul ; and their wor- shipers held much the same doctrine about them as all the rest of the world. A Pluto reigned in Darkness, and a Jupiter in Heaven. Mars was the God of War ; Apol- lo, Mercury, and Minerva brought precious gifts to man- kind. The names of a host of minor deities appear in the inscriptions, or are vaguely preserved in the country le- gends ; some of them reappear as giants in nursery tales, and it seems probable that most of the monsters and gigantic figures which adorned the mediaeval processions, the traditions of which are not even now entirely obliter- ated, were connected with the worship of some local god. " The doctrine of the Druids," says Caesar, " is thought to have been invented in Britain, and to have been carried over to Gaul ; and, at the present time, those who wish to gain a more precise knowledge of the system travel to that country for the purpose of studying it." Druidism is probably to be traced to the race or races which pre- ceded the Celts in their possession of the British Isles, 1 The Gauls were taught by the Druids to call themselves the children of Pluto, and the parable may have referred to the idea that all things have come from Chaos. Caesar attributed to this belief their practice of reckoning by nights instead of days. A birthday, or the first of the month or year, was considered to begin at sunset on the previous evening. The habit was common to all the northern nations, and seems to have been a natural consequence of the measure- ment of time by the moon. The Gauls began their months on the sixth night after the moon was new, and just before her face was half-full. — Caesar De Bell. Gall., vi, 17 ; Plin., Hist. Nat., xvi, 98. The year began with the same phase of the satellite, and so also did the cycle of thirty years. It follows from this that the year consisted of thirteen lunar months, falling short of the true solar year by about one day. In the course of about twenty-nine years they would have apparently gained a month on the solar year, and in order to make the solstices and equinoxes fall within the appropriate lunar months it became necessary to intercalate a whole month, or to repeat the thirteenth month in the last year of the cycle. 28 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE and its abnormal character makes it easy to suppose that it was devised by the wild Silurians. The Irish word for Druid is Draoi, which in Irish literature mostly means " a magician," or "soothsayer," and is usually rendered by magus in the " Lives of the Saints." Our traditions of the Scottish and Irish Druids are evidently derived from a time when Christianity had long been established. These insular Druids are represented as being little better than conjurers, sorcerers, and rain-doctors, who pretend to call dow a the storms and the snow, «nd frighten the people with the "fluttering wisp" and other childish charms. They divine by the observation of sneezing and omens, by their dreams after the holding of a bull-feast, or chew- ing raw flesh in front of their idols, by the croaking of their ravens and chirping of tame wrens, or by licking the hot adze of bronze taken out of the rowan-tree faggot. They are like our Indian medicine-men, or the Angekoks of the Esquimaux, dressed up in bull's-hide coats and bird- caps with waving wings. The chief Druid of Tara is shown to us as a leaping juggler, with ear-clasps of gold and a speckled cloak ; he tosses swords and balls in the air, just like the athletes and slight-of-hand men that now may be seen parading in the circus. 1 The Gaulish Druids were more cultivated. They knew the Greek modes of reckoning, and were probably acquainted, to some extent, with the doctrines of Pythag- oras. They had gained a political supremacy, their judg- ments were taken as the voice of the gods, and they were themselves exempt from all earthly service. They were, in fact, ecclesiastics of the mediaeval type ; and men of the highest rank were eager to belong to their church . The Druids of Strabo's description walked in scarlet and gold brocade, and wore golden collars and bracelets ; 2 but for all that their doctrines may have been much the same as those of the soothsayers of the Severn, the Irish medicine- men, and those rustic wizards of the Loire, whose oracle was a sound in the oak-trees, and whose decisions were rudely scratched upon the blade-bone of an ox or sheep. 3 1 See O'Curry, Led., 9, 10 ; and Revue Celtique, i, 261. 8 Strabo, iv, 275. 8 In the little comedy of " Querolus," written in the fourth century, the dis- contented hero is bidden by the familiar spirit to go to the banks of the Loire. " Vade, ad Ligerim vivito. Illic jure gentium vivunt homines : ibi nullum est praestigium ; ibi sententise capitales de robore proferuntur et scribuntur in ossi- bus ; illic etiam rustici perorant et privati judicant ; ibi totum licet." The re- sponse is, " Nolo jura luec silvestria."— Querolus, ii, 1. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 g The doctrines of the British Druids seem to have be- longed to that common class of superstitions in which the magician pretends to have secret communication with the spirits, by which he acquires a controlling influence among the ignorant and credulous masses. " Britannia to this day," said Pliny, " celebrates the art of magic with such wondrous ceremonies that it seems as if she might have taught the Magi of Persia." 1 These men assumed to be interpreters of the designs of Heaven ; and they even used a sacred jargon, which passed for the language of the gods. They foretold the future by the flight of birds and the inspection of victims offered in sacrifice. The Druids of Mona used to slay their captives, and tell fortunes from the look of their bodies ; they would devote a man to the gods, and strike him down with a sword ; and as he fell they would gather omens from his mode of falling, his convulsive movements, and from the flow of blood which followed. If any person of importance were in peril from disease or the chance of war, a criminal or a slave was killed or promised as a substitute. The Druids held that by no other means could a man's life be re- deemed or the wrath of the gods appeased ; and they went even so far as to teach that the crops would be fer- tile in proportion to the harvest of death. It became a national institution to offer a ghastly hecatomb at particu- lar seasons of the year. The memory of the public sac- rifices seems to have been preserved by the Irish proverb, in which a person in great danger was said to be " between two Beltain fires." 2 In the Highlands, even in modern times, there were May-day bonfires, at which the spirits were im- plored to make the year productive ; the ritual of the an- cient sacrifices has survived in the unconscious heathen- ism of the country-people, and relics of the old creed are still constantly found in heroic poems and nursery tales. 1 Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxiii, 21. — The lives of St. Patrick and St. Columba are full of their contests with royal magicians, who are called " Druids" in the native chronicles. St. Patrick's hymn contains a prayer for help " against black laws of the heathen, and against spells of women, smiths, and Druids." By women was meant "the witches," and by smiths, " the invisible smiths," who shod horses in a cavern if a proper fee was left upon a neighboring stone, usu- ally the remains of some cromlech. * Beltain, Beltane, or Beltein, from the Gaelic bealteine, " Bel's fire " — Bel being the name for " the sun," and teine meaning " fire." It is a festival of re- mote antiquity, still partially observed in Scotland on May 1st, generally among trade corporations ; and in Ireland on June 2lst, and is supposed to be the relics of the worship of the sun, such as kindling fires on hills, or other ceremonies, the significance of some of which is not now known. 3 o ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE The Gauls had once believed, like their Latin neigh- bors, in some shadowy existence of the dead in a Hades or Elysium, fashioned after the type of the present world. They used to cast on the funeral pyre whatever things the dead man had loved, that his spirit might enjoy them in the world to come ; and at the end of the funeral his favorite slaves and dependents were burned alive on the pile, and sent to keep their master company. But in the time of Julius Caesar the Druids had learned, or invented, a totally different doctrine. They endeavored to per- suade their followers that death was but an interlude in a succession of lives. In this or in some other world the soul would find a new body and lead another human life, and so onward in an infinite cycle of lives. Their people, they thought, could hardly fail in courage when the fear of death was removed. " One would have laughed," said a Roman, " at these long-trousered philosophers, if we had not found their doctrine under the cloak of Pythagoras." 1 This doctrine, probably, accounts for certain restric- tions by which particular nations and tribes were forbid- den to kill or eat certain kinds of animals. It was a crime, for instance, in Southern Britain, to taste the flesh of the hare, the goose, or the domestic fowl, though it was al- lowed to rear and keep them for amusement. 2 The reason for the prohibition is unknown, but it should be, proba- bly, connected with the fact that in some parts of Europe these animals have retained a sort of sacred character. Thus in Brittany and in Russia, among the country-peo- ple, a fowl is still offered as a propitiation to the house- hold spirits, and in the last-named country the goose is sacrificed to the gods of the streams. 3 The hare is an ob- ject of disgust in some parts of Russia and Western .Brit- tany, where, not many years ago, the peasants could hard- ly endure to hear its name. The oldest Welsh laws con- tain several allusions to the magical character of the hare, which was thought to change its sex every month or year, and to be the companion of the witches, who often assumed its shape. In one part of Wales the hares are called St. Monacella's lambs, and, up to a very recent 1 Valerius Maximus, ii, c. 6, compare Lucan's phrase : " regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio : longae, canitis si cognita, vitse Mors media est." — Pharsal., i, 451. 8 Csesar, De Bell Gall., v, c. 12. 8 Lang's Essay on the Folk-lore of France ; Revue Celtique, ix, 195. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3I time, no one in the district would have dared kill one. 1 In Ireland, also, St. Colman's teal could be neither killed nor injured ; St. Brendan provided an asylum for stags, wild-boars, and hares ; and St. Beanus protected the crows and hazelhens, which build their nests upon the Ulster mountains. 8 We may notice in this connection the fact that the names of several Celtic tribes, or the legends of their origin, show that an animal, or some other real or imag- inary object, was chosen as a crest or emblem, and was probably regarded with a superstitious veneration. A powerful tribe or family would feign to be descended from a swan, or a water-maiden, or a " white lady," who rose from the moonbeams on the lake. The moon her- self was claimed as the ancestress of certain families. The legendary heroes are turned into " swan-knights," or fly away in the form of wild geese. We hear of " grif- fins " by the Shannon, and of " calves " in the country round Belfast. There are similar instances from Scotland, in such names as " clan chattan," or the " wild cats," and in the animal crests, which have been borne from the most ancient times as the emblems of the chieftains. The tribes who fought at Cattraeth are distinguished by the bard who sang their praises, as wolves, bears, or ravens ; and the families which claim descent from Caradoc or Owain take the boar or the raven for their crest. The early Welsh poems are full of examples of the kind. Aneurin speaks of " Cian the Dog " ; he calls his followers " dogs of war," and describes the chieftain's house as " the stone, or castle of the white dogs." s It seems reasonable, therefore, to suppose a connec- tion between the law concerning the use of certain kinds of food, and the superstitious belief that each tribe had 1 The sacred character of the animal is indicated by the legend of Boadicea, who, according to Dion Cassius, " loosed a hare from her robe, observing its movements as a kind of omen, and when it turned propitiously the whole mul- titude rejoiced and shouted." — Dion Cass., lxii, 3. a Girald. Cambr., Top'ogr. Hibem., ii, cc. 29, 40. Compare the same writ- er's story of the loathing shown by the Irish chieftains on being offered a dish of roasted crow. — Conqu. Hibern., i, c. 31. 8 Aneurin's Gododin, St. 9, 21, 30. There are many traces of the same practice among the Teutonic nations. Their heroes were believed, in many cases, to have descended from divine animals, like the children of Leda and Europa. The pedigrees of the Anglo-Saxon kings contain such names as Sige- fugel, Scefugol, and Beorn, which seem to be connected with legends of a de- scent from animals. Compare such patronymics as Wolf, Lyon, Stagg, Hogg, Hare, Wren, Dering, Harting, Baring, and the like. 32 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE descended from the animal whose name it bore, and whose figure it displayed as a crest or badge. There are several Irish legends which appear to be based on the notion that a man might not eat of the animal from which he or his tribe was named. 1 Such facts suggest inquiry as to whether the religion of the British tribes may not, in some early stage, have been connected with that system of belief under which animals were worshiped by tribes of men who were named after them, and were believed to be of their breed. This form of superstition prevails at the present day among our own Indians, as well as some South American tribes, among the natives of Australia, and in some of the African kingdoms ; traces of its existence have also been found in the early history of the Germans, Greeks, and Latins, as well as in the traditions of the Se- mitic peoples in Arabia and Palestine. 3 This brief sketch of early English history will give a general idea of the condition of the country and its in- habitants at the time of the first Roman invasion, which took place fifty-five years before our era. The details here presented will enable the student to follow intelligent- ly the subsequent vicissitudes of the British nations, first under Roman rule, and afterward under Saxon dominion ; and enable him to form an opinion as to the degree of Celtic influence that may have had its weight upon the character, mind, and language of the nation into which the original owners of the land have become to a great extent absorbed. In order to facilitate reference to the relative situation of Britain and the neighboring coun- tries, whose people were to play such important parts in the island's destinies, and at the same time to avoid the confusion arising from maps covered with names belong- ing to different epochs, only the permanent features of the 1 In the story of the death of Ciichulain, contained in The Book ofLeinstet, some witches offer the hero a dog cooked on spits of rowan-wood. Ciichulain's name signified " the Hound of Culand," and was connected with the cult of a god called " Culand the Smith." The story turns on the idea that " one of the things he must not do was eating his namesake's flesh." See the translation of the story by Mr. Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique, iii, 176 ; O'Curry, Mann. Anc. Itish, ii, 363. * The system mentioned in the text is usually called " Totemism," from the word " totem " or " dodhaim" which the Indians apply to the plant, ani- mal, or other natural object representing the ancestor and protector of the group of persons who share the name and crest. The " totem " may not be eaten by any member of the group. Another rule provides that persons with the same " totem " may not intermarry. For the theory of the wide distribu- tion of " Totemism " among the nations of the ancient world see Encyclopedia Btitannica, article, " The Family." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 33 land, such as mountains, rivers, sea-coasts,, are indicated on the map accompanying this chapter. Enlarged copies of this map, or parts thereof, made by the student, and filled in by himself with historical as well as geographical details as the narrative proceeds, will be found far more instructive, and will make a more lasting impression. 34 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE CHAPTER II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF BRITAIN. There is something at once mean and tragical about the story of the Roman Conquest. Begun as the pastime of a reckless despot, and carried on under a false expecta- tion of riches, its mischief was certain from the beginning. Ill-armed country-folk were matched against disciplined legions and an infinite levy of auxiliaries. Vain heroism and ardent love of liberty were crushed in tedious and unprofitable wars. On the one side stand the petty tribes, prosperous nations in miniature, already enriched by com- merce and rising to a homely culture ; on the other the terrible Romans, strong in their tyranny and an avarice which could never be appeased. " If their enemy was rich, they were ravenous ; if poor, they lusted for dominion ; and not the East nor the West could satisfy them." 1 They gained a province to ruin it by a slow decay. The conscription and the grinding taxes, the slavery of the many in the fields and mines, must be set against the wealth and comfort of the few, and the empty glory of belonging to the empire. Civiliza- tion was in one sense advanced, but all manliness had been sapped, and freedom had vanished from the coun- try long before it fell an easy prey to the Angles and Sax- ons, who founded the English kingdom. The first invasions of Julius Cassar had been followed by a century of repose. The fury of the civil wars se- cured a long oblivion of Britain ; and, when the empire was established, the prudence of Augustus forbade the extension of the frontier. His glory was satisfied by the homage of a few British chieftains who came with gifts to the capitol, and the names of the " suppliant kings " are still recorded in the imperial inscriptions. The wish of Augustus was law to his successors, and for two reigns the islanders were left to boast of their alliance with Rome. It had become the fashion among the leading 1 Tacitus, Agricolce vita, c. 30. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 35 Romans to despise a country which was hardly worth a garrison. "It would require," said some, "at least a legion and some extra cavalry to enforce the payment of tribute, and then the military expenses would absorb all the increase of revenue." l Others laughed at the exploits for which a three-weeks' thanksgiving had once seemed barely sufficient. " Divine Caesar," they said, " landed his army in a swamp, and fled before the long-sought Brit- ons." 3 Too much, it was thought, had been made of a march along the high-road and the fording of a stockaded river ; the legions had been forced back to the coast by an army of chariots and horsemen ; no princes were sent as hostages, and no tribute had ever been paid. The invasion, however, was of greater importance than the critics were disposed to allow, though its effects were chiefly seen in an increased commerce with the Con- tinent. It was the conquest of Gaul which most affected the British nations. The influence of the empire was felt and accepted by the continental Celts, and the provincial fashions found a crowd of imitators in the rustic kingdoms of the Thames. Another result of the conquest was an in- crease of the Gaulish settlements in Britain. Commius, the Prince of Arras, who once was sent by Caesar as his envoy to Britain, took refuge from the Romans on the island which he had helped to invade, and the Atrebates were thenceforth established on the upper Thames. The Bel- gee founded a settlement on the Solent, from which they spread westward to the mouth of the Severn, and built towns at Bath and Winchester (yenta Belgarum). The Parisii left their island on the Seine, and settled in the fens of Wolverness, "all round the fair-havened bay." 3 The graves on the Yorkshire coast still yield the remains of their iron chariots and horse-trappings, and their ar- mor, decorated with enamel and the red Mediterranean coral. 4 The prosperity of the native states was indicated 1 Strabo, iv, 278. * Oceanumque vocans incerti stagna profundi, Territa qusesitis ostendit terga Britannis. — Lucan, Phars., ii, 571. 3 Ilpij oh irtpl top eiKlpevov k6\tov, UaptCot, Kol ir6\is IleTovapia. . . . ETto 'ATpe0OTioi ko! Tr6\ts NaXKoia. . . . TldXtv roils pev 'ArpefSarlois /col toTs Kturfois ujnfrreurai 'PTJyvot, Kci Tt6\is Not6/ia-yos, toTs Si Aotewois, BeKytu. — Ptolem. Geo- graphic, lib. ii, u. iii. The main city of the Parisii was Lutetia Parisiorum, now Paris. 4 Pliny says that coral had been used by the Gauls down to his time for ornamenting their armor. — Hist. Nat., xxxii, n. That the art of enameling was not confined to the Continent is shown by a passage in the Imagines of Philostratus, where the philosopher informs the Empress Julia Domna that this 7,6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE by the rise of regular towns in place of the older camps of refuge, as well as by the increase of the continental trade. An advance in metallurgy was marked by the use of a silver coinage, by a change from the bronze weap- ons to the steel sabers and ponderous spears of Gaul, and by the export, not only of their surplus iron, but of the precious ores, which were found and worked in the West ; and the ultimate conquest was doubtless hastened by the dream of winning a land of gold and a rich reward of victory. 1 The immediate cause of the second invasion, however, was the discord of the British chieftains. The sons of Cymbeline were at war with the house of Commius, to whose territory Kent and some bordering districts be- longed. A prince of that house sought refuge and ven- geance at Rome, and the courtiers of Claudius caught at the chance of gratifying their master's vanity. An army of four legions 8 was landed on the southern coast, and Caractacus and his brothers were driven far to the west and afterward back to some great river, which may have been the Thames. The capture of Camulodunum, their freat stronghold, was reserved for the emperor's hand, he battle seems to have been arranged with Eastern pomp : and elephants clad in mail, and bearing turrets filled with slingers and bowmen, marched, for once, in line with the Belgian pikemen and the Batavians from the island in the Rhine 3 (a. d. 44). Claudius returned from an easy victory to a triumph of unexampled splendor, which shows the importance at- tached to the conquest, and the degree of subjection in which it was intended that Britain should be held in the future. A ship " like a moving palace " bore him home- wards from Marseilles, and the Senate decreed the gift of a naval crown to welcome the conqueror of the ocean. 4 The record of the rejoicings has been preserved, and in- scriptions are extant to show the honors and decorations, beautiful work was made by the " islanders in the Outer Ocean." — Philost., Imag., i, 28. 1 For an account of the British lead-mines, where most of the silver was found, see Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxiv, 49. The metal, he says, lay like a thick skin on the surface of the ground. 8 On the strength of a Roman legion, see page 43. 3 The Batavians from the island formed by the Rhine and Maas took a prominent part in the conquest of Britain. — Tacitus, Hist, i, 59 ; iv, 12 ; Ann» xiv, 38 ; Agric, 18, 36. See page 75. 4 Pliny, Hist. Nat., Hi, 20; xxxiii, 16 ; Sueton, Claud., 17. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 37 the collars, bracelets, and ornaments which were lavished on all who had gained distinction in this war. It may be even interesting to notice the great display and extensive preparations made to celebrate the consolidation of the conquest on this occasion. First in the triumph came the images of the gods, and the figures of the emperor's an- cestors, and then the booty of the war, the crowns sent by the provinces, and gifts from all parts of the world. Claudius passed in his general's dress of purple, with ivory scepter and oak-leaf crown. Messalina's carriage followed ; and then came the officers distinguished on the field, marching on foot, and in plain robes. On reaching th capitol, the emperor left his car, and mounted the steps praying, and kneeling, with the help of his sons-in- law, who supported him on either side. 1 Another day was given to games in the circus, and the factions were promised as many chariot-races as could run between morning and night ; 2 but the number was diminished to ten by the time taken up in beast-fights and other shows which were more appropriate to the amphi- theatre. Bears were hunted and killed, perhaps in allu- sion to the war still raging in the northern forests. Gladi- ators were matched in single combat between the races ; and, as a crowning show, the famous " Pyrrhica " was danced by boys of the best families in Asia, who had been summoned to take part in the rejoicings. At the sound of the trumpet they rushed in, dressed in splendid uni- forms, and counterfeited, in the war-dance, all the move- ments used in the field, advancing and retreating, and breaking rank and wheeling into line again, now seeming to bend away from an enemy's blows, and now to hurl the spear or draw the bow. 3 Afterward came the brutal sports, which seemed to 1 Dion Cassius, lx, 23 ; Sueton, Claud., 17. 8 As many as twenty-four races were run in one day by Caligula's orders in A. D. 37, each race taking about half an hour. The course was seven times round the hippodrome. The circus, in the reign of Claudius, was constructed to hold about 150,000 persons ; but it was very much enlarged in later reigns. — Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxviii, 24, 101 ; Pausanias, v, 12. 3 Dion Cass., lx, 30. For descriptions of the " Pyrrhica," see Plato, Leg., vii, 18 ; Claudian, Sext. Cons. Honor., 621. " Puelli puellsque virenti florentes eetatulJ, forma conspicui, veste nitidi, incessu gestuosi, Gracanicam saltaturi Pyrrhicam dispositis ordinationibus decoros ambitus inerrabant, nunc in orbem rotatum flexuosi nunc in obliquam seriem connexi, et in quadratum patorem cuneati et in catervae discidium separati." — Apul. Metamorph., x, 29. " Ut est ille in pyrrhica versicolorus discursus quum amicti cocco alii, alii et luto et ostro et purpura creti, alii aliique cohaerentes concursant." — Fronto., Epist. ad Cms., i, 4. 38 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE the Romans to be the chief reward of victory. " It is the greatest pleasure in life," Cassar himself had said, "to see a brave enemy led off to torture and death." The Field of Mars, on the other side of the river, was now chosen as the scene of a fresh entertainment. At a place where the park was surrounded by water on three sides, a fortress was built, in imitation of the walls and stockades of Camulodunum ; and the straw-thatched palaces and streets of wattled huts were defended, stormed, and sacked by armies of British captives reserved to die in a theatrical war. Three years afterward, when Plautius gained his triumph for the conquest of Southern Britain, the massacre was renewed in a somewhat different form. The prisoners were enrolled among the heavy-armed gladiators, who fought as " Gauls " and " Samnites " against the " Thracians," armed with the target, and crooked dagger, and retiarii, with nets and harpoons, ready to entangle their adversaries as the fisherman catches the tunny-fish. 1 Thousands of Britons are said to have perished in these combats, and in the chariot fights, in which they were compelled to exhibit their na- tive modes of warfare. 2 As the conquest advanced, other uses were found for the captives, in the mines and public works, or in military service abroad. As early as A. D. 69, a force of 8,000 Britons was enrolled in the army of Vitellius, and in later times we find their levies scattered in all parts of the world, in the forts on the Pyrenees and the Balkans, in the Household at Constantinople, and along the distant frontiers of the African and Armenian deserts. 3 The wantonness of the Roman tyranny appears from the complaints attributed to the provincials, and the rec- 1 Friedlander quotes the song of the retiarius : " Non te peto, piscem peto, quod me fugi' Galle ? " — Manners of the Romans. 8 The Roman sentiment on the subject is illustrated by the exulting words of Tacitus on the destruction of the Bructeri on the Rhine. " The gods grudged not even to let us see the spectacle ; over 6o,ooo men fell on the field, not under the Roman sword and spear, but in a still more stately fashion, dying to make a show before our delighted eyes." — Tacitus, Germ., c. 33. 8 Tacitus, Agric, 15 ; Hist., i, 59. With the exception of this author (55-135 A. D.) and Ptolemy, whose great work was published about 120 A. D., the Notitia Imperii, or Official Calendar of the Empire, which was compiled about the end of the fourth century, is almost the only authority for the stations of the British regiments. It mentions some quartered in Gaul, Spain, Illyria, Egypt, and Armenia, and others enrolled among the home forces or palatine guards. Though it was against the policy of the State to allow the natives of any province to serve at home, inscriptions have been found at places in York- shire and Cumberland which indicate the presence of a British contingent. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3 g ord of those evil doings which led to Boadicea's revolt The legal dues, indeed, were severe, though, perhaps, not intolerable. The conscription was necessary for repairing the drain upon the other provinces, though the Britons complained that their sons were torn away " as if they might die for every country but their own." The trib- ute, the tithe of grain, and the obligation of feeding the court and the army, were all endurable when the burden was equally distributed; but such a thing was never known to happen till Agricola came to the government and restored her good name to Peace. Before this time the Britons were treated as slaves and prisoners of war : the colonists thrust them from their lands; the tithe^ farmers combined to buy up the stock of grain, which the chieftains were forced to purchase back at a ruinous price, to fulfil their duty to the government. The illicit con- trivances for gain were more intolerable than the tribute itself. The people groaned under a double tyranny ; each state had formerly been governed by a single king ; " but now," they said, " we are under the legate and the pro- curator ; the one preys on our blood and the other on our lands ; the officers of the one and the slaves of the other combine extortion and insult ; nothing is safe from their avarice and nothing from their lust." It was under these circumstances that the Icenian mutiny took place, which ended so disastrously for the Britons. " Prasutagus, famous for his great treasures, had made Cassar and his daughters joint heirs, thinking by this token of respect to save his kingdom and family from insult — which happened quite otherwise ; for his kingdom was made a prey by the captains, and his house pillaged by the slaves. And, as if the whole was now be- come lawful booty, the chiefs of the Iceni were deprived of their paternal estates, and those of the blood royal were treated as the meanest slaves." * The revolt began in A. D. 61, when Suetonius Pauilinus had been two years in command. The nations of Eastern and Central Britain moved in vast hordes to sweep the helpless province. The Roman soldiers were dispersed in forts and block- houses, and the natives were exhausting the refinements of cruelty on all who fell into their hands, as though en- . deavoring, said the angry Romans, to avenge in advance the terrible punishments which awaited them. Pauilinus 1 Tacitus, Ann., xiv, 31.. 40 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE was then at Mona, whence he was recalled by the news that the Ninth Legion was annihilated. Marching in all haste across the island, by the new military road, he reached London with what few troops he had been able to collect upon the route ; and, resolving to sacrifice this one town to the safety of the rest, he gave orders to march, receiving into his army such as were able to follow him. Those who by reason of weakness, sex, or age, staid behind, or were tempted by their affection for the place to remain, were destroyed by the enemy. London was sacked as soon as its defenders retreated, and, before the latter got far, they learned that Verulam was de- stroyed by another wing of the mass which was closing upon them. It was believed that over 70,000 people had been massacred in the three captured towns. 1 The fate of the province was at stake, and Paullinus determined to risk a decisive battle as soon as he could gain an advantage of position. Finding that the main force of the enemy was encamped on a plain skirted by steep and thickly-wooded hills, he forced his way through the forest and emerged at the mouth of a ravine, where he formed his line of battle. The Britons covered the plain with long lines of wagons, stretching as far as the eye could see, their infantry skillfully disposed, and their horsemen drawn up in troops and squadrons, "in such numbers as never were elsewhere seen." They seem to have delivered their assault in the old British fashion, charging along the enemy's lines with masses of mounted men, while the infantry pushed up behind, and drove back the Roman skirmishers under a shower of darts and stones. The legionaries are described as never moving until all their missiles had been discharged with more or less effect ; then suddenly wheeling into a wedge-shaped figure, they charged and cut the enemy's line into two, the auxiliaries following and hewing down the enemy with their heavy sabers, and the cavalry riding down whatever force that still remained unbroken. The great- 1 Tac, Ann., xiv, 33 (Camden). London, Verulam, and Camulodunum were all open towns, though founded on the sites of Celtic fortresses. They were all fortified in later times, and their walls long remained among the most conspicuous of the monuments left by the Romans. The fortress of Verulam remained standing until its materials and " fine masonrie work, some porphy- rie, some alabaster, were required for building St. Alban's Abbey." — Leland's /tin. v, introd., xviii. The walls, the massive tower, and in fact the whole of the church were built out of the ruins of Verulam ; even the newels of the staircases are constructed with Roman tiles. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 4I est slaughter was at the wagons, where the crowd of fugitives was entangled, and the bodies of men worn en, and horses were piled together in indiscriminate heaps. 1 This battle practically decided the fate of Britain. Large reinforcements were forwarded from the provinces on the Rhine; and the mutinous and suspected tribes alike were ravaged with fire and sword. The punishment was so sharp and long-continued that Paullinus was at last accused of personal feeling. " His policy," it was said, " was arrogant ; and he showed the cruelty of one who was avenging a private wrong." He was quietly re- moved, and the province remained at peace until the accession of Vespasian. Even then we hear of no great ' combinations among the tribes ; the states of the Brigan- tians were divided in Cartismandua's quarrel, and the Silures were left to fight alone in their final contest with Frontinus. 2 The province was finally consolidated by the valor and prudence of Agricola, who professed to like the peo- ple and to prefer the British wit to the labored smartness of the Gauls. He determined to root out the causes of war by reforming the abuses of the government, and by persuading the natives to leave their rude ways of living, to build temples, and courts, and fine houses, to speak Latin, and to wear the Roman dress. The hostile tribes were alarmed by sudden campaigns, and then bought over by the offer of a generous peace. His first year of office was taken up by the expedition against the Ordovices and the conquest of the Isle of Mona. In his second cam- paign he was engaged with the tribes of the western coast ; and his final victory over the Caledonians was in A. D. 84. We are told that he always selected the place of en- campment himself, and marched with his soldiers in their explorations of the estuaries and forests. Many of the nations in those parts submitted to give hostages, and to allow permanent forts to be erected within their territo- ries ; and " it was observed by the best masters of war that no captain ever chose places to better advantage, for no castle of his raising was ever taken by force, or sur- 1 " The victory," says Tacitus, " was very noble, and the glory of it not inferior to those of ancient times ; for by the report of some there were slain little less than fourscore thousand Britons, whereas the Romans lost but about four hundred killed, and had not many more wounded." — Annal., xiv, 37. ' Tacitus, Agric, 17. 5 42 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE rendered upon terms, or quitted as incapable of de- fence." 1 Thirty-five years after Agricola's return to Rome, the Emperor Hadrian was summoned to the defence of the frontier. 2 The Roman conquest and dominion now ex- tended over all the southern part of the island to the foot of the northern hills, which in former days had served as a rampart to the aborigines against the invasions of the Cambrians, and now protected them against the enter- prises of the Romans. The territory which the Roman invasion had secured was limited by very nearly the same boundary which the Gaulish invasions had reached in Caesar's time, and the Gaelic race remained free, while the foreign yoke oppressed the more ancient conquerors. They more than once compelled the Imperial Eagles to retreat, and their ancient aversion to the Gaulish inhabit- ants of South Britain was greatly increased during the wars they had to wage with the Roman governors, in whose armies some of the latter were known to serve as auxiliaries. The plunder of the Roman colonies and mu- nicipal towns, adorned with sumptuous palaces and tem- ples, further excited, by new temptations, the national spirit of aggression. The men of Alben or Caledonia 3 passed the Clyde every spring in their osier boats cov- ered with hides, and their irruptions becoming more and more frequent, gave a fearful renown to the people of Albany under the name of Scots and Picts* which alone we find employed by the Latin authors, who seem to have been ignorant of the name of Gaels. The former of these two names appertained to the in- habitants of the island of Erin, which the Romans called 1 Tacitus, Agric, 22. Before Agricola was appointed to the chief com- mand, he had served in Britain under Vettius Bolanus, and Cerealis, who sub- dued the revolted Brigantians in A. D. 69. 2 Hadrian arrived in Britain in A. D. 120. 8 Caledonia, in Gaelic Calyddon, " the land of forests.'' 4 Venit et extremis legio pra?tenta Britannis Quae Scoto dat frena truci, ferroque notatas Perlegit exangues, Picto moriente figuras. Claudianus, De Bello Getico, v, 416, et seq. In the legendary history of Ireland the Picts are represented by the Tuatha De Danann, and by the Cruithnigh, a name which was the Irish equivalent of the Latin Picti, supposed to have had reference to the practice of some of the Brit- ish tribes to paint themselves with woad. Whether or not this practice pre- vailed among the Picts is by no means certain. At any rate, no nation would have called themselves by such a name. Far more probable it is that the Picts of Scotland, as well as the Pictones of Gaul, are " the fighters," the name being traceable to the Gaelic feicta and the Welsh path, meaning "a fighting man." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 43 indifferently Hibernia or Scotia. The close relationship between the Celtic Highlanders and the men of Hibernia, with the frequent emigrations from the one country to the other, had produced this community of name. In northern Britain, however, the term applied specially to the inhabitants of the coast and of the great archipelago of the northwest ; and that of Picts to the eastern popu- lation on the shores of the German Ocean. The respect- ive territories of these peoples were separated by the Grampian Hills, at the foot of which Gallawy, the lead- ing chieftain of the northern forests, had valiantly com- bated the Imperial legions. The manner of life of the Scots wholly differed from that of the Picts ; the former, dwellers on the mountains, were hunters or wandering shepherds ; the latter, enjoying a more level surface, and being more permanently established, occupied themselves in agriculture, and constructed the solid abodes, the ruins of which still bear their name. When these two peoples were not actually leagued together for an irruption of the south, even a friendly understanding ceased at times to exist between them ; but on every occasion that presented itself of assailing the common enemy, the two chiefs be- came brothers, and set up their standards side by side. The Southern Britons and the Roman colonists, in their fear and their hate, made no distinction between the Scots and Picts. 1 It was especially for the defence of the northern fron- tier against these nations that Hadrian had been sum- moned to Britain. The beginning of his reign was troubled by border-wars, and more than once the Cale- donians were threatening the heart of the province. The Ninth Legion, in Paullinus's time, had suffered so severe- ly that it was either broken up altogether or was united with the Sixth, 2 which had come over with Hadrian, and 1 Gildas, De excidio Britannia, passim. • Each legion numbered at first about 7,000 regulars, with at least as many auxiliaries, some trained like the heavy-armed legionaries, and others fighting according to their own methods, and even in some cases under the command of their native chiefs. — Tac, Ann., iv, 5. Of the Batavi, for instance, the historian says : " Mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cohortibus quas vetere instituto nobilissimi popularium regebant." — Hist., iv, 12. The numbers of the legionaries were diminished under the later emperors, when an almost absolute reliance was placed on the German mercenaries. Large forces of barbarians were from time to time sent over to assist the legions in Britain. Thus when Marcus Aurelius had defeated the Moravian tribes, he compelled them to send a great part of their army to serve on the Caledonian frontier ; and in the same reign a contingent of 5,000 Sarmatians was drafted from the Lower Danube to 44 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE was established as a permanent garrison at Eburacum, the site of the modern city of York. This city seems to have grown out of a Roman camp, and to have taken the place of Isurium, the capital of the Brigantian district/ In these days the Roman soldiers were pioneers and colonists. A Roman camp was " a city in arms," and most of the Brit- ish towns grew out of the stationary quarters of the sol- diery. The ramparts and pathways developed into walls and streets, the square of the tribunal into the market- place, and every gateway was the beginning of a suburb, while straggling rows of shops, temples, gardens, and cemeteries, were sheltered from all danger by the pres- ence of a permanent garrison. In the center of the town stood a group of public buildings, containing the court- house, baths, and barracks ; and in course of time every important place had its theatre and circus for races and shows. Such towns, which from the nature of their ori- gin were always situated in strong strategic positions, were invariably surrounded with lofty walls, protected by turrets set apart at the distance of bowshot, and built of such solid strength as to resist the shock of the batter- ing-ram. This kind of wall, in the construction of which the Romans displayed such remarkable skill, 2 was the prototype of the colossal structure known as the " Picts' Wall," which Hadrian built from sea to sea, as a protec- tion against the attacks of the northern tribes, and of which the ruins may still be seen extending for miles be- tween Tynemouth and the estuary of the Solway. 8 This wall, a masterpiece of military engineering, run- the stations between Chester and Carlisle ; and there are records relating to German soldiers from districts now included in Luxemburg, which show that in some cases whole tribes at once were attached to one or other of the auxiliary regiments in Britain. 1 Isurium is called " Isu-Brigantum " in the Antonine Itinerary, as if it had long retained the position of the native capital. An inscription of A. D. 108 shows that some Roman buildings were erected at York under Trajan, whose fondness for such mural records earned him the name of " Parietaria," or " Wall- flower. — Kenrich., Arch. Essays, 184. 8 The ruins of Roman walls generally show them to consist of a certain number of courses of hewn stone or ashlaring, separated at intervals by double- bonding courses of Roman tile, joined by a superior cement, the interior of the wall being filled up with rubble. , 8 The merit of the work has been sometimes claimed for Severus, for the generals who in the fifth century brought temporary help to Britain, and even for the native princes whom their masters had abandoned to the enemy. But after a long debate the opinion has now prevailed that the whole system of de- fence bears the impress of a single mind, and that the wall and its parallel earthworks, its camps, roads, and stations were all designed and constructed by Hadrian alone. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 45 ning along the cliffs and clinging to their edges, was about twenty feet high and over eight feet thick, guard- ed, where the ground permitted, by a fosse on its north- ern side. In this were set 320 watch-towers, about a quarter of a mile apart, with a " mile-castle " between every fourth and fifth tower, in which the soldiers were always in readiness. Twenty-three permanent stations are shown by the Imperial Calendars to have lain along the line of the wall, with garrisons drawn from as many different countries, so that no two adjoining camps should be held by soldiers from the same part of the world. The list shows a motley array of Germans and Gauls, of Spaniards, Moors, and Thracians, spearmen from Fries- land and cavalry from Illyria, Basques of the Pyrenees and Sarmatians from the lowlands of the Danube; and the correctness of the official record is conclusively shown by the discovery of altars and mortuary inscriptions set up in not a few of the stations by men of the same foreign battalions, as appear by the " Notitia " to have been quar- tered there. These camps or forts lay, for the most part, between the wall and the triple earthworks, a few being set at some distance to the north and south, to form a line of supports and to guard the military roads which led from the inland fortresses to the camps on the Forth and Clyde. These stations were crowded with streets and buildings, and adorned with baths and temples, and towns of considerable size grew up, in time, under the protec- tion of the garrisons. There are ruins so vast and com- plete still scattered on these desolate hills that they have been styled, without too much exaggeration, the " Pom- peii" of Britain. 1 "It is hardly credible," said an old traveler, what a number of august remains of the Roman grandeur is to be seen here to this day : in every place where one casts his eye there is some curious antiquity to be seen, either the marks of streets and temples in ruins, or inscriptions, broken pillars, statues, and other pieces of sculpture, all scattered on the ground." * 1 " The remains of a wall are all along so very visible that one may follow the track ; and in the wastes I myself have seen pieces of it for a long way together standing entire, except the battlements only, which are thrown down. —Camden, Brit. (Gibson), 1048, 1050. Some of the mile-castles were standing in 1708 ; " one observes where the ridge has been, and also the trench all before it on the north, as also some of their little towers or mile-castles on the south side."— Ibid., 1051. A description, of the year 1572, gives the measure of the wall at that time, " the bredth iii yardis, the hyght remainith m sum places yet vii yardis."— See Bruce, Roman Wall, 53- ' Gordon, Ihn. Seftent., 76. 46 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE After the peaceful age of the Antonines, the debatable land about the walls became the scene of a perpetual war- fare, which raged or smoldered, as the barbarians burst across the line or were chased into the recesses of their mountains. The expedition of Severus made it certain that the Highland tribes could never be finally subdued. The old emperor was holding his court at Rome, when letters were received from York, announcing that the army had been driven back upon the fortresses, and that the barbarians were ravaging the land. Severus seems to have been weary of the splendor and corruption by which his despotism was maintained ; and, determined to lead the campaign himself, he transferred his court to York, and massed the army upon the frontier. The res- toration of the province was followed by a further ad- vance, which ended in a costly failure. The plan of inva- sion was unsuited to the nature of the country. The estuaries were bridged, and roads were driven through the fens, but still, as the troops pushed their way, the enemy retreated to more distant places of refuge, and, before a precarious peace could be arranged, it was esti- mated that 50,000 men had perished in the never-ending ambuscades and skirmishes, or had died of cold and dis- ease. Before two years had passed the war broke out again, and Severus vainly threatened to extirpate every tribe in the hills. He died, and his death is said to have been hastened by omens of approaching ruin. After his death he was deified ; and his sons Caracalla and Geta admitted the Caledonians to easy terms of peace. The province remained secure till Britain obtained a short- lived independence, " by carelessness or by some stroke of Fate," according to the Roman story, but in truth by the courage and wisdom of an obscure Batavian adven- turer. A new danger had arisen from the pirate fleets of the Franks, who infested the British seas, and had even found their way to the coasts of Spain and Africa. Ca- rausius the Menapian, the commander of the Imperial navy, was suspected of encouraging the pirates in order to have a share in their booty, and his only chance of life was a successful rebellion in Britain. Here he proclaimed himself emperor in A. D. 288, and ruled the island peacefully until, in the seventh year of his reign, he was murdered by his minister Allectus. The scanty gar- rison was reinforced by volunteers from Gaul and a large force of Franks, who served as legionaries in the new AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. A y army, and as sailors on the ships of war. The usurpation was condoned, though the insult could never be forgiven ; and the Menapian was accepted as a partner in the em- pire by Diocletian and Maximian, whose origin was as humble as his own, though they assumed to rule the world by the wisdom of Jupiter and in the strength of Hercules. The Franks were fast arriving at complete dominion in Britain, when Constantius broke their power by a de- cisive battle, in which Allectus himself was killed. The Roman fleet had successfully blockaded Boulogne, the outpost and stronghold of the insular power, and the friends of Allectus were weakened by an attack on their settlements near the Rhine. An army of invasion was landed under cover of a fog at a point west of the Isle of Wight, where the British galleys were stationed. It is difficult to extract the truth from the rhapsodies of the courtly chronicler ; but we may believe that Allectus ad- vanced too rashly, and with too implicit a confidence in his German followers. It was said that hardly a Roman fell, while all the hillsides were covered with the bodies of the Franks, who might be recognized by their tight clothes and broad belts, and by their fashion of shaving the face, and of wearing their reddened hair in a mass pushed forward on the forehead. 1 The imperial forces at once pushed on to London, where a remnant of the Franks was defeated. " The city," in the words of its historian, " seemeth not to have been walled in A. d. 296, because, when Allectus the Tyrant was slaine in the field, the Franks easily entered London, and had sacked the same, had not God of his great favour at the very instant brought along the River of Thames certain bands of Romane souldiers, who slew those Franks in every street of the City." 2 In Diocletian's new scheme of government the world was to be governed by two emperors, administering the 1 Eumenius, Paneg. Constant., 15, 16, 17. Compare the description of the Franks in the letters and poems of Sidonius Apollinaris. " Ipse medius inces- sit, flammeus cocco, rutihis auro, lacteus serico : turn cultui tanto coma rubore cute concolor." — Epist., iv, 7. " RutiU quibus arce cerebri Ad frontem coma tracta jacet, nudataque cervix Setarum per damna nitet, turn lumine glauco Albet aquosa acies, ac vultibus undique rasis Pro barbS tenues perarantur pectine cristae." — Carm., vii, 238, 242. 8 Stow's Survey of London (1619), 6. 48 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Eastern and the Italian provinces, while the frontiers were guarded by two associated " Cassars," the one governing on the Danube, and the other in the united regions of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The dominion of the West was assigned to Constantius, first as "Caesar" and then as " Augustus," after the retirement of Diocletian. Con- stantius resided at York, and is said to have been success- ful in war with the Picts and Scots ; but he is chiefly re- membered as father of Constantine the Great, and as hus- band of that pious Helena, whose legend takes so many shapes in the fabulous chronicles of Wales. Constantius died in the year A. D. 306, soon after the Caledonian war, and Constantine the Great was at once chosen by the sol- diers to succeed him in the sovereignty of the West, though the dignity was legally confirmed only in the fol- lowing year. It is believed that his election was chiefly due to the friendly zeal of a German king, who had brought his army to Britain to assist in the northern cam- paign. 1 The scheme of government which Diocletian had de- signed was in some respects amended by Constantine. Britain formed part of a vast proconsulate, extending from Mount Atlas to the Caledonian deserts, and gov- erned by the Gallic Prefect, through- a vicar or deputy at York. The island was divided into five new provinces, without regard to the ancient boundaries. 2 To each was assigned a governor experienced in law, who dealt with taxation and finance. The army was under the general jurisdiction of the two masters of the cavalry and infantry, who directed the forces of the Empire of the West. But so far as Britain was concerned, it was under the orders of the " Count of Britain," assisted by two important, though subordinate officers. The " Count of Britain " 1 This chieftain was called " Crocus," a name which probably meant " the Crow'' ; it may be compared to that of " Rolf Krake." " Cunctis qui aderant annitentibus sed prsecipue Croco Alamannorum rege, auxilii gratia Constantium comitato, imperium capit." — Victor, Jun., u. 41. " This," says Gibbon, " is per- haps the first instance of a barbarian king who assisted the Roman arms with an independent body of his own subjects. The practice grew familiar, and at last became fatal." Valentinian in the same way engaged the services of " King Fraomar." — Ammian. Marcell., xxix, 4. 2 The names of the provinces appear in the Notitia. They were distin- guished as Britannia Prima and Secunda ; Flavia Ccesariensis ; Maxima Casa- riensis ; and Valentia. The last was between the walls of Hadrian and Anto- ninus ; the situation of the rest is unknown, though it is believed that Britannia Prima was the southeastern province, and Maxima the district between the Wash and Hadrian's wall. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 4g commanded in the north, while the " Count of the Saxon Shore " held the government of the " maritime tract," and provided for the defence of the fortresses which lined the southeastern coast. 1 The completion of this system of defense, and the es- tablishment of the Diocletian constitution, cost the Brit- ish provinces as much in freedom and importance as they seemed to gain in security. The country suffered in many different ways. It had come to be a mere department under the Court of Treves — one of several Atlantic re- gions which were regarded as having the same political interests and a common stock of resources. The de- fences of Britain were sacrificed to some sudden call for soldiers in Spain and on the Alpine passes, and the shrunken legions left behind could barely man the for- tresses upon the frontier. The provinces which might have stood safely by their own resources were becoming involved in a general bankruptcy. The troops were ill- paid and were plundered by their commanders, the labor- ers had sunk into serfdom, and the property of the rich was so heavily charged by the State that the owners would have gladly escaped by resigning their apparent wealth. The burdens of taxation were constantly multi- plied by the complexity of the system of government, and the increase of departments and offices. The visit of the Imperial tax-gatherers was compared to the horrors of a successful assault in war. A writer of that time describes the scene in a provincial town, where every head of cattle in the neighborhood had been numbered and marked for a tax. All the population of the district was assembled, and the place was crowded with the land-owners, bring- ing in their laborers and slaves. " One heard nothing but the sound of flogging and all kinds of torture ; the son was forced to inform against his father ; the wife against her husband ; failing everything else, the men were com- pelled to give evidence against themselves, and were taxed according to the confessions which they made to escape from torments." 8 These evils pressed upon the world from the age of Constantine until the empire was finally dismembered and the general ruin completed, of which they were a princi- 1 Litus Saxonum per Britannias. There was another " Saxon Shore " on the opposite coast, with its headquarters at Boulogne. ' Lactantius, De Mort. Persecut., 23. — Compare this statement with the description of the Roman regime in Gaul about the same period, page 473. 50 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE pal cause. The history of Britain during this period, so far as it can properly be said to have had a history at all, is concerned with the establishment of the Christian Church, by which the general misery was alleviated ; with several attempts at separating the three Atlantic countries from the crumbling Empire of the West ; and finally with the growth of the barbarian kingdoms, by which all those countries were overwhelmed in turn. Christianity was not recognized as the religion of the State until the proclamation in the year A. D. 324, by which Constantine exhorted his subjects to follow their emperor's example in abandoning the errors of paganism ; but it had been tolerated, with few intermissions, from the time when Hadrian had found a kindly excuse for the Christians by classing them with the worshipers of his favorite Serapis. 1 The persecution of Diocletian had hardly extended to Britain, where Caesar Constantius had protected the Christians, though he could not prevent the destruction of their sacred buildings. But Druidism was doomed, and in the main absorbed by the old Latin relig- ion, which itself had long ceased to satisfy the minds of educated men, though its visible emblems were respected until the destruction of the temples, under Theodosius, at the end of the fourth century. By that time the Roman population of Britain, soldiers and colonists, included for- eigners from almost all parts of the then known world, and the temples, altars, and images were used indifferent- ly by worshipers of all kinds, and under the various creeds which they had brought with them from their na- tive countries. 2 Many of the outward forms, and even some of the doctrines of Christianity, were imitated by the pantheistic religions which spread from Egypt and the East, and overlaid the old rites of Isis and Osiris, 3 or 1 Mi qui Serapim colunt Christiani sunt ; et devoti sunt Serapi qui se Christi episcopos dicunt. — Vopiscus, Ad Saturnin., u. 8. For the nature of the worship of Serapis, see Tac., Hist., iv, 83 ; and Apuleius, Metamorph., xi, 27, 28. He was regarded as the " Deus Pantheus," the spirit of the universe mani- fested in countless forms, and was identified, as the convenience of worshipers required, with several of the older gods. The Egyptian Isis, the goddess of nature, was usually worshiped with Serapis in the same temple. 2 For a list of Roman temples, of which the remains have been found in England, see Htibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr., vii, 332. Many of the epithets used on British inscriptions are of unknown origin, but they appear, in general, to refer to the native country of the worshiper. 8 The religion of Isis, though deformed by archaic " mysteries," was gradu- ally developed into an elevated form of nature-worship. The goddess was at one time regarded as the spirit of the ether through which the sun proceeds, and so by a natural transition she became the companion of Osiris, the hidden AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 51 of Mithras, " the unconquered lord of ages," who was re- vered as the illuminator of all darkness, and as the media- tor and the friend of man. We learn from sculptured tablets, and from inscriptions and symbols on tombs, that Mithraism l at one time prevailed extensively in Britain ; and its influence was doubtless strengthened by the arti- fice of its professors in imitating the Christian sacraments and festivals, but its authority was destroyed, or confined to the country districts, where the pagan rites were finally forbidden by law. 2 After the year 386 we find records of an established Christian Church in Britain, "holding the Catholic faith and keeping up an inter- course with Rome and Palestine." 3 As early even as the middle of the fourth century the British provinces were persistently attacked by sea and land. The Picts and Scots, and the warlike nations of the Attacotti, from whom the empire was accustomed to recruit its choicest soldiers, 4 the fleets of Irish pirates and nocturnal sun, and reigned like Proserpina, in the world of the dead. After the second century she united in herself the attributes of all the god- desses, and became the representative of Nature. See the hymns preserved by Apuleius : " Te superi colunt, observant inferi, tu rotas orbem, luminas solem, regis mundum, calcas Tartaram : tibi respondent sidera, redeunt tempora, gau- dent numina, serviunt elementa : tuo nutu spirant fiamina, nutriunt nubila, germinant semina, crescunt gramina," etc. — Apul., Metamorph., xi, 5, 30. As to the worship of Osiris, " summorum maximus et maximorum regnator," see the same work, xi, 30, and the Dialogue of Hertnes Trismegisius, by the same author. — Apul., Asclep., 41. 1 Mithraism, from Mithra, " the sun," in the ancient mythology of the Parsees, or fire-worshipers. Mithraism came from the Persians to the Egyp- tians, and from them to the Greeks. It was introduced into Italy in the year of Rome 637, and was then at its height during the reign of Commodus. After being suppressed in Italy in A. D, 391, it made its way into Gaul, and from there into Britain, where it has left many traces of its existence, mixed up with those of early Christianity. * In an account of the spread of Mithraism in Britain and the inscriptions to Sol Socius, Sol Invictus Mithras, and the like, and of the Mithraic caves and sculptures found near Hadrian's wall, see Welbeloved, Eburacum, 79, 81. St. Jerome describes the destruction of a cave of Mithras at Rome in the year 378, with the symbols used in initiation — Opera, i, 15. 8 Haddan, Councils, i, 10. " The statements respecting British Christians at Rome or in Britain, and respecting apostles or apostolic men _ preaching in Britain in the first century, rest upon guess, mistake, or fable." — Ibid., i, 22. The evidence for British Christianity in the second century, including the Let- ter of Pope Eleutherius and the well-known story of King Lucius, is also pro- nounced to be unhistorical— Ibid., p. 25. Mello, a British Christian, was Bishop of Rouen between the years 256 and 314, and in the latter year bishops from York, London, and Caerleon were present at the Council of Aries. In 1 the year 325 the British Church assented to the conclusions of the Council of Nicjea.— Ibid., p. 7. 4 The Notitia Imperii mentions several regiments of Attacotti serving for the most part in Gaul and Spain. Two of their regiments were enrolled 52 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE in the north, the Franks and Saxons on the southern shores, combined forces, whenever a chance presented itself, to burn and devastate the country, to cut off an out- lying garrison, to carry off women and children like cattle captured in a foray, 1 and to offer the bodies of Roman citizens as sacrifices to their blood-thirsty gods. The Sax- ons especially were dreaded for their sudden and well- calculated assaults. They swept the coast like creatures of the storm, choosing the worst weather and the most dangerous shores as inviting them to the easiest attack. Their ships, when dispersed by the Roman galleys, were re-assembled at some point left undefended, and they be- fan to plunder again ; and they were taught by their erce superstition to secure a safe return by immolating every tenth captive in honor of the gods of the sea. 2 In the year 368 the Court at TrSves was startled by the news that the Duke of Britain had perished in a fron- tier ambuscade, and that the Count Nectaridus had been defeated and slain in a battle on the Saxon shore. The Picts, the Attacotti and the Scots had broken through the walls and were devastating the northern provinces ; the coasts nearest to Gaul were attacked by the Franks, and their neighbors the Saxons, who were ravaging the south with fire and sword. 8 Theodosius, the best general of the empire, was sent across the channel with two picked legions and a great force of German auxiliaries. On ap- proaching London, the old town, then known as "the Augustan City," he divided his army to attack the scat- tered troops of marauders, who were covering the coun- among the " Honorians," the most distinguished troops in the Imperial armies. Though their country is not certainly known, it seems probable that they in- habited the wilder parts of Galloway. Orosius, speaking of the time of Stilicho, about A. D. 400, calls them " barbari qui quondam in foedus recepti atque in militiam adlecti Honoriaci vocantur." — Oros., vii, 40. 1 In the work of destruction no rank, age, or sex was spared. Children were butchered before the faces of their parents, husbands in sight of their wives, and wives in sight of their husbands. Noble women and girls were carried away with other plunder, bound by ropes and thongs, and goaded along with the points of spears and lances. The barbarous Picts dragged away their captives without mercy into their own country, either retaining them as slaves or selling them like cattle to the other savages. — Ric. Hagustald, Hexam Chron., 318. 8 Mos est remeaturis decimum quemque captorum per aequales et cruciarias pcenas, plus ob hoc tristi quam superstitioso ritu, necare. — Sidon. Apollin., viii, 3. 3 Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et Saxones iisdem confines, quo quisque erumpere potuit terrl vel mari, prsedis acerbis incendiisque et captivorum fune- ribus hominum violabant. — Ammian. Marcell., xxvii. 8. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 53 try and driving off their captives and stolen cattle to the coast. The spoil was successfully recovered, and the general entered London in triumph. There he awaited reinforcements, finding, by the reports of spies and de- serters, that he had before him the forces of a crowd of savage nations, and being anxious to gain time for recall- ing the soldiers who had deserted to the enemy or had dispersed in search of food. At last, by threats and per- suasions, by stratagems and unforseen attacks, he not only recovered the lost army and dispersed the confused mass- es of the enemy, but even succeeded in regaining all the frontier districts, and in restoring the whole machinery of government. 1 A few years afterward occurred the revolt of Maxi- mus, a Spaniard who had served under Theodosius, and had afterward gained the affection of the turbulent sol- diery in Britain. The Emperor Gratian had exhibited an undue liking for the Alani, his barbarian allies, and it was feared, or alleged, that there was danger of their occupying the western provinces. Maximus, who proba- bly had started the rumor himself, seized the opportunity, and, having himself proclaimed emperor in Britain, in A. D. 383, he proceeded to justify the soldiers' choice by a splendid and successful campaign against the Picts and Scots. In the course of the next year he raised a large army of Britons and Gauls to supplement his regular forces, and, passing over to the mouth of the Rhine, he succeeded in establishing himself at Treves, and was eventually acknowledged as Emperor of the West. The career of Maximus seems to have deeply impressed the Britons, whose poets were never tired of telling how he married a British lady, and how, when he was slain, " at the foaming waters of the Save, his soldiers settled in Gaul, and founded a Lesser Brittany across the sea." The Britons of a later age found consolation even in thinking that the defeat of Maximus, and the loss of the army which he had led from their shores, were the proxi- mate causes of the English conquest. 8 It is probable enough that the drain of the continental war was a cause of weakness to the province, and an inducement to the 1 Zosimus, iv, 35. s Hi sunt Britones Armorici et nunquam reversi sunt ad proprium solum usque in hodiemum diem. Propter hoc Britannia occupata est ab extraneis gentibus, et cives ejus expulsi sunt, usque dum Dominus auxilium dederit illis. — Nennius, Hist, Brit., 23 ; Gildas, Hist., 14. 54 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE barbarians to renew their attempts at conquest. Certain it is, that at least on two occasions, fixed with reasonable accuracy as the years 396 and 400, the coasts were again attacked by the Saxons, and that the country near Hadri- an's Wall was occupied and ravaged by the Scots and Picts until their power was broken by the sword of Stilicho. 1 The independence of Britain was a consequence of the invasion of Northern Gaul by the Vandals. Commu- nication with the body of the empire was cut off by a horde of these rude warriors, associated with Suevi from the German forests and Alani from the shores of the Euxine. The army determined to choose their own lead- er, and in the year 407 they raised a private soldier named Constantine to the throne of the western empire. His success in recovering Gaul and Spain compelled the feeble Court of Ravenna to confirm the usurper's title; but a period of anarchy followed which brought new dangers upon Britain, and caused its final separation from the Roman power. Gerontius, at first the friend and after- ward the destroyer of Constantine, recalled the barbarian hosts which had retreated beyond the Rhine, and invited them to cross the channel and to join in attacking the de- fenceless government of Britain. 8 The " Cities of Brit- ain," assuming in the stress of danger the powers of inde- pendent communities, succeeded in raising an army and repelling the German invasion. Then, having earned safety for themselves, they refused to return to their old subjection, if any obedience could indeed be claimed by the defeated usurper, or by an emperor reigning in exile. The Roman officials were ejected, and native forms of government established. • Honorius was content to cede what he was unable to defend, and to confirm meas- ures which he was impotent to repeal. The final dis- missal of the province took place in a. d. 410, when the emperor sent letters to the cities, relieving them from any further allegiance, and bidding them provide in future for their own defence. Thus ended Roman rule in Britain, after four cen- turies of tyranny and oppression, leaving the country utterly ruined and in the most helpless condition. When the island was proclaimed part of the Roman Empire, the diffusion of the Latin language among the na- 1 Claudian, Tert. Cons. Hon., 55, cf. Prim. Cons. Stilichon., ii, 250. s Zosimus, vi, 5, 6, 10. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 55 tive population was there, as everywhere else, one of the first means employed by the conquerors to rivet their dominion. Agricola, having spent the first year of his administration in establishing order and tranquillity, did not allow another winter to pass without beginning the work of training up the national mind to a Roman charac- ter. Tacitus informs us that he took measures for having the sons of the chiefs educated in the liberal arts, exciting them to exertion, as we have seen, by professing to pre- fer the natural genius of the Britons to the studied ac- quirements of the Gauls ; x the effect of which was that those who lately had disdained to use the Roman tongue now became ambitious to know it well. In later times, no doubt, schools were established and maintained in all the principal towns of Roman Britain, as they were throughout the empire, though not on such an extensive scale as in Gaul, where, during the same period, many schools of the highest character were flourishing in all parts of the country. 2 In Britain, on the contrary, not only is there no mention made by contemporary authors of the existence of any such schools whatsoever, but it even appears that the older schools of Gaul were resorted to by the Britons who pursued the study of the law. Ju- venal, who lived at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century, speaks in one of his satires of " elo- quent Gaul instructing the pleaders of Britain." 8 It is noticeable,- also, that while the names of many natives of Gaul appear favorably in connection with the last age of Roman literature, no British name of any literary reputa- tion is found mentioned anywhere during the same period, if we except one Sylvius Bonus, referred to rather slight- ingly by the poet Ausonius, who flourished in the fourth century ; but of his works, or even of their titles or sub- jects, we know nothing. Still, four hundred years of Ro- man occupation must have left their mark among the people. Workmen, contractors, tradespeople, and all those whose interest it was to draw custom, must have spoken both Latin and Celtic, and in official transactions the use of the former was of course imperative. We know, moreover, that Cunobelin, one of the British chiefs 1 Jam vero principum filios liberalibus artibas erudire et ingenia Britanno- rnm studiis GaUorum antiferre, ut, qui modo linguam Roraanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent. — Tacitus, Agric, ii. 8 See page 462. 8 Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos. — Juvenal, Sat, xv, 3. 56 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE who lived in the reigns of the emperors Tiberius and Caligula, erected different mints in the island, and coined money of gold, silver, and copper, inscribed with Roman characters. The British coins in general, when bearing inscriptions, are invariably found stamped with Roman capitals. Numerous monumental and other inscriptions likewise sufficiently attest the prevailing usage for such purposes of the old Roman characters ; and as many rude stones of the earlier centuries, thus inscribed and still found in Wales, are in a Latin base enough to be attrib- uted to illiterate stone-masons, we may infer that, if the speaking of Latin was not as universal in Britain as it was in Gaul during the same period, a certain knowledge of that language must have been diffused throughout the entire nation, as it certainly was among the educated in the larger cities. Many Latin words, moreover, though changed considerably by British orthography and mis- pronunciation, may yet be traced in the Cambrian dia- lect, as for instance : ather, from aer, air ; airm, from arma, arms ; fear, from vir, man ; capat, from caput, head ; cam, from caro, flesh ; bo, from bos, ox ; aicheal, from aquila, eagle — all words of popular use, and with the same mean- ing as in Latin, and which, therefore, since the Welsh were never distinguished for any high literary culture, may be referred more probably to the Roman occupa- tion of Britain than to any subsequent studies of its in- habitants. Still, inasmuch as but few Celtic words have found their way into the English vocabulary, it is doubt- ful whether any Latin word in modern English is trace- able to that remote period. This will appear more clear- ly from the following chapter, in which the Celtic influ- ence upon the English mind, language, and vocabulary, will be more especially considered. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. tj CHAPTER III. THE EXGLISH CONQUEST. A FEW years proved the vanity of the success which the Britons had gained over the Romans, and extin- guished forever their hopes or dreams of freedom. After the retreat of the legions they organized anew under their ancient chiefs of tribes, and created the office of Chief of Chiefs, exercising a central and royal authority, as their annals declare, and they made the office elective. This new institution, destined in all appearance to give to the people greater union and strength against foreign aggres- sion, became, on the contrary, a source of internal divis- ion, of weakness, and eventually of servile subjection. Of the two great populations who shared the southern part of the island, each pretended to have an exclusive right to furnish candidates for the royal dignity ; but as the seat of this central monarchy was the old municipal town of London, it resulted that men of the Gaulish race at- tained more easily than others the supreme rank of Chief of Chiefs. The Cambrians, jealous of this advantage, as- serted that the royal authority lawfully belonged to their race, as being the most ancient, and having originally re- ceived the others hospitably on the British shores. Hence arose a serious dispute, which soon became a deadly one, and plunged all Britain into a civil war, by quarrels of precedence and rivalry. Under a succession of chiefs, styled national, but always disowned by a part of the na- tion, no army was raised, and nothing was done to guard the frontiers against the aggressions that threatened the country on all sides. In the midst of this disorder, the Picts and Scots again forced the passage of the walls, and new fleets from Ire- land were ravaging the Cambrian shores, while the entire eastern coast was infested by the German corsairs, whose raids became even more frequent and more daring. Many foreign tribes, settled in the country, and always hostile to either branch of the British population, fomented their 6 58 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE dissensions, and secretly sided with the enemy against the natives. Several British tribes made great efforts separately, and fought some successful battles against the German and Gaelic aggressors. On one occasion some British Christians obtained a signal victory under the lead of St. Germanus, who visited the island as a missionary in a. D. 429, in company of St. Lupus of Troyes. The two bishops had been sent to Verulam to promote the Chris- tian interests, and during the spring of the following year the missionaries continued their labors in the valley of the Dee. The country around was infested with Picts and Scots, and it was feared that they would storm the camps where the British forces were concentrated. The bishops of Gaul had been chosen for their political as well as for their religious capacities ; and Germanus, accus- tomed to war, was easily persuaded to help his converts 'against the heathen. Easter Sunday was spent in baptiz- ing a small army of converts ; then the orthodox soldiers were posted in an ambuscade, and the pagans fled panic- stricken at the triple " halleluia," which suddenly echoed among the hills. 1 Other British successes are recorded as due to the aid of Roman troops who, under the leader- ship of Ambrosius Aurelius, came over from Gaul at the solicitation of some of the tribes on the southern coast, who were still in frequent communication with the conti- nent. But the time soon arrived when the Romans them- selves, pressed on all sides by the invasions of the barba- rians, had to fall back upon Italy, leaving the Britons defenceless, and without hope for further assistance from any foreign source. 2 At this time the dignity of Supreme Chief of Britain was in the hands of a man of the Gaulish race, named Guorteyrn, 8 who repeatedly assembled around him all the chiefs of the British tribes, for the purpose of taking con- certed measures for the defence of the country against 1 Constantius, Vita Germani, 28 ; Sidonius Apoll., Epist., vi, 1 ; Bede, Hist. Eccles., i, 20. Pope Gregory alludes to the battle in his Commentary on Job, " Ecce ! lingua Britannia: .... coepit alleluia sonare." 1 Malmesbury's account of the defenceless state of Britain was probably not exaggerated. He says : Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris prseter semibarbaros, nullum in urbibus prater ventri deditos reliquissent, Britannia omni patrocinio iuvenilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita, conterminarum gen- tium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit. — Gest. Reg., lib. I, § 2. a Gwrtevyrn, according to Cambrian orthography. The Anglo-Saxon his- tomans write Wyrtgeorne and Wyrtgerne, which, from their manner of pronounc- ing .the name, probably produced about the same sound. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 59 the constantly increasing invasions ; but it seems that very little harmony prevailed in these councils, for the men of the west scarcely ever approved what the Gaulish chiefs proposed. At last Guorteyrn, in virtue of his royal pre- eminence, and by the advice of several Gaulish chiefs, but without the consent of the Cambrians, resolved to en- gage a number of foreign soldiers who, for subsidies in money and grants of land, should in the British service wage war against the Scots and Picts— a measure which its opponents stigmatized as an act of cowardice, and which, as events showed afterward, contained in germ all the calamities which befell the Celtic race in Britain. Of the conquest itself, no accurate narrative remains. The version which is usually received is full of fable and frequent contradiction, and based in part on the state- ments in the histories of Gildas and Nennius, and in part upon chronicles which seem to owe much more to lost heroic poems, in which the exploits of the Saxon chief- tains are celebrated, than to any accurate and regular en- tries made of facts and dates by contemporary writers. The Welsh poems throw little light on the matter. The bards were for the most part content to trace the dim outlines of disaster, and to indicate by an allusion the issue of a fatal battle or the end of some celebrated warrior. The poems of the sixth century, at any rate in the form in which they have descended to our times, are too vague and obscure to be useful for the purposes of history. Nor are the British historians themselves more explicit. The collection of Welsh and Anglian legends which is attributed to one Nennius contains a few important facts about Northumbria, mixed up in confusion with genealo- gies, and miracles, and fragments of romance. Here, too, we get the list of the twelve battles of Arthur, with their Welsh names, " which were many hundred years ago unknown ; but who Arthur was," to use Milton's words, "and whether any such reigned in Britain, hath been doubted heretofore, and may again with good reason." Milton calls him " a very trivial writer, .... utterly unknown to the world till more than six hundred years after the days of Arthur." 1 Nennius, abbot of Bangor, 1 For an account of Arthur, see Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales. " Hie est Arthur de quo Britonum nugse hodieque delirant ; dignus plane quem non fallaces somniarent fabulae, sed veraces prasdicarent historic." — Will. Malmesb., Gesta., i, 8. The existence of this hero is now admitted, though the scene of his doubtful exploits is variously laid at Caerleon, in the Vale of Som- 60 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE was once believed to have flourished about the beginning of the seventh century, but from internal evidence as re- gards errors in names of poems and places, it is now doubted whether any such person ever really existed at all, and whether the book which bears his name, Historic/. Britonum, is not the work of some anonymous writer of the twelfth century. At any rate, his account of the con- quest differs in many particulars from that of other Brit- ish writers, especially in reference to the early parts of the struggle. Hengist and Horsa and their men, who happened to be in Britain when Guorteyrn resolved to en- gage foreign auxiliaries, he says, were exiles, 1 who first Fought bravely for the Britons and afterward took sides against them. " In those days," so his legend runs, " Vor- timer fought fiercely with Hengist and Horsa, and drove them out as far as Thanet ; and there three times he shut them in, and terrified, and smote, and slew. But they sent messengers to Germany to call for ships and soldiers, and afterward they fought with our kings, and sometimes they prevailed and enlarged their bounds, and sometimes they were beaten and driven away. And Vortimer four times waged on them fierce wars ; the first, as was told above; and the second, at the stream of Derwent; and the third, at a ferry which the Saxons called Epis-ford, where Horsa and Catigern fell. The fourth war he waged in the plain by the Written Stone on the Gaulish sea, and there he gained a victory, and the barbarians were beat- en, and they turned and fled, and went like women into their ships. ' 2 In repeating the story from the English side, and quot- ing as far as possible the actual words of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, beginning with the year 449, in which the con- quest of Kent, according to their reckoning, commenced, we will find that they differ from the above statement in almost every essential particular. The leaders, according to the latter, having landed at " Ypwine's-Fleet," at first gave aid to the British king ; " but after six years they fought with him at a place called '^gil's-Threp,' and there Horsa was slain, and Hengist and his son 'Ash' erset, in the Lowlands of Scotland, and in the Cumbrian Hills ; it seems to be true that he engaged in a war with the Princes of the Angles in Northumbria ; but his glory is due to the Breton romances, which were amplified in Wales and afterward adopted at the Court of the Plantagenets as the foundation of the epic of chivalry. 1 Nennius, Hist. Brit., 28. ' Nennius, Hist. Brit, 43, 44. • AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6 1 took the kingdom ; and after two years they fought against the Britons at a place called ' Crecgan-Ford,' and there slew four thousand men ; and the Britons then for- sook Kent-land and in mighty-terror fled to London- Burgh." J The last battle is described by Henry of Hun- tingdon in language which seems to have been taken from some heroic poem of which the original no longer exists. " When the Britons went into the war-play they could not bear up against the unwonted numbers of the Saxons, for more of them had lately come over, and these were chosen men, and they horribly gashed the bodies of the Britons with axes and broadswords." 2 " And about eight years afterward Hengist and ' Ash ' fought against the Welsh near Wipped's-Fleet, and there they slew twelve princes ; and one of their own thanes was slain, whose name was Wipped. And after eight years were fulfilled, Hengist and ' Ash ' fought again with the Welsh, and took unnumbered spoil ; and the Welsh fled from the English as from fire. And after fifteen years ' Ash ' came to the kingdom, and for twenty-four years he was king of the Kentish men." s The commentators have sought in vain to harmonize these conflicting legends. Ebbesfleet, in Thanet, is usual- ly identified with the landing-place, and the sites of the two principal battles are placed at Aylesford and Cray- ford on the Med way. But the matter abounds in difficul- ties, and from neither of these documents is it possible to reach any satisfactory conclusion concerning the early days of the conquest. Gildas is a more important witness. He was a British ecclesiastic, born in the town of Alcluyd, now Dumbarton, as he states himself, in the year of the pugna Badonica, or " Siege of Mount Badon," which a chronological table, called Annates Cambrenses, places in the year 526. Refer- ring to this siege as having taken place forty-four years before he was writing, his history dates from over a cent- ury after the supposed landing of Hengist. Like his brother, the famous bard Aneurin — if Aneurin was his brother, for one theory is that Aneurin and Gildas were the same person — he commenced his career as a bard, or composer of poetry, in his native language. He was eventually converted to Christianity, and became a zeal- 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ann., 449, 455, 457. s Henr. Huntingd., ii, 4. ' A. S. Chron., Ann., 465, 473. 62 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE cms preacher of his new religion. Gildas is the author of two declamatory effusions, the one commonly known as his history, De Excidio Britannia Liber Querulus ; the other, De Excidio Britannia et Britonum Exulatione. They both consist principally of violent invectives directed against his own countrymen, not less than against their continental invaders and conquerors, and throw but little light upon the obscure period to which they relate. He was one of those who eventually retired to Brittany, where he died. He is said to lie buried in the cathedral of Vannes. As this author wrote in the middle of the sixth cent- ury, he may be taken as representing the opinions of men who might themselves have taken part in the war. But he himself made no pretence to anything like histori- cal accuracy. " If there were any records of my coun- try," he said, " they were burned in the fires of the con- quest, or carried away on the ships of the exiles, so that I can only follow the dark and fragmentary tale that was told me beyond the sea." No lamentation was ever keen- er in note, or more obscure in its story, than the book in which he recounted " the victory and crimes of Britain, the coming of a last enemy more dreadful than the first, the destruction of the cities, and the fortunes of the rem- nant that escaped." His work can hardly be considered a history, but seems to be rather intended for a dramatic description of an episode in the history of Cumbria. The drama begins in the year 450, when the Emperor Marcian reigned in the east and Valentinian the Third in the west. " The time was approaching when the iniquity of Britain should be fulfilled ; the rumor flew among the people that their old invaders were preparing a final assault ; a pestilence brooded over the land, and left more dead than the living could bury," and the complaint is swollen by invectives against the stubbornness of the rulers and the brutishness of the princes. We are brought to the cham- ber of Gwrtevyrn and his nobles, debating what means of escape might be found. " Then the eyes of the proud king and of all his councilors were darkened, and this help, or this death-blow they devised, to let into our island the foes of God and man, the fierce Saxons, whose name is accursed, as it were a wolf into the sheep-cotes, to beat off the nations of the north." 1 1 Gildas, Hist., 4. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 63 The men came over, he says, in three " keels," loaded with arms and stores. Their first success in driving out the Scots and Picts was followed by the engagement of a larger force of mercenaries; but a quarrel soon arose about their pay, which grew into a general mutiny. Their allowance, he adds, was found for a long time, and so " the dog's mouth was stopped " — citing the native proverb ; " but afterward they picked a quarrel, and threatened to plunder the island unless a greater liberal- ity was shown." The historian denounces them in a mys- tical and fervid strain : they are " young lions," wasting the land, and " whelps from the lair of the German lion- ess " ; and their settlement' in Northumbria is described, in the words of the prophet, as the wild vine, that " brought forth branches and shot forth sprigs," the root of bitterness and the plant of iniquity. The enemy is next likened to a consuming fire, as he burst from his new home in the east and ravaged the island as far as the Western Sea; and the chronicler describes, with a horrible minuteness, the sack of some Cumbrian city, and the destruction of the faithful found therein. " And some of the miserable remnant were caught on the hills and slaughtered, and others were worn out with hunger, and yielded to a lifelong slavery. Some passed across the sea with lamentations instead of the sailor's song, chant- ing, as the wind filled their sails, ' Lord ! Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the heathen ' ; but others trusted their lives to the clefts of the mountains, to the forests, and the rocks of the sea, and so abode in their country, though sore afraid." 1 The next original authority for the earlier portion of English history is Bede, upon whom the epithet of " Ven- erable" has been justly bestowed by the respect and gratitude of posterity. He was born some time between the years 672 and 677, at Yarrow, a village near the mouth of the Tyne, in the country of Durham, and was educated in the neighboring monastery of Wearmouth, 1 The principal migrations to Brittany took place in the years 500 and 513. With the consent of the ancient inhabitants, who acknowledged them as brethren of the same Celtic origin, the new settlers distributed themselves over the whole northern coast, as far as the little river Coesnon, and southward as far as the territory of the city of Veneti, now called Vannes. Many curious documents relating to the Britons of the migration are found in the Appendices to the Histories of Brittany, by Halleguen and Du Courson. See also E. Sou- vestre Les derniers Bretons. 64 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE where he resided, as he himself relates, from the age of seven to that of twelve, during which he applied himself with all diligence, he says, to the meditation of the Script- ures, the observance of the regular discipline, and the daily practice of singing in the church. In his nineteenth year he took deacon's orders, and in his thirtieth he was ordained priest. From this date till his death, in 735, nearly three hundred years after the first Saxon invasion of Britain, he remained in his monastery, giving up his whole time to study and writing. His principal task was the composition of his celebrated Historia Ecclesiastica, a title which prepares us for a great preponderance of the ecclesiastical over the secular history of the country. Bede's own authorities, as we learn from his introduction, were certain of the most learned bishops and abbots of his contemporaries, of whom he sought special informa- tion as to the antiquities of their own establishments. All these facts must be borne in mind when we consider the value of his authority, that is, his means of knowing, as determined by the conditions of time and place. Now, it is from Bede that the current opinions as to the details of the Anglo-Saxon invasion are mainly taken ; especially the threefold divisions into Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, as well as the distribution of these three divisions over the different parts of England. 1 His is the first statement concerning the Saxon invasions which contains the names of either the Angles or the Jutes. Gildas, who wrote more than one hundred and fifty years earlier, mentions only the Saxons. It is also the passage which all subsequent writers and chroniclers have either trans- lated or adopted. It reappears in Alfred, and again in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, thus : Of Iotum comon Cantware 3 From the Jutes came the in- Wihtware • f ys seo ma?i$ $e habitants of Kent and of Wight, nu eardaS on Wiht ■ 3 f cynn that is, the race that now dwells 1 Advenerunt autem de tribus Germanise populis fortioribus, id est Saxoni- bus, Anglis, Jutis. De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuarii, et Victuarii, hoc est ea gens quae Vectam tenet insulam. et ea quae usque hodie in provincia Occidenta- lium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam. De Saxonibus, id est, ea regione quae nunc Antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui Saxones. Porro de An- glis hoc est de ilia patria quae Angulus dicitur, et ab illo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Merci, tota Northanhymbrorum progenies, id est illarum gentium quae ad Boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant, cseterique An- glorum populi sunt orti. — Historia Ecclesiastica, i, 15. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 65 on West-Sexum f e man nu gyt in Wight, and that tribe amongst hat Iutna cyn • of Eald-Seaxon the West Saxons which is yet comon East-Sexa • 3 Su8-Sexa ■ called the Jute tribe. From the 3 West-Sexan. Of Angle comon- Old-Saxons came the East-Sax- se a siSSan stod weste betwyx ons, and South-Saxons, and Iutum 3 Seaxum • East-Engla • West-Saxons. From the An- Midel-Angla- Mearca • ] ealle gles' land (which has since NorShymbra. always stood waste betwixt the Jutes and Saxons) came the East - Angles, Middle - Angles, Mercians, and all the Northum- brians. t Now, the Saxon Chronicle 1 consists of a series of en- tries from the earliest times to the reign of King Stephen, each under its year — the date of the Anglo-Saxon inva- sion being the one usually given as A. D. 449. The value of such a record depends upon the extent to which the chron- ological entries are contemporaneous with the events noticed. When this is the case, the statement is of the highest historical value ; when, however, it is merely taken from some earlier or later authority, or from tra- dition, it loses the character of a register, and becomes merely a series of supposed facts and dates, correct or in- correct, as the case may be. When the Anglo-Saxon really begins to be a contemporaneous register is uncertain ; all we know is, that it is so for the latest, and not so for earlier entries. So, when it speaks of " a tribe among the West-Saxons, which is yet called the Jute tribe," it gives only a sort of contemporary evidence that in the time of Bede, from whose history the passage is copied, there was a people in England known by the name of Jutes ; but that these were the descendants of a Jute tribe, believed to have been among the first invaders, some three hun- dred years previous, and all the time keeping up a distinct nationality among the West-Saxons, is by no means cer- tain. Indeed, the fact is by some greatly doubted. Bede calls them both Jutce and Vita. King Alfred writes Geo- turn; Ethelwerd, Giotos ; and Eotas, Iotas, Iutan, Iotan, and even Ghetes, are the various forms in Anglo-Saxon to denote a class of people supposed to have come from Jut- land. Considering the unsettled state of orthography in those days, all these forms of Jut, J6t, hit, lot, Eot, Giot, 1 Generally cited by Mr. Freeman under the title of the English Chronicles, owing to his repudiation of the term Anglo-Saxon in the place of English. See pages 371-373. and 381-385. 66 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE and even Ghet, Gaut, Geat, Gwit, Wiht, and Vit, 1 are good enough to represent some sound we now would write Jut, and to suggest Jutland as the original home of those peo- ple. But in ancient maps that country is called Noriuthia, and Gautland, Gdtland, Jotland, Reidhgotaland, and Eygdtha- land are the old Scandinavian names by which the coun- try was originally known, 3 until the latter part of the elev- enth century, when we find it called Jutland, and . its in- habitants Jutlias, by Adam of Bremen, in his description of Denmark. 3 In the year 952, the people themselves called the country Vitland; 4 and as late as 1 309 A. D., we find it referred to in a Westphalian document by the name of Vithlandia? Jutes, therefore, as a national name, is rather of com- paratively recent date. In the first century there was a Teutonic tribe on the Danube, known to the Romans as the Iutugi, Juthungi, Vithungi, afterward referred to as Eutii or Eucii by Theodebert on notifying the Emperor Julian of their submission, 6 and again, by Venantius Fortu- natus, as Euthiones, and as enemies of the Franks. 7 Later on they are spoken of as an insignificant tribe, dwelling near the Varini, between the Elbe and the Oder, whence, in course of time, they migrated to the extreme north of the Danish peninsula, where Adam of Bremen found them. As to the etymology of the name, it is undoubt- 1 The permutation of G=V=W is common in almost all languages ; as wages, in French, gages ; warren, garenne ; waffle, gaufte ; war, wer, guerre ; Walter, Gauthier ; Wales, Galles ; William, Guillaume, etc. The nation men- tioned as Varini by Pliny and Tacitus is called Warni by Jornandes ; Cassi- dorus writes Guarni. The permutation of G=J=Y is found in the English yet, the German Jetst, and the Anglo-Saxon get, git, giet, gyt. The J for G is often heard in Berlin among the uneducated. ' ShiiJld redh li'ndum, thar sem nu er kollut DanmBrk, en tha var kallat Gdtland. — Skaldskapatm,' p. 146. That heiter nu Jotland er tha var kallat Reidhgotaland. — Form. Edda., p. 14. 8 Prima quidem pars Danise, quse Jutland dicitur, ab Egdora in boream longitudine portenditur .... in eum angulum, qui Wendila dicitur, ubi Jut- land finem habet. — Adam Bremensis, De Situ Danice, c. 208. Primi ad ostium Baltici sinus in Australi ripa versus nos Dani, quos Juthas appellant, usque at Sliam lacum habitant. — Idem., c. 221. 4 Dania cismarina quam Vitland incola? appellant. — Annates Saxonici, A. D. 952. 8 Westph. Monum. rer. Germ., iii, 362. In old Danish chronicles, Vitland is sometimes called Vithesleth. 8 Subactis cum Saxonibus Euciis, qui se nobis voluntate propria tradiderunt usque in oceani litoribus dominatio nostra porrigitur. — Vgl. S., 375. ' Quem Geta, Wasco tremunt, Danus. Euthio, Saxo, Britannus, Cum patre quos acie te domitasse patet. — Venant. Fortunat, ad Chilperic, c. 580. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6 7 edly a variation of the Gothic root thiuda, tint, diut, mean- ing " men of the nation," which has given the Latin forms, Teutoni, Teutones, Niuthones, on the one hand, and Iuti, Enti, Eut /tones, Euthiones, etc., on the other; and so the name of Teut or Deut, which, with its suffix is/t, sck, ch, has produced the forms Deutsch and Dutch, and which, being after all of remote Celtic origin, could very easily have changed in British mouths into Tatar, 1 and been so recorded in writing in all the various forms in which we afterward find it. That, first used as a term of fear and hatred, it remained in the language to indicate particularly those foreign tribes that occupied Kent and the Isle of Wight, as being more savage and cruel than the rest, is very likely ; "Lord," says a certain litany, "deliver us from the fury of the Jutes " ; but that no trace of any numerous and formidable tribe or league of that name is found in the fourth or fifth century anywhere on the Continent is quite certain. Nicknames, like surnames, have at all times been be- stowed on individuals and parties, sometimes in admira- tion, though more generally from hatred or dislike ; and many men of note, and nations famous in history, have gloried in the end in names that have been thrown at them first in spite or in derision. Nicknames for men and tribes were very common among the early Ger- mans. 8 The names of Franks, Saxons, Langobards, and others, have had no other origin ; and in the same way that of Deutsch or Dutch, pronounced Jutes by the Brit- ons, to designate the early German marauders, may have clung to the first body of invaders, and remained asso- ciated with the terror they inspired. Also nothing is more natural than that the latter should have kept to the original name of Dutch or Deutsch, however mispro- nounced, as a tribal designation, among the many others who came after them ; or that their descendants should be found still, in Bede's time, in Kent and Wight and among the West-Saxons, just as the descendants of the original Dutch settlers in America are still found in par- ticular localities, where they are known from others by their names, their features, their habits, and in many in- stances even by their still speaking their forefathers' lan- 1 Jew for dew, and ajew for adieu, are by no means uncommon mispronun- ciations, even now, among the uneducated. 8 See Kemble's Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Nicknames. — Archjeol. (Winches- ter), 1845. 68 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE guage. That in the time of King Ethelbert the people of Kent spoke Dutch is proved by the fact that Augus- tin, on his mission to England, took with him as inter- preters men from the Salian Franks, who originally came from the Rhenish Netherlands, where the language was the ancient idiom of Holland ; J while a comparison of the Asega-boc, containing the ancient laws of Friesland and North-Holland, with the Kentish laws of Ethelbert and his successors, will further show that the language and the customs of these nations in the sixth and seventh cent- uries was still identical. This is corroborated, moreover, by the vast amount of words which English and Dutch have yet in common, and which was even much greater in the older forms of language ; while, on the other hand, no trace whatsoever of Jutish occupation is found any- where in England, whether as showing a distinct and separate nationality, or in the way of language — a fact which stands in remarkable contrast with the numerous traces which the Saxons, the Angles, and after them the Danes, have left behind as incontestable evidences of their occupancy. Intimately connected with the Jutish legend is that of the great chieftains Hengist and Horsa, which also has elements in it that seem to belong to fiction rather than to history. Thus, when we find them approaching the coasts of Kent in three vessels — exactly the same number in which iElla, some twenty-five years later, effected a landing in Sussex, and in which, forty years later, again, Cerdic came to Wessex — we are strongly reminded of the old Gothic tradition which carries a migration of the three nations, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidas, also in three vessels, to the mouth of the Vistula. Vessels in those days were not very large ; 8 and to think that the crews of Hengist and Horsa's three vessels, after some bloody encounters with the Scots and Picts, in which they must have lost at least a few of their number, were still strong enough to set the whole British nation at defiance, even after the reinforcements referred to by Gildas, would be like believing that the epic poem of 1 See pages 107, 166, 193, 386, and 430-440. ! Chance has preserved for us in a Sleswick peat-bog one of the war-keels of these early seamen. The boat is flat-bottomed, seventy feet long, and eight or nine feet wide, its sides of oak boards, fastened with bark ropes and iron bolts. Fifty oars drove it over the waves with a freight of warriors, whose arms — axes, swords, lances, and knives — were found heaped together. — Lubbock, Prehistoric Times. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 69 Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland had reference to facts that had actually occurred. Bede says he was in- formed that a monument with Horsa's name was standing in the eastern parts of Kent, 1 but where this was, exactly, seems to have been unknown as early as the time of King Alfred, the passage in which reference to such a monu- ment is made by Bede having been even omitted from the English version of his history. Its site being fixed subsequently at Horsted, near Aylesford, seems chiefly due to the grdat cromlech in that neighborhood having been already assigned to Prince Catigern, who, according to Nennius, fell in battle on the same day as Horsa. One point being fixed, it became easy to identify the rest ; and hence the apparent certainty with which localities have been settled for almost all the events in the legends of Hengist and Horsa. It is still, however, exceedingly doubtful whether these champions ever have at all existed. We are told that the evidence for their actual existence is " at least as strong as the suspicion of their mythical character." 8 But it is urged, on the other hand, that the names of "Horse and Mare" 3 are on the face of them symbolical, and should be taken as referring to some banner of the host, some crest or emblem of the tribe, or perhaps to some reverence for the sacred white horses, which the Germans supposed to be " aware of the designs of heav- en." 4 There seems, however, to be no valid reason why a popular captain should not be called " the horse," since we read of others who were nicknamed after the crow, the wolf, and the boar; 5 such names, moreover, being by no means uncommon among our North American In- dians. But there is a stronger objection to the chroni- cler's statements in the fact that Hengist is the hero of such numerous and such divergent traditions. This crafty and valiant prince has left a legend on every coast between Jutland and the Cornish Promontory. All the old stories are fastened on his name. Thus Geoffry of 1 Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et Horsa ; c quibus Horsa, postea occisus in bello a Brittonibus, hactenus in orientalibus Cantise partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne. — Bede, Hist. Eccl., i. 15- V 8 Freeman, Norm. Conquest, 1, 10. * Hengst in Dutch means " stallion " ; in Anglo-Saxon, henges. In the lat- ter language, hors means " a horse, a nag, a steed." 4 Tacitus, Germ., 10. 1 Kemble's Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Nicknames. 7 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Monmouth, who is a Welsh authority, and flourished in the reign of Henry II, relates how " Hengist obtained from the Britons as much land as could be inclosed by an ox-hide; then, cutting the hide into thongs, inclosed a much larger space than the granters intended, on which he erected Thong Castle, and thereby gained a kingdom.., Elsewhere we read of three hundred British chieftains in Kent slain with knives concealed at a banquet, 2 and of a princess, as in the legends of Nennius, exchanged for three provinces by the king and his fur-Clad councilors. Hengist seems to be ubiquitous, and fills all kinds of char- acters. In one story he serves as a legionary in the army of Valentinian the Third ; in another he comes as " the wickedest of pagans," to ravage the coasts of Gaul. 8 In the fragmentary poem which is known as " The Fight at Finnesburg," Hengist leads a band of pirates to burn the palace of the Friesian king ; but in the legends of the Fries- landers themselves he is claimed as the father of their kings, and as the builder of their strongholds on the Rhine. 4 But while all accounts of the early invasions of Brit- ain, by a people coming from Jutland, rest on tradition only, and are all the more open to doubt as they are coupled with legends closely allied to fable, quite differ- ent it is as regards the Saxons and the Angles ; for, though in their case also, we have no contemporary evidence concerning the details of their several invasions of the country, the best of historical evidence of their coming and staying there is in the name and the language of the country itself. Thus, while it will ever be doubt- ful whether there was a people calling themselves Jutes among the first invaders of Britain, it is certain that at 1 Among the old Saxons, the tradition is in reality the same, though re- corded with a slight variety of detail. In their story, a lapfull of earth is pur- chased at a dear rate from a Thuringian ; the companions of the Saxon jeer at him for his imprudent bargain ; but he sows the purchased earth upon a large space of ground, which he claims, and, by the aid of his comrades, ultimately wrests it from the Thuringians. — Kemble, Saxons in England. The legend is found also among the Russians. — Grimm., Deut. Rechtsalt, p. go. 8 The same story is told of the old Saxons in Thuringia, and again in as many words by Widukind, a monk of Corvey in Flanders, who wrote the eccle- siastical history of his monastery. 8 John of Wallingford calls Hengist " omnium paganorum sceleratissimus," and mentions his attacks on the Gaulish coast. — Gale, xv, Script., 533. 4 The Friesian legends treat Hengist as the founder of Leyden and the builder of a temple of " Warns," or Woden at Doccum. Hamcon., Frisia, 33 ; Suffrid. Antiqu., Fris., ii, 11 ; Kemp., Hist. Fris., ii, 21, 22. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ?I ?£? t ime , Saxons and Angles were quite numerous. Whether these, however, formed two distinct nations speaking different languages, or only two branches of the same nationality, with possibly different dialects ; or else whether " Saxon " and " Angle " were merely the names of separate leagues, composed of different tribes, of which there were many such in ancient Germany, either for the better defense of all from the Romans, or in order the more advantageously to assume the offensive against the latter, are questions for whose solution we must look on the Continent itself, before the time the great invasions commenced. As we have seen already, the first landing of Julius Caesar in Britain was caused or justified by the assur- ance that his Gallic enemies recruited their armies, and repaired their losses, by the aid of their British kinsmen and allies, 1 which seems to imply a long and considerable intercourse between the southern and eastern shores of Britain and the western districts of Gaul. When the fort- une of the arms of Rome had prevailed over her ill-dis- ciplined antagonists, and both continent and island were subject to the all-embracing rule, it is highly probable that the most familiar intercourse was resumed and con- tinued to prevail. In the time of Strabo, the products of the island — wheat, cattle, gold, silver, tin, iron, skins, slaves, etc. — were exported by the natives, no doubt prin- cipally to the neighboring coasts ; 2 and as there was such an active intercourse between the Celtic nations on the different sides of the channel, we may well suppose that the piratical tribes on the German ocean were not slow in seizing their opportunities for plunder, both on sea and on the shores. Thus they found their way into the British isles from time immemorial, sometimes in small parties merely for plunder, then again in numbers large enough to get a permanent foothold. As early as the second century, Chauci and Menapii are mentioned among the inhabitants of the southeast coast of Ireland. 3 Long before them, a number of emigrants from Flanders, driven from their continental homes by some great inun- dation, had come over, first imploring hospitality, and 1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., iii, 8, 9 ; iv, 20. 3 Strabo, iii, 177. Much tin is carried across from Britain to the opposite shore of Gaul, and is thence carried on horseback through the midst of the Celtic country to the people of Marseilles, and also to the city of Narbonne. — Diod. Sic, v, 38. * Ptolemy, ii, 2. 72 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE then claiming the right to stay. 1 More numerous were the Coranians, who occupied the present counties of Lin- coln, Leicester, Rutland, Northampton, Nottingham, and Derby, and who, according to the Welsh tradition itself, were Germans. Under Roman rule, the very exigencies of military service had rendered Britain familiar to the nations of the Continent. The Batavi, under their own chieftains, had earned a share of Roman glory there. 2 The policy of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, at the successful close of the Marcomanic war, had transplanted to Britain multi- tudes of Germans, to serve at once as instruments of Ro- man power and as hostages for their countrymen on the frontier of the empire. 8 At a later period, Probus settled Vandals and Burgundians in the island. All these settle- ments can not but have left long and lasting traces of their presence in various parts of the country ; and when Ca- rausius raised the standard of revolt in Britain, A. D. 287, he probably calculated upon the assistance of the Ger- mans in Britain, as well as on that of their allies and brethren on the continent. 4 Nineteen years later, at the death of Constantius, his son Constantine was solemnly elected Caesar in Britain, and among his supporters was Crocus, or Hrocus, 5 an Alamannic king, who had accom- panied his father from Germany. Still later, under Val- entinian, we find an auxiliary prince of Alamanni serving with the Roman legions in Britain. 6 With so many Germans living in a country whose fertile fields had long before merited the praises of the first Roman victor, and with the exalted reports of its wealth and prosperity witnessed by occasional German traders, the predatory spirit of their kinsfolk was readily aroused, and marked out the island as the great aim of their piratical enterprises. As they were familiar with 1 See page 5. s Tacitus, Germ., iv. See notes, pages 36, 43, and 75. 8 Dio. Cass., lxxi, lxxii ; Gibbon, Dec, ix. See page 46, note 2. * Carausius was a Menapian ; but in the third century the inhabitants of the Menapian territory were Teutonic. Aurelius Victor calls him a Bata- vian. — See Gibbon, Dec., xiii. 6 This permutation of c and h is still heard in Florence, where the people pronounce cocometo, hohomero, with a peculiar aspiration. See page 48. 6 Valentianus ... in Macriani locum, Bucinobantibus, qua2 contra Mogun- tiacum gens est Alamanna, regem Fraomarium ordinavit ; quem paullo postea, quoniam recens excursus eundem penitus vastaverat pagum, in Britannos trans- latum potestate tribuni Alamannorum prsefecerat numero, multitudine, viribus- que ea tempestate florenti. — Ammianus, Hist., xxix, c. 4. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 73 the sea and all its dangers, the way across the intervening ocean was to them far less perilous and tedious than a march through the territories of jealous or hostile neigh- bors, or even than a coasting voyage along barbarous shores, defended by a yet more barbarous population. A northeast wind would, almost without effort of their own, have carried their ships from one shore to the other. There seems, then, every probability that bodies, more or less numerous, of coast-Germans, perhaps actually Saxons and Angles, had colonized the eastern shores of Britain long before the time generally assumed for their advent. This will explain the appointment of a Roman officer of state with the title of "Count of the Saxon frontier," 1 whose government extended from what is now called Portsmouth to Wells, in Norfolk, and was supported by various civil and military establishments, dispersed along the whole seaboard. His business was, not only to watch the coast already occupied by these foreigners, but also to guard it against the enterprises of the continental pirates which, during the fourth century, had become more and more frequent and appalling. 2 All these robbers, whether Franks, Dutch, Friesian, or Saxon, indeed all nations or tribes that lived on the opposite coast, were called indis- criminately Saxons 3 by the Britons and the Romans ; but as they are more particularly referred to as coming from the " Land of Marshes," we must look for them especially in these lands, of which the central part is Holland. Following its shores from the Scheldt northward, along the Zeeland islands, the coasts of Holland proper and of Friesland, what strikes one first is the general want of slope ; the rivers hardly drag themselves along, swollen and sluggish, with long, black-looking waves. Originally its soil was but a sediment of mud, the mere alluvium of the river, which the water was ever ready to wash away again. 4 1 " Comes Litoris Saxonici per Brittannias." — Notitia utriusque Imperii. * Hoc tempore (a. d. 364) Picti, Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis. — Ammianus, Hist., xxvi, 4. ' Illius effectum curis, ne tela timerem Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto Prospicerem dubiis venturum Saxona ventis. Claudian, de IV, Cons. Hon., xxiv. Quin et aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus Sperabat, cui pelle salum sukare Britannum Ludus, et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo. Sidonii Apoll., Catmina, vii, 88. 4 The very name of Holland describes this condition ; hoi in Dutch, holh in Anglo-Saxon, meaning " hollow, empty." 7 74 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE The ancient maps of Holland represent the country as a mass of ponds and lakes, now all drained, and converted into the most fertile lands found on the world's surface ; while dykes of the most wonderful strength and structure confine the river's course within allowed limits. Its great enemy is the sea, but this its men have learned to fight. The Friesians, already in their ancient laws, speak of the league they have made against "the ferocious ocean." From Holland to Friesland, a string of small islands bears witness to its ravages. In ancient times they were all connected, and at low tides their wide and extensive beach afforded easy communication. In 1282 a terrible storm broke through into Lake Flevo or Almare, now the Zuyder Zee, destroying seventy-two towns and villages and drowning over one hundred thousand persons. The first Roman fleet, a thousand vessels strong, perished there. To this day, ships wait a month or more in sight of port, tossed upon the great white waves, not daring to risk themselves in the shifting, winding channel, notorious for its wrecks. In winter a heavy crust of ice covers the streams ; the sea drives back the frozen masses as they descend ; they pile themselves with fearful crash upon the sand-banks, swaying to and fro, and now and then one may see a vessel, seized as in a vice, split in two within their violent grasp. In spite of all these dangers, or rather thanks to their immensity, which has brought out corresponding energies to combat them, Holland has be- come one of the richest and most densely populated coun- tries on the globe. With scarcely a square rod between, village touches village for miles and miles along, and many of the inhabitants have lived and grown old with- out ever seeing an acre of uncultivated ground. Its cities are numerous, and models of neatness and good order, and few there are that do not show evidence of early culture and high civilization. Its educational estab- lishments are many, all richly endowed and of the high- est order ; and nowhere is useful knowledge more wide- spread among all ranks of people. Nowhere have liberty and independence struck earlier or deeper roots, nor has oppression or foreign aggressions met with stouter or more strenuous resistance. Small as is the nation, com- pared with its powerful neighbors, it has successfully withstood the victorious armies of Spain and France, and at .one time even contended with England for the suprem- acy of the seas. Yet these people, now so prosperous, so AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 75 cultivated, and so free, are the lineal descendants of those half-naked savages who, centuries ago, lived on the same soil, then covered with dense forests, bogs and marshes, whence, in their osier, hide-covered barks, they ventured out upon the stormy seas, bent on piracy and plunder. In Caesar's time, the whole district between the Rhine and the Scheldt was occupied by these people, who formed a portion of the Teutonic tribe of the Chatti. While they occupied the Betuwe, which the Romans called "Insula Batavorum," 1 they went by the name of Batavi, while farther north, through Holland and Fries- land, they were known as Friesians. After their alliance with the Romans, no foreign tribe was more faithful to its treaty. Their tribute was only one of men for the Roman army, 2 and their bravery was such as to draw the admira- tion and esteem of the Roman people, who called them brothers and friends. 3 The Batavian cavalry especially enjoyed high renown, and was even extolled by so good a judge as Plutarch. 4 In addition to the Batavians and Friesians, and to the south and southeast of these, were the Usipetes, Bructeri, Sicambri, Chamavi, Attuarii, Chattu- ari, Snevi, Eburones and others, of whom we know, in these days at least, little more than their names. Many and varied must have been the dialects current among these tribes, since some of them are still found on the lips of the people, especially along the coasts and on the islands, where, in addition to the present national language, they continue to be the home-speech of the fishermen and farm- ers. All these dialects, however, varied and numerous as 1 Mora parte quadam eu Rheno recepta, quae appellatur Vahalis, insulam efficit Batavorum. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., iv, 10. 2 The Batavians from the island formed by the Rhine and Maas took a prominent part in the conquest of Britain. — Tac, Hist., i, 59 ; iv, 12 ; Ann., xiv, 38; Agiic, 18, 36. They were originally an offshoot from the Chatti of the Black Forest, and were celebrated like their parent-tribe for their courage and endurance in war, " counting fortune but a chance and valor the only cer- tainty." — Tac, Germ., 29, 30, 31 ; Hist., iv, 61, 64. In A. D. 98 Tacitus wrote of them as follows : " Through some domestic quarrel they crossed over to their present home, where they were to become a portion of the empire. They still enjoy that honor and the privileges of their old alliance, for they are not de- based by tribute nor ground down by the tax-gatherer ; they are exempt from subsidies and benevolences, and are kept for the wars — put on one side to be used only in a fight, like weapons stored in an armory." — Tac, Germ., c. 29. 8 Fratres et amici. — Grut., 75, Scriver Antiq., infer. Germ., p. 175. 1 beiiyxytv Otapas 'KKtpfiros tovs KaKovfievovs Pard/Hovs 'e'url Si reppavav imreU tpurroi. — Plut., Otho, xii. |cW re frnreij ArfAarroi, ois rb rav fiarwilmv .... Svofux, on $)i Kpmrurroi inreieiy eiZv tiiyiara y.iv fori t6 tc rav '2ovt)f)a>v tup 'AyyeiKiiv, 0% eltriy ayaTO\iKdrepot rS>v AayyofidpSav, hiaTelvovres irpbs Ttts &picrovs nixpi ray \tiaav rod *AA/J»os irorapov. — Ptolem., Geographia, lib. lii. 82 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE since, after the fifth century, the name of Hermunduri disappears, and that in their place we find only the Torin- gi, Thoringi, or Thuringi, which included both Angli and Varini, as appears from the " heading " of a set of laws dating from the eighth century. 1 As to the origin of the name, which Bede and others who have copied him derives from Angulus, which he places on the Danish peninsula, it must be observed that, at the time he wrote, there was, and that even now there is, a portion of the Duchy of Sleswick called Anglen, or the Corner. It is really what its name denotes, a triangle of irregular shape, formed by the She, the firth of Flens- borg, and a line drawn from the latter place to Sleswick ; but its area is less than that of an American county, and therefore can not possibly have supplied a population as large as that of the Angles who went to England. That there were Angles in these parts when Ida was getting up his expedition on the lower Elbe is quite likely ; but the bulk of the nation lived farther inland, where they were noticed by Tacitus, and where, as early as in the sec- ond century, Ptolemy speaks of them as Angli, dwelling on the middle Elbe, near the Langobardi and Suevi, 3 in that part of the country where Magdeburg is now situ- ated ; and therefore, whatever may be the origin of the name, it is not derived from the Angulus of Sleswick. The peninsula was at all times Danish, and so of course were its names. In old # .Danish chronicles the name oc- curs as Angr, a Avngull, Ongull. Saxo-Grammaticus writes Angul? and Nennius calls it Ochgul? Alfred, in translat- ing Bede, writes both Angel and Engel. In Thuringen there is an Engelin and an Englide? besides which there is 1 Incipit lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum. 2 The " Traveler's Song," which is of no historical authority, but may be regarded as a collection of ancient traditions, contains a legend of Offa, the mythical ancestor of the Mercian kings, which implies a belief that the Angles had gained a western outlet for their fleets before they undertook their migra- tion. The glee-man is enumerating the tribes about the mouth of the Eider, Which he calls " the monsters' gate," from some forgotten story of the sea. " Offa in boyhood won the greatest of kingdoms, and none of such age ever gained in battle a greater dominion with his single sword: his marches he widened toward the Myrgings by Fifel-dor : and there in the land, as Offa had won it, thenceforth continued the Angles and Sueves." — Traveler's Song, 84,98. Fifel-dor means " the gate of monsters." The word Eider, itself, is said to be contracted from Egi-dor, " the gate of dread." 3 A ngr Sinus v. lingula tam terrse quam maris, locus scilicet angustus. — Biorn. 4 Saxo-Grammaticus, p. 5. ' Nennius, xxxvi. 6 It is i* very significant fact that in mediEeval times the district south of Heidelberg was called the Angla-Degau. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 83 an Island of Anglen, and a district of that name on the mainland, now inhabited by a Friesian population. The similarity between A ngulus and Angli is therefore entirely fortuitous, and we can easily see how the resemblance, combined with the contiguity of the Anglen with the Saxon frontier, might mislead even so good a writer as Bede into the notion that he had found the country of the Angles in what he called the A ngulus of Sleswick. As the invasion of Britain took place by sea, we must look for the invaders among the maritime populations; that is, among those that dwelt along the coasts, from the Scheldt up to the Weser and the Elbe, and on the main rivers at some distance inland. An old historian has told us that " many and frequent were the expeditions from the continent, and many were the lords that strove against each other in the regions of East Anglia and Mercia; and thereby arose unnumbered wars, but the names of the chieftains remain unknown, by reason of their very multi- tude." * It has been thought that some of these invading bands may have belonged to races unconnected with the three great kindreds — Angles, Saxons, and Friesians — to whom the conquest is in the main assigned. A share in the enterprise is claimed for every nation between the Rhine and the Vistula — for the Franks and Lombards, the Jutes and Danes, the Wends from Riigen, and the Heruli of the eastern forests. To this cause it has even been proposed to ascribe the weakness of the later Angles, " when, fleeing before the invading Northmen, the sons yielded the dominion of the land which their valiant fore- fathers had conquered." 2 There is nothing unreasonable in supposing that isolated bands of adventurers from many countries may have occupied portions of the British coast, and may have even founded communities independ- ent for a time of the Anglian or Saxon states in their neighborhood. But if so, the traces of such occupancy are lost, while those of the Angles, the Saxons, the Frie- sians, and their kindred the Dutch or Franks, are found everywhere throughout the British Isles. The character of all these people displayed the quali- ties of fearless, active, and successful pirates. Orosius calls them dreadful for their courage and agility, 3 and the Emperor Julian, who had lived among barbarians, and 1 Henr. Huntingd., Hist., ii, 17. ! Lappenberg, Hist. Eng., i, c. 6. 8 Orosius, vii, t. 32. 84 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE who had fought with some of these tribes, speaks of them as distinguished for their vehemence and valor. 1 Zosi- mus, their contemporary, expresses the general feeling of his age when he ranks them as superior to others in ener- gy, strength, and warlike fortitude. 2 Their ferocious qualities were cultivated by the habit of indiscriminate depredation. It was from the cruelty and destructive- ness, as well as from the suddenness of their incursions, that they were dreaded more than any other people. Re- gardless of danger, they launched their predatory ves- sels and suffered the wind to blow them to any foreign coast, indifferent whether the result was unresisted depre- dations or mortal conflict. Such was their cupidity, or their brutal hardihood, that they often preferred embark- ing in the tempest, which might shipwreck them, because at such a season their victims would be more unguarded. 3 Inland provinces were not protected from their invasions. From ignorance, necessity, or policy, they traversed the ocean in boats framed of osier, and covered with skins sewed together ; 4 and such was their skill, or their prodi- gality of life, that in these they sported in the tempests of the German Ocean. For vessels of this kind no coast was too shallow, no river too small ; they dared to ascend the streams for eighty or a hundred miles, and if other plun- der invited, or danger pressed, they carried their boats from one river to another, and thus escaped with facility from the most superior foe. 5 But of all these people, those that went by the name of Saxons were the most dreaded. A letter which a Ro- man provincial, Sidonius Apollinaris, wrote in warning to a friend who had embarked as an officer in the Channel fleet, which was " looking out for the pirate-boats of the Saxons," gives us a glimpse of these freebooters as they appeared to the civilized world of the fifth century. " When you see their rowers," says Sidonius, " you may make up your mind that every one of them is an arch- pirate, with such wonderful unanimity do all of them at once command, obey, teach, and learn their business of brigandage. This is why I have to warn you to be more 1 Julian, Imp. Orat. de laud. Const., p. 116. 2 Zosimus, lii, p. 147, ed. Ox. 8 Amm. Marcell., xxviii, e. 3. 4 Est parva scapha ex vimine facta, quae contexta crudo corio genus navigii preebet. — Isidorus, Orig., xix, c. 1. 6 Du Bos., 149 ; Gibbon, 524. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 35 than ever on your guard in this warfare. Your foe is of all foes the fiercest. He attacks unexpectedly ; if you ex- pect him, he makes his escape; he despises those who seek to block his path ; he overthrows those who are off their guard ; he cuts off any enemy whom he follows • while for himself, he never fails to escape when he is forced to fly. And, more than this, to these men a ship- wreck is a school of seamanship rather than a matter of dread. They know the dangers of the deep like men who are every day in contact with them. For, since a storm throws those whom they wish to attack off their guard, while it hinders their own coming onset from be- ing seen from afar, they gladly risk themselves in the midst of wrecks and sea-beaten rocks, in the hope of mak- ing profit out of every tempest." 1 The picture is one of men who were not merely greedy freebooters, but finished seamen, and who had learned, barbarians as they were, how to command and how to obey in their school of war. But it was not the daring or the pillage of the Saxons that spread terror along the Channel so much as their cruelty. It was by this that the Roman provincials distinguished them from the rest of the German races who were attacking the empire ; for, while men noted in the Frank his want of faith, in the Alan his greed, in the Hun his shamelessness, in the Ge- pid an utter absence of any trace of civilization, what they noted in the Saxon was his savage cruelty. 2 It was this ruthlessness that made their descents on the coasts of the Channel so terrible to the provincials. The main aim of these pirate raids, as of the pirate raids from the north hundreds of years later, was man-hunting — the carrying off of men, women, and children into slavery. But the slave-hunting of the Saxons had features of peculiar hor- ror. " Before they raise their anchor, and set sail from the hostile continent for their own homeland, their wont, when they are on the eve of returning, is to slay, by long and painful tortures, one man in every ten of those they have taken, in compliance with a religious use, which is even more lamentable than superstitious ; and for this purpose to gather the whole crowd of doomed men to- gether, and temper the injustice of their fate by the mock justice of casting lots for the victims. Though such a rite 1 Sidonius Apollinaris, viii, c. 6. 8 Gens Saxonum fera est, Francorum infidelis, Gepidarum inhumana, Chu- norum impudica, etc. — Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, iv, 14. 86 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE is not so much a sacrifice that cleanses as a sacrilege that denies them, the doers of this deed of blood deem it a part of their religion rather to torture their captives than to take ransom for them." 1 Such is the portrait which historians give of these people — Frank, Friesians, and Saxons, all alike — and little pleasing, it must be confessed, for those who like to re- vere them as their ancestors. The ferocity of their char- acter would seem to suit better the dark and melancholy physiognomies of the most savage of our Indians than the fair, pleasing, and blue-eyed countenances by which they are described. 2 But, though nature had gifted them with the germs of these amiable qualities, which have become the national character of their descendants, their savage customs, their violent passions and barbarous training, smothered for the time being all the good qualities of which they were naturally possessed. These, however, must not be overlooked. Under the shocking barbarism of all these northern tribes, which con- trasted so fearfully with Roman culture and civilization, there were noble dispositions, unknown to the Roman world, and destined to produce, in time, high-minded na- tions out of the ruins of these. In the first place, a 'cer- tain earnestness in all their undertakings leads them out of idle sentiments into grave and serious ones. They live solitary, each family by itself, near the spring or the wood which has taken their fancy ; they must have independ- ence and free air. They have no taste for luxury or vo- luptuousness ; all the recreation they indulge in is hunt- ing and fishing, and a dance among naked swords. Brutal intoxication and perilous wagers are their weakest points ; they seek their pleasures in all that is adventure — luck and strong excitement. In everything else, in rude and masculine instincts, they are men. Each in his own home, on his own land, and in his own hut, is master of himself, without any form of shackle or restraint. In all great meetings of his tribe he gives his vote in arms ; he makes 1 J. R. Green, The Making of England. Mos est remeaturis decimum quemque captorum per aequales et cruciarias poenas, plus ob hoc tristi quam su- perstitioso ritu, necare ; superque collectam turbam periturorum, mortis iniqui- tatem sortis ajquitate dispergere. Talibus eligunt votis, victimis solvunt ; et per hujusmodi non tam sacrificia purgati quam sacrilegia polluti, religiosum pu- tant caedis infaustse perpetratores de capite captivo magis exigere tormenta quam pretia. The " cruciarias poenas," here referred to, which have been translated by " crucifixion," were more probably something like the " spread eagle " of the later Northmen. s Truces et ccerulei oculi. — Tacitus. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 87 his own alliance, and, having chosen his chief, he forgets himself in him, assigns to him his own glory, and serves him to the death. He who returns from battle without his chief is infamous as long as he lives. 1 In Homer the warrior often gives way, and is not blamed if he flies ; in Germany the coward is drowned in the mud, under a hurdle. Through all outbreaks of primitive brutality gleams obscurely the grand idea of duty, which, miscon- ceived as it often was, was not the less a sense of self- restraint, in view of some great end. The same sense of honor which binds him to his chief he keeps up toward women. He marries but one, and keeps faith with her. Among all these rude tribes the adulterer was punished by death. The wife, on entering her husband's home, be- comes the companion of his labors and his perils, and will dare and suffer as much as he ; but while his companion in war, she is but his slave in peace. She attends to all the indoor and outdoor work, and toils and labors day and night, while to him she is but a trusty servant and the mother of the young heroes who are to perpetuate the name and prowess of their father. Yet this kind of half- naked brute, who lies all day by his fireside when not en- gaged in war, in plunder, or in sports, sluggish and dirty, always eating and drinking, 2 whose rusty faculties can not shape his thoughts to anything but matter, catches occa- sional glimpses of the sublime in his troubled dreams. He can not see it, but he simply feels it ; the germ of re- ligion is already there, but has as yet no form. What he designates by divine names, is something terrible and grand which floats throughout all nature, a mysterious infinity which the sense can not touch, but which rever- ence alone can appreciate ; and when, later on, the legends define and alter this vague divination of natural powers, an idea remains at the bottom of this chaos of giant- dreams — that the world is a warfare, and heroism the greatest excellence. 3 1 Jam vera infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum, superstitem principi suo ex acie recessisse. — Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, xiv. They have but one kind of show, and they use it at every gathering. Naked lads, who know the game, leap among swords and in front of spears. Practice gives cleverness, and cleverness, grace : but it is not a trade, or a thing done for hire ; however ven- turesome the sport, their only payment is the delight of the crowd. — Ibid., xxiv. 8 In omni domo, nudi et sordidi. . . . Diem noctemque continuare potan- do, nulle proborum. . . . Plus per otium transigunt, dediti somno, ciboque ; totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt. — Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, passim. * H. A. Taine, Histoire de la Littfrature Anglaise. 88 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Having thus outlined the interior structure of the race, we must next consider its surroundings. Man is not alone in the world; nature surrounds him, and his fellow-men surround him. Influences out of his control insensibly shape his ways and destinies, and physical and social circumstances may change and modify, nay, alter entirely, the original tendencies and character of any race, of any nation. Many are the influences which thus may affect the existence of a people, but none more so than that of climate. Though we can follow but obscurely the Aryan peoples from their common fatherland to their final countries, we can yet assert that the profound differences which are manifest between the Teutonic races on, the one side, and the Greek and Latin on the other, arise, for the most part, from the difference between the countries in which they settled ; some in cold, misty, unproductive lands, struggling for a wretched existence in black, marshy forests, or on the shores of a wild ocean, caged in by melancholy or violent sensations, prone to drunkenness and gluttony, bent on a fighting, blood-spilling life ; others, again, within a lovely landscape, where life is easy, on a bright, cheerful sea-coast, enticed to friendly intercourse and commerce, exempt from gross cravings of the stom- ach, inclined from the beginning to social ways, to a set- tled organization of the state, to feelings and dispositions such as develop the art of oratory, the talent for enjoy- ment, the inventions of science, letters, and arts. Thus considered, we will be better able to account for the differ- ence of races, their mode of existence, their thoughts, their acts, and consequently their language. A language, in itself, is never more than an abstract thing ; the complete thing is the man who acts, the man, corporeal and visible, who eats, drinks, walks, fights, and works. If we wish to know and well understand a nation, we must see its men in their workshops, in their offices, in their fields ; with their sky and earth, their homes, their dress, their meals ; their luxuries, their wants ; their toils, their recreations ; as we do when, arriving in foreign lands, we remark faces and motions, roads and inns, dress and occupations— a gentleman taking his walk, a lady in her carriage, labor- ers at work, soldiers training, a procession in the streets, and many other details, all expressive of the national life and customs of those whom we are visiting and studying. Even so with nations that lived in times that have gone by. In studying them, our great care should be to sup- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 89 ply as much as possible the want of present, personal, and direct observation, by sound imagination, based on what remains of authentic information. Thus we may succeed in bringing, to some extent at least, the past within the present, and enable ourselves, on matters of the past, to bear a proper judgment. To judge anything we must have it before us, if not in reality, at least in imagination ; there is no experience in respect to what is absent. Doubt- less this reconstruction is always incomplete, and there- fore it can produce only incomplete judgments ; but to that we must be reconciled. It is better to have an im- perfect knowledge than a futile or false one ; and there is no other means of acquainting ourselves approximately with the events of other days than to see approximately the men of those days. Thus we may get an idea of what can have been their wants, their acts, their thoughts, and therefore their language. It will reveal to us the nature and extent of their vocabulary, and the degree of atten- tion bestowed on the art of putting words together. For men will speak and must speak, whatever their condition, however low may be the state of their civilization ; and as they know the names of things from imitation only, so they construct the sentence in the way they have heard it done by others. Thus even the most barbarous tribes have a special and habitual mode of speaking, which ex- hibits the nature and grammar of each particular dia- lect ; and it is by this means especially that philologists search and trace the history of languages, and of the people that speak or have spoken them, to their very origin. The language spoken by all the tribes that, in the fifth and sixth centuries, took part in the conquest of Britain, was virtually the same, but broken up into a great variety of dialects, and belonged to what is known as the Gothic stock of languages. In the reign of Valens, the Goths, when pressed by intestine wars, and by the movements of the Huns, were assisted by that emperor, from whom they obtained land in the Roman province of Mcesia. Hence the term Mceso-Gothic, which is the name given to the only Gothic dialect of which a specimen has been pre- served. It was the language spoken by the conquerors of ancient Rome ; by the subjects of Hermanric, Alaric, Theodoric, Euric, Athanaric, and Totila ; and the Bible, . translated into their language about the year 365, by their bishop, Vulfila or Wulfila, now generally written • go ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Ulphilas, is the earliest sample yet discovered of any Gothic tongue. 1 Although the dialect in which the trans- lation is made is vastly different from that of later Teuton- ic nations, it serves for a standard by which subsequent changes may be detected and estimated, and throw, as such, much light on the kindred languages of Germany. As a specimen of this dialect we give the following pas- sage from St. Luke, which we have already seen in the current Celtic dialects : Mceso-Gothic. Aivaggeljo pair/i Lukan, Kapitel 7, v. 11— 17. 11. Jah varf in famma afardaga, iddja in baurg namnida Naen ; jah mid iddjedun imma siponjos is ganohai jah mana- geins filu. 12. Bifeh fan nehva vas daura fizos baurgs, faruh sai, ut bau- rans vas naus, sunus ainaha aifein seinai, jah si silbo vidovo, jah managei fizos baurgs ganoha mif izai. 13. Jah gasaihvands fo frauja Iesus infeinoda du izai jah qaf du izai : ni gret ! 14. Jah duatgaggands attaitok hvilftrjom ; if fai bairandans gastofun ; jah qaf : juggalaud, du fus qif a : urreis ! 15. Jah ussat sa naus jah dugann rodjan. Jah atgaf ina aifein is. 16. Dissat fan allans agis, jah mikilidedun guf, qifandans fatei praufetus mikils urrais in unsis, jah fatei gaveisoda guf manageins seinaizos. 17. Jah usiddja fata vaurd and alia Iudaia bi ina jah and allans bisitands. 2 1 Of his translation an imperfect manuscript, containing fragments of the four gospels, was found in 1597, in the monastery of Werden, in Germany. Some passages of the same version have been recovered at a later period. Of these relics a magnificent copy has been made, which is preserved in the Royal Library of Upsal. It is of a quarto size, and written on vellum, the leaves of which are stained with a violet color, and on this ground the letters, which are all uncial or capitals, are painted in silver, except the initials, which are gold. The name of Codex Argenteus, by which this document is generally known, is derived from its being bound in silver, and not from its silver lettering. 2 To facilitate comparison, we place here the authorized English version of the same passage : 11. And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain ; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. 12. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow : and much people of the city was with her. 13. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 14. And he came and touched the bier ; and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. gI As the Gothic population was very numerous, and divided into many tribes, we may well suppose that their language was spoken in many various dialects, though the Mceso-Gothic alone has thus far been discovered. Connected with this great stock of dialects there probably already existed a vast number of sister dialects which now may be viewed in two distinct groups— the Teutonic and the Scandinavian— each of which has a character of its own, in addition to the common character by which they are allied, and distinguished from tongues belonging to other stocks. The Teutonic group again appears in two sub- divisions—the High Dutch and the Low Dutch, and though these differ less from each other than from the Scandinavian, each has nevertheless its own peculiar feat- ures. The High Dutch, as represented in the language of the Scripture paraphrasts, Otfried and Notker, was spoken from the eighth to the twelfth century in Suabia, Bavaria, and Franconia, and is known by the name of Old High Dutch (Alt-Hoch-Deutsch, called also Francic), to distinguish it from the Middle High Dutch (Mittel-Hoch- Deutsch), which was current in southern and eastern Ger- many from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and was the language in which was written the Epic of the Nibe- lungen. The Modern or New High Dutch originated in the latter part of the fifteenth century, in the imperial chancery of Saxony, and was first used as a literary lan- guage by Luther ; and mainly through his writings and those of the Reformation, it became and remains the lead- ing dialect in Germany. As an artificial language, it bears the same relation to the many popular dialects from which it is derived as the Latin does to the many Latian dialects out of which arose the imperial language of Rome. Some of the old Teutonic dialects, still spoken in various parts of Germany, have even now their literature, and, both spoken and written, they are in many instances so different from each other as to be unintelligible, not only to people of different districts, but even to those whose speech is modern German, which, in its present form, is the national language of all German countries. 15. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. 16. And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us ; and, that God hath visited his people. 17. And this rumor of him went forth throughout all Judea, and through- out all the region round about. Q2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE As the High Dutch forms of language prevailed in the south and southeast of Germany, so the Low Dutch found its way, at a very early period, and much less al- tered, north and west along the Baltic and the German Ocean, and was spoken by all the Teutonic tribes dwelling within this seaboard boundary and a line drawn east from Flanders to the middle Elbe, a tract of country frequently referred to by old writers as Saxland, where the same lan- guage was current in various dialects, more or less differ- ing from each other, but not so much as not to be general^ ly understood. In course of time all these dialects set- tled into four groups — the Platt-Deutsch, Friesic, Dutch, and Flemish — which all resemble each other very closely, and may be compared to different hues of the same color, with Platt-Deutsch at one end, Flemish at the other, and Dutch and Friesic in the center. Of these, the Dutch has retained the oldest forms, and become the national lan- guage of the Netherlands, while the others live alongside in the condition of secondary dialects — the Platt-Deutsch, spoken from the Ems to the Elbe, being much crowded by the literary and national language of Germany ; the Friesic, still current in the country districts of the present province of Friesland, and, in strongly differentiated dia- lects, along the sea-coast and the islands, gradually yield- ing before the literary and official Dutch of Holland ; while the Flemish, confined to a limited territory, exists under even greater disadvantages in the provinces of Flanders and South Brabant, in Belgium. Still, each of these dialects has its literature, and while the national language is current among all ranks of the community in Holland and west Friesland, yet the old popular dialects remain the home-speech of a vast number of people, es- pecially in the country and in the more remote districts. Among the earliest monuments of these dialects we find The Traveler's Song and the The Fight at Finnesburg, which, referring as they do to Friesian matters, are proba- bly of Friesian origin, while the epic poem of Beowulf, whose scenes are laid among the Danes, is supposed to have been wrought among the Angles of Holstein ; x but 1 While this is the general opinion, it is but just to say that some believe it to be the most important surviving monument of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and to date not later than the eighth century. Thorpe considers it merely the transla- tion of a Swedish poem, made in the eleventh century. One thing remarkable about this poem is that, though existing in Anglo-Saxon only, it makes no allu- sion to England whatsoever, from which it is inferred that the author lived be- fore the Saxon invasions,, and. that in its present form it is only a translation. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 93 as of all these works we possess only Anglo-Saxon copies much altered in form by Anglo-Saxon copyists, and par tially or entirely rewritten perhaps at a later period we can not judge correctly of the original form of languae-e in which they were composed ; but in comparing them as they now appear, with a translation of the Psalms, made in Holland in the time of Charlemagne, whence they take the name of Carolinian Psalms, 1 they seem to be only two dialects of the same language. Later on, in the tenth century, appears the Heliand (Heiland in Dutch, meaning "the Savior"), a sort of Gospel Harmony or Life of Christ, written in a dialect supposed to have belonged to parts about Essen, Cleves, and Minister, in Westphalia. Its forms bear also a close resemblance to the old Friesian, Dutch, and Anglo-Saxon. The Scandinavian branch of the Gothic stock compre- hends the dialect of Scandinavia proper, that is : Sweden and Norway, the Danish Isles, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. Each of these has its Sagas (Norse Sogur), some dating as far back as the ninth and tenth centuries. The Elder Edda, or Poetic Edda, as it is sometimes called, is among the earliest specimens of Scandinavian literature ; it was discovered about the year 1643, and is believed to belong to the ninth century. The Prose Edda, or Snorra Sturlusonar, is probably of the twelfth century. These three branches— High Dutch, Low Dutch, and Scandinavian — in all their dialectic divisions and subdi- visions, have certain features in common, owing to their common origin ; and correspond to three distinct groups of people, belonging to the same race, but differing in manners, customs, interests, and language, as they differ in geographical position. Where separated by the seas, the contrast is clear and well defined ; where no water- courses or mountain-ranges intervene, the difference is less marked, and the change more gradual along the line of national and political boundaries. Thus the High Dutch and the Low Dutch differ from each other less than either does from the Scandinavian ; while the Low Dutch, lying in the middle, forms, as it were, a sort of link between the two extremes. Viewing all these dia- lects in their leading forms, that is, in the national form of language, the following versions from St. Luke's narra- 1 The best text of this translation is to be found in a Dutch literary periodi- cal called Taalkundig Magazyn. 94 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE tive, Chapter VII, will exhibit the degree of resemblance and of difference that exists at present between the Ger- man, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish idioms: GERMAN. 11. Unb t$ begab ftify bamacfy, tap er in cine ©tabt nut Stamen Stain ging ; 'unb feiner Sunger gin* gen toielc mit tfym, unb sriel SSolfS. 12. %U er aber nalje an bag ©tabtttyor fain, ffefye, ba trug man einen Sobten fyeraua, ber ein einiger ©oljn roar feiner Gutter; unb fie roar eine SBtttoe, unb ttiel SBolfs au3 ber ©tabt gtng mit if)r. 13. Unb ba fie ber £2rr falje, jammerte ifyn berfe!6igen, unb fpradj ju ifjr : SBeine nidjt ! 14. Unb trat tjinju, unb ritfyrete ben ©arg an ; unb tie Irager ftan« ben. Unb er fpradj : Siingltng, id) fage btr, ftelje auf ! 15. Unb ber Sobte rtc^tetc fid) auf, unb ftng an ju reben. Unb er gab if)n feiner Sautter. 16. Unb e3 lam fte alle eine Surest an, unb prlefen ®Dtr, unb fpradjen : ©3 ift ein grofjer $ropt)et unter una aufgeftanben, unb ©Dtt fyat fetn SSolf fyetmgefudjt. 17. Unb biefe Stebe son ifjm er» f^ott in bag ganje jiibtfcfye Sanb, unb in atle umliegenbe Sanber. DANISH. 11. £)g bet begar ftg ©agen ber* efter, at |an git til en ©tab, font |ebte Stain, og ber git mange af fjans ©ifcipte meb Bam oq meqet golf. 12. 5J?en ber fyan fom neer tit ©tabenS 9>ort, fee, ba bleo en £)ob DUTCH. ii. En het geschiedde op den volgenden dag, dat hij ging naar eene stad, genaamd Nam, en met hem gingen vele van zijne discipelen, en eene groote schare. 12. En als hij de poort der stad genaakte, ziet daar, een doode werd uitgedragen, die een eeniggeboren zoon zijner moe- der was, en zij was weduwe, en eene groote schare van de stad was met haar. 13. En de Heere, haar zien- de, werd innerlijk met ontferm- ing over haar bewogen, en zeide tot haar : Ween niet. 14. En hij ging toe, en raakte de baar aan ; (de dragers nu stonden stil) en hij zeide : Jongeling, ik zeg u, sta op ! 15. En de doode zat over einde, en begon te spreken. En hij gaf hem aan zijne moe- der. 16. En vreeze beving hen alien, en zij verheerlijkten God, zeggende: Een groot profeet is onder ons opgestaan, en God heeft zijn volk bezocht. 17. En dit gerucht van hem ging uit in geheel Judda, en in al het omliggende land. SWEDISH. 11. ©a begaf bet fig feban, att fjan gitf utt ben ftaben, fom faUas Stain ; odj meb fyonom gingo mange f)an$ Sarjungar, odj tni^cfet fotf. 12. £>a §an nu fom intitl ftab3» porten, fi ba bars ber ut en bbber, AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^ ubbaaren, font »ar fin 2Kober3 een* fine mobera enbe fon, ocb bon mar baame ©on, og |«n Par en Gnfe ; enfa ; odj en ftor b> fol af fiaben og meget Self af totaben gif meb gicf meb tonne! $enbe. 13 £g ber $erren faae bmbe, 13. Da £erren fag tonne, war. pnfebea ban tnberl.gen oser tonbe lunnabe $an fig 6>er tonne, ocb og fagbe rtl tonbe : grab tffe. fabe tiH tonne : ©rat toe. 14 Dg |an traabte til og rorte 14. D$ $an gto till, ocb tea pa »eb Saaren, (men be font bare, barena; ocb. be, font baro, ftabnabe. fiobe jhlfe) og ban fogbe ; bu unge ©a fabe ban: 3ag fager big, unger *arl, jeg ftger btg, ftaa op ! man, ftatt upp. b 15. Dg ben £>obe reifte ftg op, 15. £>cl> ben bobe fatte fiq upp, og begpttte at tale ; og $an gas i)am ocb begpnte tala ; o$ ban fief bonom SJoberbam. f)an3 mober. 16 mm en grogtbetog HUe, og 16. Ocb, en rabbbage lorn b'fiuer be prtfebe ©ub og fagbe; ber er en alia, ad) be prtfabe ©itb, fciaanbe: [tor ^ropbet opreift iblanbt 03, og gn ftor 3>ropbet ar uppfommen ©ub laser befogt fit golf. tfjlanb of), ocb, ©ub bafroer fbft fitt folf. 17. eg benne Sale ont b,am font 17. Deb, betta rpftet ont bonom ub t bet ganffe 3ubeea og t alt bet gto ut b'froer allt Subiffa lanbet, ocb omfringliggenbe Sanb. all be lanb beromfring. It was from among the Low Dutch speaking tribes, from those that dwelt in " Saxland," and especially along the sea-coast and the rivers, there issued forth the piratical hordes which, after gaining for centuries, slowly but effectively, a foothold in Britain, invaded the island in overwhelming numbers during the fifth and sixth centu- ries, and possessed themselves of the best and most fertile lands in the country. How and when these invasions commenced is not exactly clear. Bede says it was in the reign of Marcianus and Valentinianus, A. D. 450 to 457, but he does not give the year. 1 Prosper Tyro says that about the year 441 Britian was finally subjected to the Saxon power ; 2 while Nennius specifies the year 447, as being during the consulate of Gratianus. 8 From these data, differing as they do in point of time, it is to be in- ferred that by the middle of the fifth century commenced, on a larger scale, the invasions of various Teutonic tribes, who, possessing themselves of different tracts of land, drove back the British population north and west, until, after a century of incessant struggle, they had achieved the conquest of the best parts of the island. Taking the 1 Bede, c. 15. 3 Nennius, p. 62, 80. * Chronicon ad Ann. Theodosii, xviii (441). gS ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE year 449, therefore, as the correct time recorded by his- tory for the commencement of actual hostilities leading to the conquest, we must observe, from what we have seen already, that this date, ordinarily assigned also for the commencement of the Saxon colonization of Britain, is too late by at least a couple of centuries. Even in the time of Agricola, if not before, the Saxon piracy had be- gun. In the southeast of England a Saxon immigration seems to have been going on in silence during the entire period of Roman rule. The Roman legions stationed in Britain were composed mainly of Germans, which must have introduced a considerable German element into the population. Even before the time of Constantine there was a Litus Saxonicum, which extended from Bruncaster, in Norfolk, as far as Shoreham, in Sussex. Descents in large numbers were constantly made, and we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus that nearly a century before the date assigned by Bede for the supposed landing of Hen- gist and Horsa, London was taken by Saxon and Frank- ish invaders, who slew the Duke of Britain and the Count of the Saxon Shore. 1 Leaving aside, therefore, the doubtful legend of Hen- gist and Horsa, the probability is that, during the late troubles of the Britons with the Scots and Picts, there was, in the absence of the Roman legions, a greater influx 1 There are several concurrent indications that the district of Holderness was occupied by Teutonic settlers before the close of the Roman rule. Holder- ness is a fertile tract of some two hundred and fifty square miles, bounded on the north, east, and south by the sea, and the Humber, and on the west by the Wolds, which were probably a frontier of wooded and impenetrable hills. In this district Ptolemy places a people whom he calls the Tlaplaoi. Grimm has shown that the old German p is interchangeable in Latin with f, the aspirated form of the same letter. This would lead us to identify the nopiVot with the Frisii, or Friesians. In the same district Ptolemy places Petuaria, a name which can not be explained from Celtic sources, but which points undoubtedly to the Teutonic root ware, " inhabitants," which appears in Cantware, Wihtware and so many other names. Nor is this all, for Ptolemy gives us a third name in the district of Holderness, Ga&rantovicorum Sinus, which word contains the root vie, which was the appellation for " a bay " in the language of the people who, at a later period, descended in such numbers from the Friesian region. Moreover, the Friesian form of ham is urn; and Holderness is the only part of England where this form occurs. Wright, " On the remains of a primitive peo- ple in the southeast of Yorkshire." — Essays, vol, i, p. I. Poulson, History of Holderness, vol. i, pp. 4-9. Procopius also speaks of Friesians in Britain. BpiTTlav Si t^v vf\aov eflyij rpla iro\vca>8pmir6TaTa £x ou \ p A 8 asc, sesc, os a, a, 1 * P R + A a rad, rat r R 1% It R A H P cen, kaun c, k f Wo v, hv hegl, hagal h NMHH N * h h nyd, nod n 1- + + * l> N V is i I i I I t yr, ger, ar y,gej* N 45 ^ AA 9 3 hie, ih, eoh ih, t, eo X + ^ Z t peorth, perc P * K C K n IT ilix, calc a, t, k, x y Y qa q sigil s f H H s o - tir t t * t 1 T T berc, berith b * * B K P haec, ech, eh e n m M e V man m M M f Y M h- lagu I h h > A A ing ng <> £ X X dag, dseg d H n M 6 othil 0, OS *R ft * 0) In this table the first column, which is styled the Gothic Futhorc, contains the twenty-four primitive runes, which are used indifferently in all countries in the earliest in- scriptions. The second column contains the corresponding runes I 3 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE of the Anglian Futhorc, which is used on the Ruth well Cross and on several Northumbrian monuments of the seventh and following centuries. It is given as a futhorc in sundry manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries, the earliest form appearing on a sword of the sixth or seventh century, which was found in the Thames, near London. In the third column is given the latest, or Scandinavian Futhorc. It attained its final form about the tenth century, and contains only sixteen runes. We find it given as a futhorc on a slab in the Picts' House at Maeshowe in Orkney, and on a twelfth century font at Basrse in Den- mark. This Scandinavian futhorc was used in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Orkney, Cumberland, and the Isle of Man. On the entrance to the arsenal at Venice may be seen one of the sculptured lions which once adorned the Piraeus at Athens. The marble is deeply scored with Norse runes, which by the aid of photography have been deciphered, and prove to be a record of the capture of the Piraeus by Harold Hardrada, the Norwegian king, who afterward figures in English history, and fell at Stamford Bridge. The fourth column contains the Mceso-Gothic Alphabet, which was compiled in the fourth century by Ulphilas, Bishop of the Goths. It is evidently based upon the an- cient Gothic futhorc, with two or three additions and several modifications derived from the contemporary By- zantine alphabet. The Scandinavian settlers in Northumbria, Cumbria, and the Isle of Man, having left behind them so many runic records of their presence, it may seem strange that not a single runic stone should have been discovered in the Scandinavian colony of Pembroke, or even in Ireland, where Scandinavian chieftains bore sway for many years in the cities of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. But the fact of this remarkable absence of runic monuments, in certain regions where they might have been looked for, must be taken in conjunction with another circum- stance, equally remarkable, that it is exactly in those re- gions where the expected runic stones are wanting that Ogham writing abounds. This will be explained by the fact that the mysterious ogham character, in which the most ancient records of Wales and Ireland are written, and respecting which so many wild conjectures have been made, was originally nothing more nor less than a AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I35 very simple and obvious adaptation of the futhorc to xylographic necessities, the individual runes being ex- pressed by a convenient notation consisting of notches cut with a knife on the edge of a squared staff, instead of being cut with a chisel on the surface of a stone. 1 The geographical distribution of the ogham inscriptions, moreover, raises a strong presumption in favor of the Scandinavian origin of the ogham writing ; for it may safely be affirmed that where the Northmen never came ogham inscriptions are never found. The ogham characters in their primitive form proba- bly consist of a system of notches on the edge of a squared stick or stone. They were afterward written on a plane surface, on either side of a central line. The name given to this line, druim, shows that it represented the " ridge " of the primitive squared staff. The arrangement of the oghams, according to the me- diaeval Irish tradition, was in four "groups," aicme, each group comprising five ogham characters. Thus we^have — Group I. 1 b II 1 III f mi s inn n Group II. 1 II III mi inn h d t c q Group III. / If "/ //// "/// / II /// //// Illl! m g ng St r Group IV. i 1 1 i i i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 a 1 1 i ■ i u 1 1 1 1 e Mil! i The ogham inscriptions now remaining in England and in such parts of Wales and Ireland as were once occupied by the Northmen date mostly from the fifth and sixth centu- ries. They have been interpreted by the help of bilingual specimens in Wales, where they were often supplemented by a Latin version, or intermixed with Latin words. 8 1 Some such method of notation seems to be implied by the words book and buch-staben (beech sticks), and may probably be referred to in the often quoted lines of Venantius Fortunatus, a sixth century poet, who says : Barbara fraxineis pingatur rhuna tabellis, Quodque papyrus agit, virgula plana valet. s For more ample details on the subject see Isaac Taylor, Greeks and Goths ; a Study on the Runes ; Brash, Ogham Inscribed Monuments j and an Essay on the Ogham and Scythian Letters, by Dr. Graves. I3 6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE The name Runic was so called from the term Rdn, 1 which was used by the Teutonic nations to designate the mystery of writing. The heathen Teutons believed that the runes possessed magical influence, that they could stop a vessel in her course, divert an arrow in its flight, cause love or hatred, raise the corpse from its grave, or cast the living into death-slumbers. On account of the idolatrous ven- eration with which paganism invested these runes, the early preachers and missionaries of Christianity endeav- ored to set them aside, and to introduce the use of Roman characters in their stead. It was doubtless from this cause that Ulphilas refrained from writing his version of the Scriptures in the Runic letters employed by the Gothic nations, and adopted a modification of the Greek and Latin alphabets. After their conversion to Chns- tianity, the Anglo-Saxons adopted the latter, in which they were obliged, however, to retain two of the runes, because there were no Roman characters corresponding to them. One was the old Thorn p, for which the Latin mode of expression was th; the other was the Wen p. The p was superseded by a double u after the Norman Conquest, but the p had a more prolonged career. This, and a modified Roman letter, namely D 8, divided the th sound between them, the former representing the hard sound of th, as in thing, and the latter the soft sound of the same letters, as in thine. During the Saxon period these were used either without any distinction at all, or with very ill-observed discrimination, until they were both ultimately banished by the general adoption of the th. This change was not completely established until the very close of the fifteenth century. And even then there was one case of the use of the rune p which was not abol- ished. The words the and that continued to be written pe and Pat or p c . This habit lasted long after its original meaning was forgotten. The p got confused with the character y at a time when the y was closed a-top, and then people wrote " ye " for the and " yat " or " y' " for that. This has continued almost to our own times : and it may be doubted whether the practice has entirely ceased even now. 1 Runa meant " a whisper " ; and even as late as the thirteenth century we find the word used as such in a Moral Ode, in which it is said of the Omniscient that— Elche rune he ihurS & he wot alle dede. Each whisper he hears, and he knows all deeds. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I3/ When in the seventh century the Roman alphabet be- gan to obtain the ascendancy over the native runes the latter did not at once fall into disuse. Runes are found on gravestones, church crosses, bells, fonts, amulets, rings bracelets, brooches, etc., down at least to the eleventh century. The Isle of Man is famous for its Runic stones especially the church of Kirk Braddan. These are Scan- dinavian, and are due to the Norwegian settlements of the tenth century. For lapidary inscriptions, clog almanacs, and other familiar uses, it is difficult to say how long they may have lingered in remote localities. In such lurking- places a new kind of importance and of mystery came to be attached to them. They were held in a sort of tradi- tional regard, which at length grew into a superstition. They were the heathen way of writing, while the Roman alphabet was a symbol of Christianity. Gradually, how- ever, they disappeared ; being looked down upon at last as fit only for sorcery and magic. The Roman alphabet was introduced into England from two opposite quarters ; from the northwest by the Irish missionaries, and from the southeast by those sent from Rome. It is to be remembered that while the An- glo-Saxons were pagans and barbarians, Christian life and culture had already taken so deep a hold of Ireland that, in the time of Augustin, she most actively co-operated with him by sending forth missions to instruct and con- vert her neighbors. Ireland, indeed, was then the chief seat of learning in Christian Europe, and, for a long time after, the most distinguished scholars who appeared in other countries were mostly Irish by birth, or had re- ceived their education in Irish schools. We are informed by Bede that in his day — the earlier part of the eighth century — it was customary for his English fellow-country- men of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, to retire for study and devotion to Ireland, where, he adds, they were all hospitably received and supplied gratuitously with food, with books, and with instruction. "Such in fact," says O'Curry, "were the crowds of stranger-stu- dents that flocked to some of our great schools of lay and ecclesiastical learning, that they were generally obliged to erect a village or villages of huts as near as they conven- iently could, and to find subsistence in the contributions of the surrounding residents." 1 From these celebrated 1 O'Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Lect. iv, vol. ii. 11 I3 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE schools, which had been founded in the beginning of the sixth century, went forth bearers of learning to all parts of the civilized world, and under their influence education made considerable progress in both England and Scotland in the seventh and eighth centuries. Out of this revival came Albert, the "teacher of York school, his pupil Alcuin, and also the venerable Bede, who informs us that in his time there were monks in England who knew Latin and Greek as well as they knew their mother-tongue. Certain it is that the Irish, who were called Scots in that century, cultivated Greek and Latin literature when other parts of the civilized world had ceased to do so, and that they were much given to dialectic disputation. There was a living scholarship among them, and a genuine speculative spirit. It was an Irish scholar, Maeldurf, who taught Aldhelm, at Malmesbury, in the seventh century ; and the Greek monk, Theodore of Tarsus, was, on his assuming the pri- macy of England, surrounded, says Aldhelm, by Irish scholars. In those dark days of almost universal igno- rance the Irish distinguished themselves by the culture of the sciences beyond all the other European nations, trav- eling through the most distant lands, both with the view to improve and communicate their knowledge ; and while almost the whole of Europe was desolated by war, peace- ful Ireland, free from the invasions of internal foes, opened to the lovers of learning and piety a welcome asylum. 1 Irish books were written with the Roman alphabet, which they must have possessed from an early date, as even the oldest manuscripts that have been preserved present that kind of lettering with a distinct Hibernian physiognomy. Of the two denominations of missionaries which from opposite quarters came to England — the Ro- man and the Irish — the former gained the ecclesiastical pre-eminence ; but the latter for a long time furnished the teachers. Hence it was that the first Anglo-Saxon writ- ing was formed after the Irish, and not after the Roman, 1 The glory of this age of Irish scholarship and genius is the celebrated Joannes Scotus, or Erigena, as he is as frequently designated — either appellative equally proclaiming his true birthplace. He is supposed to have first made his appearance in France about the year 845, and to have remained in that country till his death, which appears to have taken place before 875. Erigena is the author of a translation from the Greek of certain mystical works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, which he executed at the command of his patron, the French king, Charles the Bald, and also of several original treatises on metaphysics and theology. His productions may be taken as furnishing clear and conclusive evidence that the Greek language was taught at this time in the Irish schools. — J. L. Craik, Manual of English Literature. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 39 model ; and, since the Irish letters had developed forms and acquired values unlike those used by the Romans it follows that the value of An- glo-Saxon letters and their pronunciation must be chief- ly found in the Celtic tongue, from which these letters are taken. The accompanying table will exhibit the Anglo- Saxon alphabet and its Irish models, together with their corresponding Roman char- acters for reference. Besides the above, the symbol -\ was employed to represent and, and the symbol 8 sometimes occurs as an abbreviation for Sat ; and also f for fat. 1 The earliest specimens we have of the Anglo-Saxon lan- guage date from the end of the seventh century, and be- long to the Anglian dialect which, under the political eminence of the early North- umbrian kings, first attained to literary distinction. Of this literature, in its original form, only fragments exist, one of the most interesting of which consists of the verses said to have been uttered by Bede, on his death-bed, to his pupil Cuthbert, and preserved in a nearly contemporaneous manuscript, of which the fol- lowing is a copy, with its translation in modern English : 1 Five letters of the English alphabet, /, k, q, v, and 2, are not found in genuine Anglo-Saxon ; but c and cw are invariably placed where k and q would be used at present. In the eleventh century the national alphabet gradually fell into disuse, and the French style of writing, introduced by the Normans, superseded the old Saxon mode of lettering. During the succeeding centuries the new character assumed a variety of forms, especially that known as " black letter," which at one time was used all over the north of Europe. In Holland it was abandoned for the Roman type toward the end of last century ; but in Germany and the Scandinavian countries it is maintained up to the present day together with the Roman type, the use of which, however, seems destined ere long to replace the older forms entirely. Irish. Saxon. Roman. A A S a a b T> B b b C L c c b 6 D b d € e e e e V v F F f 5 5 E s g 1) * P h h 1 1 I 1 i l 1 L 1 1 tn m GO m m n n N n n * O P P P p P v v R p r r t s r s C c T c t U u U u u V v w X x X Y y y P P D 8 I 40 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Fore the neidfjerse Before the unavoidable journey nenig uuiurthit no one is thonc-snotturra wiser of thought than him tharf sie, than he hath need, to ymbhycgannse to consider seer his hiniongse, before his departure, huat his gastae what for his spirit godaes seththe yflaes of good or evil setter deoth-daege after the death-day doemid uuieorthee. shall be doomed. Bede died in 735, after having witnessed the intellect- ual growth and decline of the Anglian people. Indeed, his own name is the only one recorded as eminent for scholarship in this portion of the English annals. The historian William of Malmesbury affirms that the death of Bede was fatal to learning in England, and especially to history ; " insomuch that it may be said," he adds, writ- ing in the early part of the twelfth century, " that almost all knowledge of past events was buried in the same grave with him, and hath continued in that condition even to our times." " There was not so. much as one Englishman," Malmesbury declares, " left behind Bede, who emulated the glory which he had acquired by his studies, imitated his example, or pursued the path to knowledge which he had pointed out. A few, indeed, of his successors were good men, and not unlearned, but they generally spent their lives in an inglorious silence ; while the far greater number sunk into sloth and ignorance, until by degrees the love of learning was quite extinguished in this island for a long time." Thus far the country, in its various divisions and sub- divisions, as well as its inhabitants, was known under various names ; but in the year 827, during the reign of Egbert, who was king of the West Saxons from 802 to 837, the distinction between Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Mer- cians, Northumbrians, or by what other names the various tribes and fractions of tribes were known throughout the island, was formally abolished, and the name of England, for the entire country then occupied by them, and that of English for all its inhabitants indiscriminately, as well as for their language, was proclaimed by royal decree. 1 1 Hoc vel sequenti anno Egbertius in regem totias Britannias coronatus est. Edixit ilia die, ut insula in posterum vocaratur Anglia, et qui Juti vel Saxones dicebantur, omnes communi nomine Angli vocarentur. — Annal. Winto- nens, ad anno 827. Qui prius vocati sunt reges Westsaxonum, abhinc vocandi AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. l/jfI Whether the name was adopted in deference to the in- creasing power and numerical superiority of the Angles does not appear; but more probably was it a political measure to avoid foreign complications such as had al- ready threatened before, and might occur again at any moment in the disorder of political strife which distracted the whole country. Ever since the year 782, when the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin joined the court of Charle- magne, the latter had taken an uncommon interest in English affairs. The costly gifts which he dispatched from time to time to the monasteries of England, as of Ireland, showed his desire of obtaining influence in both countries; through Alcuin he maintained relations with Northumbria; through Archbishop Ethelherd he main- tained relations not only with Kent, but with the whole English Church. Above all, he harbored at his court ex- iles from every English realm. Exiled kings of Northum- bria made their way to Achen or Nimeguen, and there, too, Egbert, the claimant of the West Saxon throne, had found a refuge since Offa's league with Brihtric in 787 excluded him from it. The years which Egbert spent at the court of Charle- magne were years of the highest moment in the his- tory of the world. The greatness of this monarch had reached a height which revived in men's minds the mem- ory of ancient Rome ; his repulse of the heathen world, which was pressing on from the east, marked him out for the head and champion of Christendom ; and on Christ- mas-day of the year 800, the shouts of the people and priesthood of Rome hailed him as Roman emperor. Egbert had probably marched in the train of the Frank- ish king to the Danube and the Tiber ; he may have wit- nessed the great event which changed the face of the world ; and it was in the midst of the peace which fol- lowed it, while the new emperor was yet nursing hopes of a recognition in the East as in the West, which would have united the whole world again under a Roman rule, that the death of Brihtric opened a way for the exile's return to Wessex. The years that had passed since his flight had made little change in the state of Britain. With the exception sunt reges Anglorum. Radulfi de Dicelo Abbreviat. Chronicor. apud Twysden, p. 449, ad anno 828. Egbertus coronatus est rex totius Britannise apud Wentoni- am faciens edictum, ut omnes Saxones Angli dicantur et Britannia Anglia. Chtonol. Augustineus. Cant, apud Twysden, p. 2238, ad anno 827. I 4 2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE of Offa's completing his Mercian realm by the murder of the East Anglian king Ethelbert, and the seizure of his land> English history at this point is little more than a blank. All dreams of ambition at home seem to have been hushed in the sense of a common danger, as men followed step by step the progress of the new ruler of Western Christendom. Charlemagne had remained to the last on terms of peace and friendship with Offa ; but the death of the Mercian king, the war of Mercia with Kent, and the murder of King Ethelred by the Northum- brian thegns afforded, in 796, an opening for intervention which seems to have been arrested only by the persuasion of Alcuin. 1 The danger, though staved off for the time, must have preyed upon English minds when, four years later, Charlemagne mounted the Imperial throne. His coronation as emperor had for the English a meaning which must have deeply impressed them. Britain had been lost to the Roman empire in the hour when the rest of the western provinces were lost ; and to men of that day it would seem natural enough that the island should return to the empire, now that Rome had risen again to more than its old greatness in the West. Such a return, we can hardly doubt, was in the mind of Charlemagne, and the revolutions which were distracting the English kingdoms told steadily toward it. The utter ruin of the Saxon power on the continent, moreover, rendered it ad- visable to the Saxons of England to avoid complications such as might possibly arise from an identity of name which in former days, as we have seen, prevented Pope Gregory the Great from distinguishing between cismarine and transmarine Saxons, and it is not unlikely that this con- sideration, as well as the circumstances that led to it, may have had a great deal to do with the adoption of the names of English and England, as more suitable to pro- claim to the world at large a distinct nationality for all the inhabitants of England, possibly divided on minor ques- tions, but having nothing in common with the Saxons of continental Europe. 1 On the news of the murder, Carolus .... in tantum iratus est contra gentem illam, ut uit, perfidam et perversam, et homicidam dominorum suorum, pejorem earn paganis existimat ; ut, nisi ego intercessor essem pro ea, quicquid eis boni abstrahere potuisset et mali machinari, jam fecisset. Alcuin to Offa, between April and July, 796. Stubbs and Haddan, Councils, iii, p. 498. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I43 CHAPTER IV. THE DANES IN ENGLAND. For more than a century and a half nearly the whole of South Britain had borne the name of England, and the nation was deeply suffering from the effects of a long suc- cession of miserable contests, sometimes between one state and another, sometimes between adverse factions in the same state, having in either case the rancorous char- acter of civil strife, when suddenly they were attacked by a foreign foe whose civilization was as far below their own as theirs had been, four centuries previously, below that of the conquered Britons ; and whose successful in- vasions not only checked their progress as a nation, but nearly replunged them into their original barbarism. These piratical hordes, called Danes or Norsemen by the English, 1 and Normans by the French, were not merely natives of Denmark, properly so called, but belonged also to Norway, Sweden, and other countries spread round the Baltic Sea. They were offshoots of the great Scandi- navian branch of Teutons who, under different names, conquered and recomposed most of the states of Europe on the downfall of the Roman empire. Such of the Scan- dinavian tribes as did not move to the south to establish themselves permanently in fertile provinces, but remained 1 At first the English called them Ostmenn, that is " Eastmen." Then again we find them called Markemenn, which seems to convey the idea of their coming from Denmark. Vocantur autem usitato more Marcomanni gentes un- dique collectse, quae Marcam incolunt. Sunt autem in terra Slavorum Marcse quam plures, quarum non infima nostra Wagirensis est provincia, habens viros fortes et exercitatos procliis tam Danorum, quam Slavorum. — Helmoldi Chron. Slav., i, 65. Tempore quo Normannorum gens universas Gallias devastabat, universam Franciam rex Karolus gubernabat. Sed non valebat eis resistere, quin longe lateque fines regni sui devastarent Marchomanni. Vita S. Genul- phi, post ann. 900 ; literas, quibus utuntur Marcomanni, quos nos Nordmannos vocamus, infra scripta habemus. — Hraban. Maur., de inv. ling, apud Goldast, 2, 67. Ascomenn is another name for these northern pirates. Piratse, quos illi Withingos appellant, nostri Ascomannos. Ad. Brem. de Situ Dan., t . 212. The Angles called them Haidhenas ; the Friesians, Hedhena ; the Dutch and Franks, Heidenen, that is, " Heathens." But the general name under which they re- mained known in England was Deniscan, " Danes." I 4 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE on the barren soil and bleak regions of the north, devoted themselves to piracy as a profitable and honorable profes- sion. The Saxons themselves had done this in the fourth and fifth centuries, and now in the ninth century they were becoming the victims of their old system, carried into practice by their kindred, the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, and others. All these people were of the same race as the Saxons, being an after-torrent of the same fountain-head; and though time, and a change of country, religion, and general mode of life on the part of the English had made some difference between them, the common resemblance in physical appearance, and even of language and other essentials was still strong. The piratical associations of the Northmen, though similar to those of the various Saxon tribes of former times, partook in the ninth century rather of the nature of our privateering companies in time of war, and still more closely resembled the associations of the Corsairs of the Barbary coast, who, up to the early part of this cent- ury, crossing the Mediterranean as the Danes and Nor- wegians did the German Ocean and the British Channel, for many ages plundered every Christian ship and coun- try they could approach. The Scandinavian govern- ments at home, such as they were, licensed the depreda- tions and shared the spoils, having a regularly fixed portion allotted them after every successful expedition. On certain great occasions, when their highest numerical force was required, these governments themselves took active part, and were known to make very extensive leagues. As the Saxons of old, so the Danes, the Norwe- gians, and all the Scandinavians were familiar with the sea and its dangers, and the art of war was cultivated among them far more extensively than by any other na- tion at that time. The astonishing success of these people in England and France, and later in Italy and Sicily, not only proves their physical vigor, their valor and persever- ance, but also their military skill and a remarkable degree of intellect, which contrasted strangely with their savage instincts and their innate brutality. Their religion and their literature, some of which dates back as far as the eighth century, were subservient to their ruling passions for war and plunder ; or, more properly speaking, they were both cast in the mold of those passions, and stamped with the impress of the national character. The blood of their enemies in war, and a rude hospitality, with a bar- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I4 j barous excess in drinking, were held to be the incense most acceptable to their god Woden, who himself had been, perhaps, nothing more than a mighty slayer and drinker. War and feastings were the constant themes of their skalds and bards; and what they called their his- tory recorded little else than piracy and bloodshed. Tor- ture and carnage, greed of danger, fury of destruction, the obstinate and frenzied bravery of an overstrung tem- perament, and the unchaining of butcherly instincts, meet us at every page in the old Sagas. Even their ideal woman is a cold, heartless, bloodthirsty wretch. Thus the daughter of a Danish earl, seeing Egil taking his seat near her, repels him with scorn, reproaching him with " seldom having provided the wolves with hot meat, with never having seen for a whole autumn a raven croaking over the carnage." But Egil seized her, and pacified her by singing, " I have marched with my bloody sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought, the fire passed over the dwellings of men ; we slept in the blood of those who kept the gates." 1 From such table-talk, and such maid's fancies, one may judge of the rest. Like their brothers the Saxons, the Danes were not at one time very bigoted or very intolerant to other modes of faith ; but when they came to England they were em- bittered by recent persecutions. The remorseless cruelties practised by Charlemagne from the year 772 to 803 upon the pagan Saxons settled on the Rhine and in Westphalia, to whom he left no other alternative but death or a Chris- tian baptism, and whom he massacred by thousands, even after they had laid down their arms, were the cause of the fearful reaction and the confirmed idolatry of that people. Those that could escape had fled to Jutland, See- land, Funen, and the islets of the Cattegat, where the people, still unconverted, gave a friendly reception to brethren suffering in the cause of Woden. All these joined largely in the expeditions against England, and they treated as renegades the English who had forsaken the faith of their common ancestors, to embrace that of their deadly enemies. A sort of religious and patriotic fanaticism was thus combined in the Scandinavians with the fiery impulsiveness of their character, and an insatia- ble thirst for gain. They shed with joy the blood of 1 H. A. Taine, Histoire de la Literature Anglaise. I4 6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE priests and monks, 1 were especially delighted at pillaging the churches, and stabled their horses in the chapels of the palaces. 8 When they had devastated and burned some district of the Christian territory : " We have sung them the mass of lances," said they mockingly ; " it com- menced in the morning, and lasted until night." 8 In three days, with an east wind, the fleets of Denmark and Norway, consisting of two-sailed vessels, could reach the south of Britain. The soldiers of each fleet obeyed in general one chief, whose vessel was distinguished from the rest by some particular ornament. The same chief commanded when the pirates, having landed, marched in troops on foot or on such horses as they could capture. His title was that of king; but he was king only on the seas and on the battle-field ; for in the hour of the" banquet the whole troop sat in a circle, and the horns, filled with beer, passed from hand to hand without any distinction of first man or last. The sea-king was everywhere faithfully followed and zealously obeyed, because he was always renowned as the bravest of the brave, as " one who had never slept under a smoke-dried roof, who had never emptied a cup seated in the chimney-corner." 4 He could guide his vessel as the good horseman his steed, and to the prestige of courage and skill were added, for him, the influence created by superstition, for he knew the mystic characters which, engraven upon swords, secured the victory, and those which, inscribed on the poop and on the oars, preserved vessels from shipwreck. 5 Under such a chief the men bore lightly their voluntary submission and the weight of their mailed armor, and they laughed at the wind and waves that failed to do them harm. " The strength of the tempest," they sang, "aids the arm of the rower ; the storm is our servant ; it throws us where we 1 Clerici et monachi crudelius daranabantur. — Hist. S. Vincentii apud Script, rer. Normann, p. 61. 8 Aquisgrani in capella regis equos suos stabulant. — Chronicon Hermanni Contracti, apud Script, rer. Gallic et Francic, vol. viii. 8 Attum odda messu. — Olai Wormii, Litteratura runica, p. 208. 4 Sub idem quoque tempus multi Dania? Norvegiaeque reges Svioniam de- prsedabantur, nee non plurimi reges maritimi (Dtsner Nordmenn oc magir Se- kongar) validis suffulti copiis, ac nullo licet peculiari regnorum dominio gauden- tes. Proinde is merito rex maritimus (Sakongat) appellabatur, qui sub fuligi- noso tigno somnum nunquam capiebat, nee ante focum ex cornu potare solitus erat. — Yuglinga Saga, cap. xxxiv. Heimskringla edr Noregs Konunga s6gor af Snorra Sturlusyni, i, 43. 6 Sig-ninar, the runes of victory. Brim-ninar, the runes of the waves. Edda Samundar hinus frdda, ii, 195. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. H y want to go." 1 Thus the name of sea-king was only a mili- tary title, and had nothing in common with that of kong, meaning " chief," and borne by the numerous petty kings that ruled in the various Scandinavian kingdoms. In speaking of kings and kingdoms, we use words of swelling sound and magnificent import. Splendor, exten- sive dominion, pomp and power are the majestic images which arise in our minds when we hear of thrones. But we must dismiss from our thoughts the fascinating ap- pendages of modern royalty, and rather think of our In- dian chiefs, when we contemplate these petty sovereigns of the North. Some of their kingdoms may have equaled an American county in extent, but many would have been rivaled by our towns. Having neither cities nor fortified posts, and only surrounded by a small band of followers, they often became the prey of each other; sometimes even the victims to some coup de main of other pirates who assailed them. This early state of things continued until the latter part of the ninth century, when Eric in Sweden, Gormo in Denmark, and Harald Harfager in Norway, subdued all these petty kings in their respective countries and united them into three separate monarchies. The second class of these high-titled individuals were sovereigns who neither possessed country nor ruled over regular subjects, and yet filled the regions adjacent with misery and terror. They were a race of beings whom all Europe beheld with horror. Without a square yard of territorial property, without any towns or visible people, with no wealth but their ships, no force but their crews, and no hope but from their swords, the sea-kings a of the North swarmed on the boisterous ocean, and plundered in every district they could approach, sometimes amassing so much booty and enlisting so many followers as to be able to assault even whole provinces for permanent conquest. They were generally the younger sons of the kings in question, the elder remaining at home to inherit the gov- ernment. The former were left to seek their fortune on the ocean, and to wield their scepters amid the turbulent 1 Marinse tempestatis procella nostra remigiis, nee removet a proposito directae intentionis ; quibus nee ingens mugitus coeli nee crebri jactus fulminum unquam nocuerunt, favente gratia elementorum. — Hist. S. Edmundi auctore Abbone floriac. abbate, apud Surium in Vit. Sanctor. Novemb. 20, vi, 441. s Kong, Konung, Koning, Kineg, King, meaning " a leader, a chief." The first among them sometimes bore the title of Kongakong, that is, " Chief of Chiefs." Stz-kong, her-kong, has been accordingly translated by " see-king." — Ihre., Gloss. Suio-Gothic. I4 g ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE waters. 1 The consent of the northern people entitled all men of royal descent who assumed piracy as a profession to enjoy the name of "kings," though they possessed no property ashore. Hence the sea-kings were the kinsmen of the land-sovereigns, and while the eldest son succeeded to his father, the rest of the family hastened like petty Neptunes to establish their kingdom on the waves ; and if any of the former were expelled from their inheritance by others, then they also sought a continuance of their dig- 'nity upon the ocean. Their rank, and especially their successes, always secured to them abundant crews, and the mischief they perpetrated was immense. But while these sea-kings operated under a high-sound- ing title, there was another set of northern pirates on the ocean, far more ferocious, and much less disciplined, though to the victims it made very little difference. Not only the children of kings, but every man that could afford it equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire property by force. At the age of ten or twelve their sons were trained under military tutors in all that could make them distinguished pirates. Piracy, among them, was not only considered the most honorable occupation, but the best field for the harvest of wealth ; nor was it confined to the emulation of the illustrious who pursued it ; no one was respected who did not engage in it, and did not return from sea with ships laden with booty. 2 It was therefore well said of the Northmen, by one of their contemporaries, that they sought their food by their sails 1 Exuberantes atqae terram, quam incolunt, habitare non sufficientes col- lecta sorte multitudine pubescientum, veterrimo ritu, in externa regna extru- duntur nationum, ut adquirant sibi praeliando regna, quibus vivere possint pace perpetua. Dudo de Saint-Quentin, De morib. et actis Norman, due, p. 62. Dani tantis adoleverunt incrementis, ut dum repletae essent hominibus in- sulse, quam plures sancita a regibus lege cogerentur de propriis sedibus migrare. Quae gens idcirco sic multiplicabatur, quoniam nimio dedita luxui mulieribus iungebatur multis. Nam pater adultos filios cunctos a se pellebat, prater unum, quem heredem sui iuris relinquebat. — Guillaume de Jumieges, Histor. Normann., lib. i, cap 4. " Costume fu jadis lone tens En Danemarche, entre paens, Kant hom aveit plusors enfanz, E il les aveit norriz granz, Un des fils reteneit par sort, Ki ert son her empres sa mort, E cil sor ki li sort torneit, En altre terre s'en aleit." — Roman de Ron., i, v. 208, etc. ■ Mos erat magnorum virorum regum vel comitum, Eequalium nostrorum, ut piraticae incumberent, opes ac gloriam sibi acquirentes. — Vatzdaela, ap. Bar- tholin., p. 438. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I4 q and inhabited the seas. 1 The name by which this class of pirates was known was Vikitigr, which originally meant " kings of the bays," for it was in the bays that they am- bushed to dart upon the passing voyager. The recesses of the shores afforded them a station of safety from the perils of the ocean, and of advantage in their pursuit. Our bolder navigation, which selects in preference the open sea, was then unusual. In those days merchant-ves- sels coasted wherever it was possible, and therefore gen-, erally came in sight of those bays, which often were full of this class of pirates, ready to dart upon their prey. The ferocity and useless cruelty of this race of beings almost transcend belief. The piracy of the Vikingr was an exhibition of every species of barbarity. Some o? them cultivated paroxysms of brutal insanity. These were the Bersekir, whom many authors describe. When a conflict was impending, or a great undertaking was about to be commenced, they abandoned all rationality upon system ; they studied to resemble wolves or mad dogs, bit their shields, howled like wild beasts, stirred themselves up to the utmost frenzy, and then rushed to every crime and horror which the most frantic enthusiasm could perpe- trate. Their fury was an artifice of battle like the war- whoops of the Indians, and in this, as in their barbarous daring and cruelty, they much resembled the latter; for the rest, their leading characteristics were much the same as those of the Saxons three centuries previous. It was in the latter part of the eighth century that these people commenced to plague the English coasts. This they kept up at intervals for nearly a century, until at last, seeing that the country was not in condition to re- sist them, they fitted out large expeditions which, in course of time, overran almost the entire island, carrying with them death and destruction, and leaving nothing but ruin and misery in their trail. Priest, monk, nun, youth, old age, nothing was sacred to them. What they looked for was gold and silver, and they sought it especially in the monasteries and churches. Northumbria became a waste. What could not be removed was set on fire, and, with but rare exceptions, the whole Anglian literature perished in the flames. All that could leave fled before 1 Nigellus, who wrote about about 826, has left a poem on the baptism of Harald, in which he says : " Ipse quidem populus late pernotas habetur, Lintre dapes quaerit, incolitatque mare." ISO ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE the fury of the Danes, and those who remained reverted almost all to their old heathen customs and practices. Civilization went back three centuries ; men forgot every art of peace, and what little learning and culture there was among the people became extinguished, even in those parts which hitherto had been the most enlightened. This is the way it began. One day in 787, a body of men of unknown race entered, in three vessels, a port on the eastern coast where now is Portland. 1 They probably came in the guise of traders, as they were wont on such occasions. In order to learn whence they came, and what they wanted, the Saxon magistrate of the place proceeded to the shore where they had landed. The strangers let them quietly approach ; then, surrounding him and his escort, they fell suddenly upon them, killed them, and, after plun- dering the town, returned with their booty to their ships, and immediately set sail. 8 Six years after a similar rob- bery took place on the Northumbrian coast, but on a much larger scale. Then the pirates were not further heard of for many years, until in 832 and the year follow- ing, when they were seen hovering along the southern and eastern coasts in large numbers, making descents here and there, and doing considerable mischief. It was, however, only in the year 835 that the first great army of Danish corsairs directed their course toward England, and landed on the coast of Cornwall. The ancient in- habitants of that country, reduced by the English to the hard condition of tributaries, joined the enemies of their conquerors, either in the hope of regaining some small portion of their liberty, or simply . to gratify the passion of national revenge. The northern invaders were re- pulsed, and the Britons of Cornwall remained under the Saxon yoke ; but, shortly afterward, other fleets brought the Danes to the eastern coast in such numbers that no force could prevent them from penetrating into the heart of England. They ascended the great rivers until they found a commodious station ; then they quitted their barks, and moored them or drew them aground; then, scattering themselves over the neighboring country, they 1 Cuomon serest in scipu Noidhmanna of Hatedha lande .... Thset was- ron tha serestan scipu Dceniscra monna the Angelcynnes lond gesohton.— An- glo-Saxon Chronicle, ad ann. 787. Eo etiam tempore primum tres naves Nor- mannorum, id est Danorum, applicuerunt in insula, qu« dicitur Portland.— Asserius, de Alfredi Gestis. 1 Henrici Huntind., Hist. lib. IV, apttd rer. Anglio. Script. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ISI carried off all the beasts of burden, and, as the chronicles of that day express it, from mariners they became horse- men. They at first confined themselves to plundering and retired immediately, leaving- only some military posts and small intrenched camps on the coasts to cover their speedy return ; but soon, changing their policy, they fixed their residence in the country, and became masters of the soil and of the inhabitants, driving the English popula- tion of the northeast toward the southwestern part of the island, as the Saxons had formerly driven the British population from the British Channel to the opposite sea, A. D. 838 to 865. In the year 866, the most numerous fleet that had ever sailed from Denmark on a distant expedition left for Eng- land, under the command of eight kings and twenty iarls, 1 who landed their troops on the southern part of the coast appertaining to East Anglia. Unable to repel so formida- ble an armament, the people of that country received the Danes in a pacific manner. The latter profited thereby in acquiring supplies of provisions, collecting horses, and awaited reinforcements from beyond sea ; afterward, when they felt assured of success, they marched upon York, the capital of Northumbria, totally defeating the Saxons, and devastating with fire and sword the country they trav- ersed (867). Having made themselves masters of a dis- trict north of the Humber, and being assured by messen- gers of the submission of the rest of the Northumbrians, they resolved on maintaining their conquest. They gar- risoned York and the principal towns, apportioned estates to their companions, without any regard to the rights of the native population, and offered an asylum to men of all ranks who should arrive from the Scandinavian coun- tries to join the new colony. Thus Northumberland ceased to be a Saxon kingdom; it became the rallying point of the Danes, who contemplated the conquest of the southern portion of England. After three years spent in their preparations, the invading army set out. Under the conduct of their eight kings, they descended the Humber as far as Lindesey, where, having disem- barked, they marched from north to south, plundered cities, massacred the inhabitants, and, with their national 1 Iarls, or eorls, according to the Saxon orthography. This is a word whose original signification is doubtful, but which the Scandinavians applied to every sort of commander, whether military or civil, acting as the lieutenant of the supreme chief, called king. 152 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE fanaticism, they destroyed by fire the Christian churches and monasteries, and all books and manuscripts they found in them. East Anglia, being in turn completely subjected, became, like Northumbria, a Danish kingdom, and a point of destination for all emigrant adventurers from the north. The Saxon king was replaced by a sea- king, and the Saxon population, reduced to a state of demi-servitude, lost all property in their territory, and henceforth tilled the land for the Danish conquerors. The country was now overrun by the latter, and of the eight kingdoms first founded by the Saxons and the An- gles there remained but one, that of Wessex, which ex- tended from the mouth of the Thames to the British Channel. In the year 871 Ethelred, king of Wessex, died of wounds received in a combat fought with the Danes who had passed the Thames, and invaded his territory. He left several children ; but the choice of the nation fell on his brother Alfred, a young prince twenty-two years old, whose courage and military skill inspired the Saxons with the greatest hopes. Twice already he had succeed- ed, either by arms or negotiation, in relieving his king- dom from the presence of the Danes ; he repulsed several attempts to invade his southern provinces by sea, and for seven years maintained the boundary lines of the Thames. It is probable that no other army of the Danes would ever have overpassed that boundary, had the king of Wessex and his people been thoroughly united ; but there existed between them germs of discord of a peculiar nature. King Alfred was more learned than any of his sub- jects. While quite young he had visited the southern countries of Europe, and closely observed their manners, customs, and institutions ; he was conversant with their languages, and with most of the writings of antiquity. This superiority of knowledge created in the Saxon king a certain degree of contempt for the nation he governed. He had small respect for the information or intelligence of the great national council, which was called " The As- sembly of Wise Men." Full of the ideas of absolute power which he had so often read of in Roman writers, he was bent on political reforms, and framed many plans better in themselves, perhaps, than the ancient Anglo- Saxon practices they were intended to replace, but want- ing in that essential requisite, the sanction of the people, who neither understood nor desired these changes. Tra- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15, dition has vaguely preserved some severe features of Al- fred's government ; and long after his death men used to speak of the excessive rigor he applied to the punishment of prevaricators and dishonest judges. 1 Although this severity had for its object the good of the nation, it was far from agreeable to a people who, at that time, valued freedom of existence more than regularity in the adminis- tration of public affairs. Thus when, seven years after his election, this learned king, unconsciously odious, having to repel a formidable invasion of Danes, summoned his people to defend the land, he was terrified at finding his subjects but little dis- posed to obey him, and even careless about the common danger. In vain did Alfred send through the towns and hamlets his messengers of war ; few men came, and the king was left almost alone with a small number of faithful followers and friends whom he enchanted with his learn- ing. Favored by this indifference of the nation for their chief, the enemy made a rapid progress. Alfred then, feeling that he was deserted by his people, deserted them in his turn, and the Danish army entered the kingdom nearly unopposed. Many of the inhabitants embarked on the western coasts to seek refuge either in Gaul or on the island of Erin, which the Saxons called Ireland ; 2 the rest submitted to pay tribute and to labor for the Danes. But it was not long before they found the evils of the con- quest a thousand times worse than the severity of Alfred's reign, which alone could have saved them. Thus they regretted their former condition, and even the despotism of a king who ruled them with an iron hand, but who was born among themselves. Alfred, too, reflected on his misfortunes and meditated on the means of saving his people, if it were possible, and of regaining their favor. Having collected a few friends about him, he intrenched himself on a small island near the confluence of the rivers Thone and Parret. There he led the hard and rugged life reserved, in every conquered country, for such of the vanquished as are too proud for slavery — that of a freebooter in the woods, morasses, and mountain defiles. Such as were tired of the foreign yoke, or had been guilty of high treason, in defending their family and property against the conquerors, came and put themselves under the command of the unknown chief, 1 Home, Mirror of Magistrates, p. 296. s Erin-land, Era-land, Ira-land. 12 Ij4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE who disdained to share the general servitude. After six months of a warfare of stratagems, surprises, and of night combats, the partisan leader resolved to declare himself, to call on the people of the whole western country, and to make an open attack, under the Anglo-Saxon standard, on the principal camp of the Danes. Before giving the decided signal, Alfred wished to observe in person the position of the foreigners. He entered their camp in the dress of a harper, and diverted the Danish army with his Saxon songs, the language of which differed but little from their own. 1 He went from tent to tent, and on his return, changing his character and occupation, he sent messengers through all the surrounding country, and as- signed as a place of meeting for all Saxons who would arm and fight, a spot a few miles distant from the ene- my's camp. During three successive days armed men arrived from every quarter, one by one, or in small bands; at the place appointed. Some rumors of this agitation reached the camp of the Danes, but as there was not a single traitor among the Saxons, their information was un- certain. It was not long, however, before they saw the banner of Wessex bearing down on them. Alfred at- tacked their redoubts at their weakest sides, drove out all the Danes, and, as the Saxon Chronicle expresses it, " re- mained master of the field of carnage." Once dispersed, the Danes did not again rally, and Guth- rum, their king, did what those of his nation often did when in peril — he promised that, if the victors would relinquish their pursuit of him, he and his men would be baptized, and would retire to the territory of East Anglia to dwell there in peace. The Saxon king, who was not strong enough to carry on the war to the utmost, accepted these proposals for peace (879). Guthrum and the other pagan captains swore first on a bracelet consecrated to their own gods and then on the cross, that they would in all good faith receive baptism. King Alfred officiated as spiritual father to the Danish chief, who, putting the neophytical white robe over his armor, departed with the wreck of his army for the land whence he had come, and where he engaged for the future to remain. The limits of the two populations were fixed by a definitive treaty sworn to, as the preamble set forth, by Alfred, king ; Guthrum, king ; 1 Danorum Anglicanse loqueUe vicina est. — Chronologia rer. septentr. apud Script, rer. Danic^ v, 26. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ISS all the Anglo-Saxon wise men, and all the Danish people. 1 These limits were, on the south, the course of the Thames as far as the Lea, which discharges its waters into the main stream not far from London ; on the northeast, the Ouse and the great high road constructed by the Britons and rebuilt by the Romans, which the Saxons called Wcethlinga- street, " the road of the sons of Wasthla." 2 All those por- tions of England which were not occupied by the Danes thenceforth formed one single state, carrying out practi- cally the original plan of Egbert ; and thus disappeared forever the ancient division of the English people into various peoples, corresponding in number to the bands of armed emigrants which had incessantly come from the islands and coasts of Continental Europe, and dispossessed the Britons. And now in turn the same bad faith was shown them by the Danes, who, at the first appearance of a fleet of pirates on the coast, broke their oath without hesitation, and saluted the new-comers as brothers, with whom they entered at once upon new expeditions against the Southern English, and kept doing so ever after on every chance or pretext. Such were the people who, for well nigh two cent- uries, made England the object of their incessant depre- dations, hovering first on the coasts as mere pirates, making descents, now at one point, then at another, throughout the whole circuit, and finally establishing themselves perma- nently in the heart of the kingdom, and sweeping it in all directions with fire and sword, until at last they even suc- ceeded in placing their own king upon the English throne. Such a state of things was necessarily fatal to the progress of civilization and with it to the language ; for though the Danes of the tenth century were no longer the low pirates of a century previous, and though even during the twenty years of the reign of Canute the country enjoyed in every way more of the advantages of good government than it had done in any previous period of the same length, yet this very state of peace and relative prosperity was again prejudicial to the vernacular English by favoring a further 1 Alfred cyning and Gydhrun cyning and ealles Angelcynnes Witan, and eal seo theod the on East-Englum beodh. Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxon. In several Latin instruments Alfred translates his title by the word dux. Ego Elfred dux, apud Chart, sub anno 883. — Ley, Gloss. Sax. 8 The word has apparently this signification ; but it is more probable that Wathlinga-street was only the Saxon mispronunciation of the British Gwyddelin- sarn, signifying " Road of the Gaels," that is, " the Irish," which is a very likely name for a high-road leading from Dover to the Cheshire coast, 156 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE admixture of words and phrases from the dialects of the Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and other Scandinavian tribes then settled permanently and in great numbers on the island. It would not be correct, however, to attribute the de- cline and extinction of the earliest literary civilization of the Angles and Saxons wholly to the Danish invasions. The Northmen did not make their appearance till toward the close of the eighth century, nor did their ravages oc- casion any considerable alarm till long after the commence- ment of the ninth ; but for a whole century preceding this date learning in England appears to have fallen into decay. The devastation of the Danes therefore only completed what had been begun by the dissensions and confusion that attended the breaking up of the original political sys- tem established by the Angles and Saxons, and perhaps also by the natural decay of the national spirit among a race long accustomed to a stirring and adventurous life, and now left relatively in undisturbed ease and quiet be- fore the spirit of a new and more intellectual activity had been sufficiently diffused among them. As it was, this was a dark age for England. Schools had almost ceased to exist. In the monasteries themselves the thread of learned tradition had become very thin, indeed, scarcely discern- ible, and if a shining light still burned here and there, it only showed more forcibly the depth of the general dark- ness. When Alfred was a young man, he could find no master in England to instruct him in any of the higher branches of learning ; there were at that time, according to his biographer, Asser, few or none among the West Sax- ons who had any scholarship, or could so much as read with propriety and ease. Alfred has himself stated that, though some of the English at his accession could read their native language well enough, the knowledge of the Latin tongue was so much decayed that there were very few on his side of the Humber who could understand the common prayers of the church, or were capable of trans- lating a single sentence of Latin into English ; and that at the south of the Thames he could not recollect that there was one possessed of this moderate amount of learning. This famous passage occurs in a circular preface, ad- dressed to the several bishops, and serves as an introduc- tion to Alfred's English version of Pope Gregory's Cura Pastoralis. The rare interest of this document, and its bearing upon our subject, induces us to quote it in full : AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 157 Deos boc sceal to wiogora CEASTRE. Alfred kyniDg hatetS gretan WaerferS biscep his wordum lu- flice and freondlice ; and tSe cySan hate Saet me com swifte oft 6n gemynd, hwelce wiotan iu waeron giond Angelcynn, aegSer ge godcundra hada ge woruldcundra ; and hu gesae- Hglica tida Sa waeron giond An- gelcynn ; and hu t5a kyningas Se tione onwald hasfdon <5aes folces on fiam dagum Gode and his aerendwrecum hersumedon ; and hie aegSer gehiora sibbe ge hiora siodo ge hiora 6nweald innan- bordes gehioldon, and eac lit hiora etiel gerymdon; and hu him tSa speow aegSer ge mid wige ge mid wisdome ; and eac Sa godcundan hadas hu giorne hie waeron aegSer ge ymb lare ge ymb liornunga, ge ymb ealle Sa tSiowotdomas t5e hie Gode scol- don ; and hu man utanbordes wisdom and lare hieder on lohd sohte, and hu we hie nu sceoldon ute begietan gif we hie habban sceoldon. Swae claene hio waes oSfeallenu 6n Angelcynne <5aet switSe feawa waeron behionan Humbre fte hiora Seninga cuSen understondan on Englisc, ot56e furSum an aerendgewrit of Lae- dene 6n Englisc areccean ; and ic wene fcaet noht monige be- giondan Humbre nseren. Swae feawa hiora waeron Saet ic fur- tSum anne dnlepne ne maeg ge- tSencean besuSan Temese 8a Sa ic to rice feng. Gode selmihte- gum sie 8onc Saet we nu aenigne on stal habbaS lareowa. THIS BOOK IS FOR WORCESTER. King Alfred bids greet bish- op Waerferth with his words lov- ingly and with friendship ; and I let it be known to thee that it has very often come into my mind, what wise men there for- merly were throughout England, both of sacred and secular or- ders ; and how happy times there were then throughout England ; and how the kings who had power over the nation in those days obeyed God and his minis- ters ; and they preserved peace, morality, and order at home, and at the same time enlarged their territory abroad ; and how they prospered both with war and with wisdom; and also the sa- cred orders how zealous they were both in teaching and learn- ing, and in all the services they owed to God ; and how foreign- ers came to this land in search of wisdom and instruction, and how we should now have to get them from abroad if we were to have them. So general was its decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or trans- late a letter from Latin into Eng- lish ; and I believe that there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I can not remem- ber a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne. Thanks be to God Al- mighty that we have any teach- ers among us now. It was not till he was nearly forty years of age that Alfred himself seriously commenced his study of the ^8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Latin language. Before this, however, and as soon as he had rescued his dominions from the hands of the Danes, and reduced these foreign disturbers to subjection, he had exerted himself with his characteristic activity in bring- ing about the restoration of letters as well as of peace and order. He had invited to his court all the most learned men he could discover anywhere in his native land, and had even brought over instructors for himself and his people from other countries. Werf rith, . the bishop of Worcester ; Ethelstan and Werwulf, two Mercian priests ; and Plegmund, also a Mercian, who afterward became archbishop of Canterbury, were some of the English of whose superior acquirements he thus took advantage. Asser he brought from the western extremity of Wales. Grimbald he obtained from France, having sent an em- bassy of bishops, presbyters, deacons, and religious lay- men, bearing valuable presents to his ecclesiastical supe- rior Fulco, the archbishop of Rheims, to ask permission for the great scholar to be allowed to come to reside in England. And so in other instances, " like the bee, look- ing everywhere for honey," to quote the similitude of his biographer, this admirable prince sought abroad in all directions for the treasure which his own kingdom did not afford. Up to this time absolute illiteracy seems to have been common even among the highest classes of the English. When Alfred established his schools, they were as much needed for the nobility who had reached an advanced or mature age as for their children ; and, indeed, his scheme of instruction seems to have been intended from the first to embrace the former as well as the latter ; for, accord- ing to Asser's account, any person of rank or substance, who, either from age or want of capacity, was unable to learn to read himself, was compelled to send to school either his son or a kinsman, or, if he had neither, a serv- ant, that he might at least be read to by some one. The royal charters, instead of the names of the kings, some- times exhibit their marks, used, as it is "frankly explained, in consequence of their ignorance of letters. This general state of ignorance, however, was not con- fined to England alone, and when Alfred tells us that he knew no priest south of the Thames who understood the meaning of the Latin prayers which he used, he only de- scribes a state of things which was then general over almost all Christendom; for though Latin was the uni- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. i5 q versal language of the Church, not one priest in a thou- sand, either in France or Spain, could at that time write a single letter in the Latin tongue. We must even suppose that the language, as used by Alfred, is not intended to include monks; for notwithstanding the destruction caused by the Danish invasions, many Benedictine monas- teries had continued to be centers of a restricted, but not the less genuine, study of Latin and the Scriptures. Very restricted, however, it must have been, if we are to be- lieve Alfred himself, when he refers to " foreigners com- ing to England in search of wisdom and instruction, and how now they had to get them from abroad if they were at all to have them." Indeed, such had been once the advanced state of learning and piety among the English monks that, after the redemption from idolatry of their own people, they sent in turn missionaries to the Conti- nent to extend the bounds of Christianity among the Teu- tonic races, most of whom were still heathens at the time of Pepin, the father of Charlemagne. One of them, Winifreth or Boniface, more zealous or more successful than the rest, has even been called " the apostle of Ger- many." Still, as it was mainly the reform and extension of the Church, and only incidentally of the school, that engaged his zeal, education among the Dutch and Ger- man people, to whose conversion his labors were mainly confined, remained in a barbarous state until Charlemagne had established schools and a more thorough education of the priesthood throughout his dominions. In this he was assisted by another English monk, Alcuin of York, who was an excellent product of the learning of his time, and devoted to his work. Under Alcuin's advice he issued instructions for the reform of schools, such as then existed, in 787. As this has been justly regarded as a document of great significance in the educational history of the period, it will be especially interesting to compare the views of Charlemagne with those expressed by Alfred on the same subject half a century later. It has been thus translated : * " Charles, by the grace of God, king of the Franks and of the Lombards, and patrician of the Romans, to Bangul- fus, abbot, and to his whole congregation and the faithful committed to his charge : Be it known to your devotion, pleasing to God, that in conjunction with our faithful we have judged it to be of utility that, in the bishoprics and 1 J. B. Mullinger, from the original Latin quoted by Mabillon, part i, c. 9. 160 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE monasteries committed by Christ's favor to our charge, care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular manner of life and one conformable to holy religion, but also the study of letters, each to teach and learn them ac- cording to his ability and the divine assistance. For even as due observance of the rule of the house tends to good morals, so zeal on the part of the teacher and the taught imparts order and grace to sentences ; and those who seek to please God by living aright should also not neglect to please him by right speaking. It is written, ' By thine own words shalt thou be justified or condemned'; and although right doing be preferable to right speaking, yet must the knowledge of what is right precede right action. Every one, therefore, should strive to understand what it is he would fain accomplish ; and this right understanding will be the sooner gained according as the utterances of the tongue are free from error. And if false speaking is to be shunned by all men, especially should it be shunned by those who have elected to be the servants of the truth. During past years we have often received letters from different monasteries, informing us that at their sacred services the brethren offered up prayers on our behalf; and we have observed that the thoughts contained in these letters, though in themselves most just, were ex- pressed in uncouth language, and, while pious devotion dictated the sentiments, the unlettered tongue was unable to express them aright. Hence there has arisen in our minds the fear lest, if the skill to write rightly were thus lacking, so, too, would the power of rightly comprehend- ing the sacred Scriptures be far less than was fitting ; and we all know that though verbal errors be dangerous, er- rors of the understanding are yet more so. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to neglect the study of letters, but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and with that humility which is well pleasing to God; so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. For as these contain images, tropes, and similar figures, it is im- possible to doubt that the reader will arrive far more readily at the spiritual sense according as he is the better instructed in learning. Let there, therefore, be chosen for this work men who are both able and willing to learn, and also desirous of instructing others ; and let them apply themselves to the work with a zeal equaling the earnest- ness with which we recommend it to them. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 Q l "It is our wish that you may be what it behooves the soldiers of the Church to be— religious in heart, learned in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in speech ; so that all who approach your house, in order to invoke the Divine Master or to behold the excellence of the religious life, may be edified in beholding you, and instructed in hear- ing you discourse or chant, and may return home render- ing thanks to God most high. " Fail not, as thou regardest our favor, to send a copy of this letter to all thy suffragans and to all the monas- teries ; and let no monk go beyond his monastery to ad- minister justice, or to enter the assemblies and the voting- places. Adieu." Instruction, in those days, began about the age of seven. The alphabet, written on tables or leaves, was learned by heart by the children, then syllables and words. The first reading-book was the Latin psalter, and this was read again and again until it could be said by heart, and any failure on the part of boys to recite accurately was severely punished. The psalter was read and learned by heart, at first without being understood ; and numerous priests, and even monks, were content all their lives with the mere sound of the Latin words, which they could both read and recite, but did not understand. Writing followed reading. There were two stages. In the first, the boys were taught to write with a style on wax-covered tablets, imitating copies set by the master ; and in the second, or advanced stage, they learned to write with pen and ink on parchment — an accomplish- ment highly prized in days when books were multiplied by hand-copying. The higher instruction generally aimed at giving the pupil a knowledge of the seven liberal arts — the trivium and quadrivium of the Romano-Hellenic schools. 1 Com- pendiums were written and learned ; these, however, were very often so dry and brief, that the pupil knew nothing more than the name and contents of the Arts 1 It seems that the course of instruction in the trivium and quadrivium was established under Alexander the Great, and that the labors of Isocrates, Aris- totle, and Theophrastus stand accredited with much influence in its adoption. The trivium included the three formal sciences — grammar, rhetoric, and dialec- tic, and furnished the foundation of intellectual education. The quadrivium included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music — four branches relating mostly to nature, and in contrast with the studies of the trivium, which relate to human nature or man. — W. T. Harris. r 62 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE studies. The instruction was arranged in the form of question and answer. Such were in substance the methods of study pursued under the direction of Alcuin, who occupied at the court of Charlemagne a post corresponding to what we now should designate Minister of Public Education and of Public Worship. He was in some respects an able, and certainly a very energetic, man, but his views on educa- tion were of a narrow and monastic character. In a letter addressed to his imperial patron he enumerates, in the fantastic rhetoric of the period, the subjects in which he instructed his pupils in the school of St. Martin at Paris. " To some," says he, " I administer the honey of the sacred writings ; others I try to inebriate with the wine of the ancient classics. I begin the nourishment of some with the apples of grammatical subtlety. I strive to illuminate many by the arrangement of the stars, as from the painted roof of a lofty palace." In plain language, his instructions embraced grammar, the Greek and Latin languages, as- tronomy, and theology. In the poem in which he gives an account of his own education at York, the same writer informs us that the studies there pursued comprehended, besides grammar, rhetoric, and poetry, " the harmony of the sky, the labor of the sun and moon, the five zones, the seven wandering planets ; the laws, risings, and settings of the stars, and the aerial motions of the sea ; earthquakes ; the nature of man, cattle, birds, and wild beasts, with their various kinds and forms ; and the sacred Scriptures." In the dialogues which he made for the son of Charlemagne, he uses like formulas the little poetic and trite phrases which were the characteristics of the national poetry. For instance : " What is writing ? The guardian of history. — What is speech? The interpreter of the soul. — What gives birth to speech ? The tongue. — What is the tongue ? The whip of the air. — What is the air? The preserver of life. — What is life? A joy for the happy, a pain for the miserable, and for all the expectation of death. — What is death ? An inevitable event, an uncertain voyage, a sub- ject of tears for the living, a robber of men. — What is heaven ? A moving sphere, an immense vault. — What is light? The torch of all things.— What is the sun? The splendor of the universe, the beauty of the firmament, the grace of nature, the glory of the day.— What is the day ? A call to labor, etc., etc." More, he ends his instruction with enigmas in the spirit of the Skalds, such as we still AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 163 find in the old manuscripts, together with barbarian sono- s ; and he thus addresses his royal pupil : " As you are a youth of good disposition, and endowed with natural capacity, I will put to you several other unusual questions : endeavor to solve them.— I will do my best; if I make mistakes, you must correct them. — I shall do as you desire. Some one who is unknown to me has conversed with me, having no tongue and no voice ; he was not before, he will not be hereafter, and I neither heard nor knew him. What means this ? Perhaps a dream moved you, master. — Exactly so, my son. Still another one. 1 have seen the dead en- gender the living, and the dead consumed by the breath of the living. Fire was born from the rubbing of branches, and it consumed the branches." 1 This was the sort of in- struction young Lewis received from his learned master. It was evidently the best his royal father could command, and gives us an idea of the methods then universally em- ployed in England as well as in France and elsewhere, and which, in scientific as well as in religious instruction, pre- vailed for centuries after. To young men fortunate enough to go beyond the first rudiments of knowledge, a certain command of Latin was indispensable to understand explanations for which the vernacular was utterly inadequate, at a time when dialects were numberless, and often varied from one village to another. Hence the years devoted to what we now call secondary instruction, were mainly taken up by the study of the Latin language, when grammar was regarded as the basis of all other studies. Indeed, the name of " gram- mar school " is still a relic of those days, when grammar was the principle of all that could be learned. In the court of Charlemagne there was a much-admired painting, which represented the seven liberal arts, and in which Grammar was represented as the queen, sitting under the tree of knowledge with a crown on her head, a knife in her right hand with which to scratch out errors, and a thong in her left. The thong was supposed to symbolize the supremacy of grammar in the schools ; it may, how- ever, have symbolized the discipline of the time. For England especially this discipline was exceedingly severe. The slightest faults were punished with the rod. Degere sub virga meant " to receive education." The severity was no doubt encouraged by the theory that the devil was 1 Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, t. ii, p. 191. 1 64 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE in the hearts of boys, and could be got out only by flog- fing. In many monasteries all the boys were periodically ogged as a kind of general atonement for sins past and possible. Even so late as the fourteenth century we find that the ceremony of introducing a schoolmaster to his office was presenting him with a palmer (ferule) and rod, and requiring him to flog a boy .publicly. "Then shall the Bedell purvay for every master in Gramer a shrewde boy whom the master in Gramer shall bete openlye in the Scolys and the master in Gramer shall give the boy a Grote for hys labour and another Grote to him that pro- vydeth the rode and the palmer," etc. 1 As we have no specimens of any of the dialects current among the Saxon and Angle invaders of Britain for nearly three centuries after their settlement in the island, we can not tell to what extent these dialects agreed with or dif- fered from each other, nor can we be sure whether the differences, found at a later period when we can make a comparison between northern and southern English, were due to original diversity or to subsequent differentiation. However, as the dialectal differences, afterward discerni- ble, correspond in the main to the areas historically as- signed to Angles and Saxons respectively, it may be as- sumed that there was some difference of dialect to begin with — that of the Saxons corresponding to the Dutch, which is still its nearest representative on the Continent, and that of the Angles to the Friesian, and through it possibly to such Scandinavian dialects as were current in the Danish islands, where the Friesians for a long time had their colonies, and in Holstein, which they occupied in common with the Angles before their conquests in Britain. The Friesian dialect, which still survives in Friesland, in Heligoland, in the islands between the Ems and Weser, in part of Sleswick, and in a few localities in Oldenburg and Westphalia, was once spoken over a far greater area than at present, extending as it did to an uncertain and irregular distance inland between the Zuyder Zee to the Elbe. These were certainly the parts the Friesians and Angles came from ; and it is probably on that ground that at one time it was believed that Modern English possessed a greater affinity with the Friesian than with any other Low Dutch dialect or language. There is certainly some 1 S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I6 S analogy between the Friesian patois, that may be heard along the coast and on the islands, with some of the old English patois that are yet lingering in some remote northern districts along the Scotch frontier, where Frie- sian settlements were numerous, but even there the re- semblance extends now far more to accent and intonation than to the language itself. Bosworth quotes the follow- ing specimen of the Friesian dialect, which is part of a rustic song supposed to be sung by a peasant on his re- turn from a wedding feast, and dates from the middle of the seventeenth century, " Swi'et, ja swi'et, is't oer 'e mlete, ' T bodskiere foar e" ' jonge lie, Kreftich swi'et is't, sizz ikjiette, As it giet mei alders rie. Mai dars tiget 'et to 'npUach, As ik dan myn geafeunt seach." Gysbert Japix, Friescke Rymlerye. which has been thus translated : " Sweet, yes, sweet is over (beyond) measure, The marrying for the young lede (people) ; Most sweet is it, I say yet (once more), When (as) it goes with the rede (counsel) of the elders, But otherwise it tends to a plague, As I saw on (by the example of) my village fellow." Comparing this with the following specimens of Dutch, quoted and translated by Bowring, the greater resem- blance between the latter language and English wilf be readily apparent : "Als de wyn is in de man, Is de wysheid in de kan." Tuinman, Spreekwoorden, p. 19. " As (when) the wine is in the man Is the wisdom in the can." Bowring, Batavian Anthology. " Parnassus is te wyd j hier is geen Helicon, Maar duinen, bosch, en beek, een lucht, een zelfde zon ; Dit water, dit land, beek, veld, stroom en boomgoddinnen, Met machlelooze liefde wy hartelyk beminnen." Hartspiegel, I, 127-130. " Parnassus is too wide, here is no Helicon, But downs, wood, and beck, one air, one self-same sun ; This water, this land, beck, field, steam, and wood goddesses, With mightless love, we heartily admire." Bowring, Bat. Anth. i66 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Not only does the Dutch construction of the sentence bear a closer analogy to the Anglo-Saxon than the Mod- ern English, but a long list of Anglo-Saxon words might be made out which resemble the Dutch far more than their corresponding form in English. 1 It has therefore been well said that, if the English language, as it was written a thousand years ago, had been left to itself, and no other action from without had interfered with that of its spontaneous growth or inherent principles of change and development, English and Dutch to-day, if not exact- 1 This has not escaped the attention of Mr. Skeat, who says : " The intro- duction into English of Dutch words is somewhat important, yet seems to have received but little attention. I am convinced that the influence of Dutch upon English has been much underrated/and a closer attention to this question might throw some light even upon English history. I think I may take the credit of being the first to point this out with sufficient distinctness. History tells us that our relations with the Netherlands have often been rather close. We read of Flemish mercenary soldiers being employed by the Normans, and of Flemish settlements in Wales, ' where (says old Fabyan, I know not with what truth) they remayned a longe whyle, but after, they sprad all Englande ouer.' We may recall the alliance between Edward III and the free towns of Flanders ; and the importation by Edward of Flemish weavers. The wool used by the cloth-workers of the Low Countries grew on the backs of English sheep ; and other close relations between us and our nearly-related neighbors grew out of the brewing-trade, the invention of printing, and the reformation of religion. Caxton spent thirty years in Flanders (where the first English book was printed), and translated the Low German version of Reynard the Fox. Tyndale set- tled at Antwerp to print his New Testament, and he was burnt at Vilvorde. But there was a still closer contact in the time of Elizabeth. Very instructive is Gascoigne's poem on the Fruits of War, where he describes his experiences in Holland ; and every one knows that Zutphen saw the death of the beloved Sir Philip Sidney. As to the introduction of cant words from Holland, see Beaumont and Fletcher's play entitled ' The Beggar's Bush.' After Antwerp had been captured by the Duke of Parma, ' a third of the merchants and manu- facturers of the ruined city,' says Mr. Green, ' are said to have found a refuge on the banks of the Thames.' All this can not but have affected our language, and it ought to be accepted, as tolerably certain, that during the fourteenth, fif- teenth, and sixteenth centuries, particularly the last, several Dutch words were introduced into England." This, however, would not account for a much larger number of words of whose origin the author seems to be uncertain, and to de- note which he employs the term Old Low German, he says, " for want of bet- ter." These words, existing already in Anglo-Saxon, are simply Old Dutch, and have remained much the same in Modern Dutch, as may be readily ascer- tained from any Anglo-Saxon-English and English-Dutch dictionary. Of these words the author remarks that, " if not precisely English, they come very near it "; and he adds : " Either they belong to Old Friesian, and were introduced by the Friesians who came over to England with the Saxons, or to some form of Old Dutch or Old Saxon, and may have been introduced from Holland, possi- bly even in the fourteenth century, when it was not uncommon for Flemings to come here. Some of them may yet be found in Anglo-Saxon. I call them Old Low German because they clearly belong to some Old Low German dialect ; and I put them in a class together in order to call attention to them, in the hope that their early history may receive further elucidation." — W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. See pages 430-440. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 167 ly alike, would present two very similar dialects of one and the same idiom. But whether it was the Angle, Friesian, Dutch, or Saxon dialects which prevailed, or whether the written Anglo-Saxon originated in a rude mixture of the various dialects which, in the progress of time, melted into one language, just as the kindred tribes themselves united to form a nation, which seems more probable, it must not be supposed that the relative unity found in Anglo-Saxon writers extended also to the spoken language. The high- ly polished Dutch of Holland, which is only a modern form of that language, and has suffered much less from revolutions and the injury of time, has still a vast number of dialects peculiar to certain localities ; and in spite of a superior system of national education, custom allows, nay, even authorizes, in the spoken language, as used by the most refined, certain forms and turns of phrase which would be totally inadmissible in writing. It is, therefore, not probable that what is called the Anglo-Saxon lan- guage was ever spoken with any degree of accuracy or uniformity, even among the better classes, at a time when literary culture was in its infancy in England, and espe- cially not among the mass of country people, with whom reading and writing were arts unknown. The latter, from their agricultural pursuits, had but little communi- cation with the inhabitants of neighboring districts ; and having few opportunities and little inducement to leave their own neighborhood, they generally intermarried among themselves. And from their limited acquaintance and circumscribed views, they would naturally be much attached to their old manners, customs, and language ; and thus we may account for many peculiarities, preva- lent in olden times, being preserved even to the present day in the provincial dialects of certain districts in Eng- land, though it may be difficult to determine from which particular dialect they are derived. Among other evidences that the written Anglo-Saxon is a conglomerate of various dialects, may be cited this fact that no less than five different fragments of verbs, of which the principal terminations appear in cognate lan- guages, are huddled together in the conjugation of the substantive verb. 1 In its grammatical forms, Anglo-Saxon presents comparatively few deviations from the early 1 Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iv, p. 510. 168 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE branches of the Teutonic family of languages. It has two numbers, singular and plural, and three genders. The gender of nouns is chiefly determined by their termina- tions, and the adjectives have variable terminations to correspond to their nouns in gender, number, and case. There are four cases and three declensions, the latter be- ing used to distinguish when the adjective has either a definite article, a demonstrative, or a possessive determi- native before it. But perhaps one of the most remarka- ble characteristics .of Anglo-Saxon is the multiplicity of its synonymous words. It has ten synonyms for the word ■man, and as many for zvoman; it has eighteen words to denote persons in authority, besides ten compounds and several official titles. It has also eighteen words express- ive of the mind, and fourteen to denote the sea ; and to express the name of the Supreme Being it has more terms and periphrases than perhaps any other language. The Anglo-Saxons, especially the earlier writers, possessed a strong partiality for metaphor and periphrasis ; Csedmon, for instance, as we have seen, to describe the ark, used no less than thirty consecutive phrases, and this poetical combination of words was so continuously resorted to, especially in poems, that many of the words thus com- bined became current in the language. "As a subject of philological study," sa)'s Craik, "the importance of this earliest known form of the English lan- guage can not be overestimated ; and much of what we possess written in it is also of great value for the matter. But the essential element of a literature is not matter, but manner. Here, too, as in everything else, the soul of the artistic is form — beauty of form. Now of that what has come down to us written in this primitive English is, at least for us of the present day, wholly or all but wholly destitute. "There is much writing in forms of human speech now extinct, or no longer in oral use, which is still intel- ligible to us in a certain sort, but in a certain sort only. It speaks to us as anything that is dead can speak to us, and not otherwise. We can decipher it, rather than read it. We make it out, as it were, merely by the touch, get- ting some such notion of it as a blind man might get of a piece of sculpture by passing his hand over it. . . . The original form of the English language is in this state. It is intelligible, but that is all. What is written in it can, in a certain sense, be read, but not so as to bring out from AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. rfg the most elaborate compositions in it any artistic element except ot the most dubious and unsatisfactory kind. Either such an element is not present in any considerable degree or the language is not now intimately enough known for any one to be able to detect it. If it is not literally dumb its voice has for us of the present day entirely lost its music. Even of the system of measure and arrangement according to which it is ordinarily disposed for the pur- poses of poetry we have no proper apprehension or feel- ing. Certain mechanical principles or rules may have been discovered, in obedience to which the versification appears to be constructed ; but the verse as verse remains not the less for our ears and hearts wholly voiceless. When it can be distinguished from prose at all it is only by certain marks or characteristics, which may indeed be perceived by the eye, or counted on the fingers, but which have no expression that excites in us any mental emotion. It is little better than if the composition mere- ly had the words ' This is verse ' written over it or un- der it." 1 One of the main causes which retarded the develop- ment of the national language was the habit of the schol- ars of the time of writing almost exclusively in Latin. This practice was not confined to England alone, but then ex- isted everywhere. The scholars of the eighth century, communicating with each other only, and taking but little interest in the concerns of such of their fellow-creatures as were unable to express their happiness or misery in Greek or Latin, do not seem to have produced very ex- tensive benefits to the nation. So much of life was wasted in acquiring erudition that little remained for the applica- tion of it ; and as nature seldom produces a long succes- sion of prodigies, learning expired with its first profess- ors. Some of the English clergy attempted to compose religious poems in imitation of Caedmon, but, according to Bede, "no one ever compared with him." 2 Bede him- self wrote chiefly for the learned; yet, that the common people might be taught the elements of the new religion, he turned the Lord's Prayer and the Creed into Anglo- Saxon, and presented copies of these formulas to such illiterate priests as came under his notice. But the rest was all Latin, with the exception of a translation of the 1 G. L. Craik, Manual of English Literature. 8 Bede, Hist. Eccles., iv, ch. 24. 13 I7 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Gospel of St. John perhaps, which he is said to have com- pleted just as death put an end to his labors. That after him much valuable literature perished in the trouble and confusion attending the incursions and pillaging of the Danes, there can be no doubt ; vfor nearly all the monas- teries and the schools connected with them throughout the land were either laid in ashes, or were deserted in the general terror and distraction occasioned by the attacks of the ruthless invaders. Indeed, an antiquary, in men- tioning the destruction of the Malmesbury Library, relates that many years after, traveling that way, " he saw broken windows patched up with remnants of the most valuable manuscripts on vellum."* Of all the literary losses caused by the savage fanaticism of the Danes, none is more to be deplored than that of the specimens of early English ver- nacular that must have existed, and copies of which these libraries undoubtedly contained. Such, however, as have escaped destruction, show that the Anglo-Saxon Church had, in her own tongue, a considerable amount of script- ural instruction, especially in the way of translation of the Gospels, some of which are still extant, and preserved in great perfection. The following passage of St. Luke, chapter vii, of which we have already given several ver- sions, will be exceedingly interesting to the student of early English. The left-hand column is taken from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, believed to be of the eighth century, and the right-hand column from another manu- script, dating possibly two hundred years later : St. Luke, Chapter VII. 1 1 pa wass .sySSan geworden 1 1 pa waes sySSen ge-worSen he f£rde on fa ceastre f e is gen- he ferde on fa ceastre f e ys ge- emned naim. ~] mid him ferdun nemned naym ; 3 mid hym fer- hys leorning-cnihtas. ■] mycel den his leorning-cnyhtes. ~\ my- menego ; eel manigeo. 12 pa he ge-nealaehte faere 12 pa he ge-nehlahte /fare ceastre gate fa waes far an dead ceastre gate fa waes f aer an dead man geboren anre wudewan su- man ge-boren ane wudewon nu fe nanne oSerne nsefde ; 3 sune. fe naenne ofterne naefde. seo wudewe waes far. j mycel -\ syo wudewe waes paer. ~\ my- menegu faere burn ware mid eel menigeo fare burh-waere mid hyre ; hire. 13 pa se haelend hig ge-seah 13 Da se haelend hyo ge-seah. fa waes he mid mild-heortnesse Da waes he mid mildheortnysse 4 Maitland, Dark Ages, p. 281. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 171 ofer hig gefylled. -} cwaef to hyre. ne wep fu na. 14 Da genealsehte he j fa cyste aet-hran. fa aet-stodon fa fe hyne baeron; pa cwaef se hselend. eala geonga f e ic sec- ge aris ; 15 Da aras se fe dead waes. •j ongan sprecan. fa agef he hine hys meder ; 16 pa ofer-eode ege hig ealle. ~\ hig god maersodon ~j cwsedon. ■J> maare witega on us aras. ~\ fast god hys folc genosude ; 17 Da ferde f eos spsec be him on ealle iudea. "] embe eall f rfce ; * ofer hyo ge-felled. -j cweeS to hire, ne wep fu na. 14 pa ge-nehleahte he 3 fa cheste aetran. fa aet-stoden fa fe hine beren. Da cwaeS se haelend. Eala geonge fe is segge aris. 15 pa aras se fe dead wses. S ongan spraecen. fa agef he hine his moder. 16 pa ofer-eode eyge hyo ealle. J hyo god mersodon 3 cwaeo'en. f mare witega on us aras. 3 fast god his folce ge- neosode. 17 Da ferde feos spraece be him on eallen iudea ~j embe eall fast rice.' Not less interesting will be the following Northum- brian gloss of the same passage in Latin. This, however, is not to be considered a fair specimen of the Northum- brian dialect, inasmuch as a gloss construes only the for- eign text, word for word, and without much regard to the grammatical arrangement of the words of the vernacular tongue thus substituted. Its sole aim is to supply a clue to the meaning of the words of the original separately, so that the original itself be more easily understood ; whereas a version or translation conforms to the grammatical rules of the vernacular tongue, and is intended to replace the original so completely as to make the reader quite inde- pendent of it. This gloss, therefore, gives only Northum- brian words, but is not a specimen of the old Northum- brian dialect, as was once supposed. 3 It is believed to date from the ninth or tenth century : 11 -] aworden waes aefter Son foerde on ceastre $iu is genem- ned naim -j eadon miS hine fceg- nas his ■) folc monigo. 12 miS Sy Sonne geneolecte to durum ceastres ~) heono dead 1 1 Et factum est inceps ibat in ciuitatem quae uocatur naim et ibant cum illo discipuli eius et turba copiosa. 12 cum autem apropinquaret portae ciuitatis et ecce def unctus 1 From MS. No. cxl, in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, described by Wanley in the second volume of Hickes's Thesaurus, at p. 116. 8 From MS. Hatton 38, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford ; described by Wanley, p. 76. 3 See K. W. Bouterwelc, Die vier Evangelien in Alt-Noithumbrische Sprache. ^2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE wses ferende sunu ancende mo- efferebatur filius unicus matris deres his 3 Sios widua wses -J suae et haec uidua erat et turba folco ceastres monig miS hia. ciuitatis multa cum ilia. 13 f ilea miSSy gesege se 13 quam cum uidisset domi- drihten miS milt-heortnise ge- n«s misericordia motus super cerred oier hia cuoeS hir to ea dixit illi noli flere. naelle Su woepa. 14 ] geneolecde ~J hran f 14 et accessit et tetigit locu- ceiste t5a waXedlice SaSe beron lum hi autem qui portabant stodon -] cuoeS esne Se ic cuoe- steterunt et ait adulescens tibi So aris. dico surge. 15 -\ eft-ssett aras seSe wses 15 et resedit qui fuerat mor- dead } ongann spreca ~\ salde tuus et cepit loqui et dedit hine moeder his. ilium matri suae. 16 ondfeng \1\1tedtice alle on- 16 accepit autem omnes timor do J wundradon god cuoedon et magnificabant deura dicentes f te witga micel aras in us 1 quia propheta magnus surrexit fo/Son god sohte folc his. in nobis et quia deus uisitauit plebem suam. 17 j eode foerde Sis word 17 Et exiit hie sermo in uni- on all iudea ~) all ymb f lond. uersam iudaeam et omnem circa regionem. 1 Some have believed to find in these glosses the early traces of Danish influence on the national language, but this is very doubtful. The dialects of the Angles and Friesians who had settled in Northumbria certainly dif- fered in some respects from the Saxon, 2 still, Scandinavian words may have found their way into their language, and if so, there is no reason why this admixture may not have taken place among the Angles and Friesians in Holstein long before any Dane set his foot on English soil. All these dialects, moreover, coming from the same original source, had many forms in common, and differed from each other, at that time, far less than they do at present. King Alfred, it is stated, before giving battle to the Danes, entered their camp, and amused them for several days with his songs, so that he might observe the resources of the enemy. Half a century later, Olaf, king of Denmark, succeeded by the same artifice in penetrating even into the tent of King Ethelstan without being detected. 1 Both Latin text and Northumbrian gloss, which was written over it word for word, are literally copied from MS. Auct. D., ii, ig, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford ; commonly called the " Rushworth MS." Compare with the English version on page 90. 8 This difference of dialect is alluded to in a passage from Bede : " Caelin, rex occidentalium Saxonum qui lingua eorum Csewlin vocabatur." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I?5 However, lest too much stress be laid upon these circum- stances, it must be remembered that at those times, when people were accustomed to any kind of dialect and accent, and when there existed neither mail, nor newspapers, nor printed books, the minstrel took the place of all these, and that, even in time of war, the gleeman could pass everywhere unmolested, and would find with every one a good reception, provided he had something interesting to tell, and knew how to make himself agreeable ; and so the facts alluded to seem to prove that the enemy was mistaken in the real character rather than in the accent or nationality of these princes. But while these Northumbrian glosses do not by them- selves prove the Danish influence on the English lan- guage, it is by no means impossible that they are the work of some Danish monk or clergyman, for by the mid- dle of the tenth century most of the Danish citizens of England had turned Christians, in order to remove from themselves a marked indication of alienship. Several, in consideration of grants of land, assumed the title and the employment of perpetual defenders of the church ; of that church whose edifices, before, they had with such pecul- iar delight burned and destroyed. Some of them even entered religious orders, and professed a rigid and som- ber austerity in expiation of a long career of crime. Still, whether such instances of tardy penance and repentance were ever accompanied by any proficiency in Latin, such as was necessary to interpret the gospel text correctly, is doubtful, and, in the absence of any well-authenticated testimony to the contrary, we may be justified in conclud- ing that these Northumbrian glosses were the work of some native monk who had the advantage of an early lit- erary education, and who interpreted the Latin text, for the benefit of his people, in words belonging to their own vernacular. If, therefore, these glosses can not be quoted as show- ing an early Danish influence upon the language, it is not the less certain that this influence was actively at work, and left a lasting imprint. It is in the dialects of North- ern England, where the population partakes in greater proportion of Danish blood, that the infusion of words and terms of Scandinavian origin is especially observable, though many of these have also found their way into dis- tant counties, such as Dorset and Worcestershire, where Danes were only few in number, and never had any exten- I7 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE sive settlement. " When weighing the corruptions of the Old English," says Oliphant, " we shall find that two thirds of these are due to the shires held by the Norsemen ; the remaining one third is due to the Lower Severn and to the shires lying south of the Thames." 1 Thus the Danes branded forever their mark upon the English tongue ; the North, which was overrun by them, was evidently first and most affected by their presence, while from all the facts referred to above, we may suppose that the corrup- tion of the original Saxon went on steadily throughout the whole land, until in some parts even the Scandinavian speech prevailed, though with a large admixture of Saxon words, and vice versa, according to the relative prepon- derance in number, power, and influence of the population of either race, in the various districts of England. Though many words in the English vocabulary are, therefore, undoubtedly of Scandinavian origin, it is not always possible to determine whether they were of Dan- ish importation, or whether they did not exist already in the Old Anglo-Saxon, especially in such cases where the English, Dutch, and Friesian have the same words in common. According to Dr. Gudbrand Vigfusson, how- ever, the following English words are of undoubted Scan- dinavian origin : ale, anger, bay, bark (of a tree), billow, blush, bondsman, boon, booth, both, breadth, broth, cake, call, cast, clip, crop, depth, dream, droop, dwell, earl, egg, eider, fel- low, fir, fiat, flay, flit, foster, froth, frown, gain, gust, hair, happy, heel, height, husband, hustings, ill, kid, knife, knot, law, loft, low, meek, meeting, muggy, odd, ransack, rash, rein (deer), root, rot, same, scant, score, scrape, seat, shallow, skill, skin, skull, sky, sly, sneak, spoil, spoon, steak, strand, swain, take, task, thrall, thrash, thrift, ugly, walrus, wand, want, width, wing, wont, wrong. Of proper names, descriptive of geographical locali- ties, the nationality is more easily ascertained, and the Norse and Danish names, still found scattered all over England, will often even supply us with a means of ascer- taining facts which history has left unrecorded. By the aid of these local names we are able, not only to define the precise area which was ravaged by the Scandinavians, but in many instances to detect the nature of the descent, whether for purposes of plunder, trade, or colonization. In the first place, it must be remembered that Low 1 T. L. Kington Oliphant, Sources of Standard English. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1?s Dutch and Scandinavian are cognate languages, having many forms in common, and hence that in all countriet occupied by the Franks, Saxons, and Scandinavians— from northern France through Belgium, Holland, Fries- land, Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, including Iceland — we may find local names which, differing but lit- tle in form, are identical in meaning. Thus the Norse Breidafiord, the English Broadford or Bradford, and the Dutch Brevoort mean exactly the same thing ; bree being the shorter form of the Dutch breed (pronounced brade), in Anglo-Sazon brdd; and not only is the present written form of English geographical names apt to mislead us about their original pronunciation, but sometimes even the origi- nal sound will cling to a name, though it may be Anglicised in writing, as in the case of Scaford'm. Sussex, for instance, which is still pronounced Seavoort by its inhabitants, just as the Dutch Zandvoort, Gansevoort, Amersfoort, etc., which leaves no doubt as to the origin of its earliest settlers. But while the suffix ford occurs both in Anglo-Saxon and in Norse names, it is found in them with a characteristic difference of meaning. The fords of the Anglo-Saxon husbandmen, which are so abundantly scattered over the south of England, are passages across rivers for men and cattle ; the fords of the Scandinavian sea-rovers are pas- sages for ships, up arms of the sea, as in the fjords of Nor- way and Iceland, and _the firtJis of Scotland. Therefore these Norse fords are found on the coasts which were fre- quented by the Scandinavians for purposes of trade or plunder, whereas the inland fords generally indicate the settlements of a Saxon population. 1 So the word wick or wich is found in both Anglo-Sax- on and Norse names ; but here also there is a difference in the application, analogous to that we have just consid- ered. The primary meaning in either case seems to have been " a station ; a location." In Dutch, the word wyk means now " a city district," but anciently it had in that language a wider meaning, and is generally found added to some other word, by which it becomes descriptive of the locality, as : Katwyk, that is the district of the Cattiov Chatti; Ryswyk, Beeverwyk, etc. But here it is always an abode on land — a hamlet or a village — and so it was with the Saxons in England. With the Northmen, on the con- trary, it was a station for ships — hence " a small creek or 1 See page 130. 176 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE bay." The sea-rovers derived their very name of vik-ings, 1 or " creekers," from the wics or creeks in which they anch- ored. The inland wicks, therefore, are mostly Saxon, while the Norse wicks fringe her English coasts, and usu- ally indicate the stations of pirates, rather than those of colonists. Thus Alnwick, on the banks of the Aln, and Berwick, named after the Celtic aber, though situated in parts where there seem to be traces of the Danes, were probably Saxon settlements, whereas Wick and Sandwich in Kent, Wyke near Portland, Wicklow in Ireland, show by their very situation to be of Norse derivation. It may be further noticed that in the north of England the form wick prevails, as Keswick, Sedgwick, Warwick, etc., and that in the south it assumes the softer form of wick, as Sandwich, Greenwich, Ipswich, Warwick, etc. The Danish word thorp is the Dutch dorp and the Ger- man dorf, meaning " a village." Copmansthorpe, near York, would therefore be equivalent to the Dutch Koopmansdorp and the German Kaufmansdorf " the merchant's village," showing that here the Danish traders resided, just as those of Saxon blood dwelt together at Cliapmanslade. This suffix thorp, thorpe, throp or trop, found in the names of Althorpe, Holt hr op, Winthrop, Wilstrop, is useful in ena- bling us to discriminate between the settlements of the Danes and those of the Norwegians, being confined al- most exclusively to the former. Ullesthorpe reminds us of a Scandinavian deity, while Bishopsthorpe and Nunthorpe point to a later period, and recall the Christian faith of their first occupants. The word toft is also distinctly Danish and East An- glian. It signifies " a homestead ' or " inclosure," and, like thorpe, it always denotes the fixed residence of a Danish population, as Toft, Lowestoft, etc. Thwaite, on the other hand, is a distinctive Norwegian suffix. The meaning is " a piece of cleared land ; a forest clearing," as Hallthwaite, Lockthwaite, Finsthwaite, Orma- thwaite, etc. Garth, "an inclosure," corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon gard and the English yard, is also a Norse root, as Fishguard, formerly Fishgartk, Applegarth, etc. It is the Dutch gaard, the German garten, and the French jardin? 1 In later times the word " Viking " came to be used for any robber. In a Norse Biblical paraphrase Goliah is termed a viking. — Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. ii, p. 353. s For Norse names in Normandy, see pages 549-551. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 177 _ The Norse word beck, " a brook," is the Dutch beek, with the same meaning, and is found more frequently in the Norwegian than in the Danish region ; and this is also the case with the suffix dal or dale, " a valley," which in Swed- ish, Danish, and in Dutch is dal, in Anglo-Saxon and Old Dutch duel, as Ruysdael, Bloemendael, etc., which makes it doubtful, therefore, whether the names of Kendal, Lonsdale, Annandale, and the like, are of Dutch or of Scandinavian origin. The Friesian form is del, as in Arundel. When dal is a prefix, it is usually a corruption of the Celtic dol, " a field," as in the case of Dalkeith, Dalrymple, etc. 1 The word holm, in Swedish, means " an island," almost always " an island in a lake or river." Stockholm stands on such an island. In England we have, likewise, Flat- fwlm on the Severn, and LingJiolme on Windermere, where a large number of Swedes took refuge in the year 918. The word is found in many English names, such as Holmes, Gatefwlm, Grass/zolm, Steepholm, Wostenholm, etc. An island in the sea is denoted by the Norse oe, a, ay or ey, which latter, however, is Anglo-Saxon as well as Norse. We find these forms in Bedloe, Faroe, Thurloe, Zona ; Cumbray on the western coast of Scotland, and Lambay on the Irish coast. This Norse root ey is found also in the word Orkney, the first syllable of which is the Gaelic ore, " a whale," while the n which follows it is a remnant of the Gaelic innis, " an island." Milton speaks of " the haunt of seals and ores." The same Norse root is found in Hackney, " Hacon's island " ; Bardsey, " the island of the bards " ; Roodey, " the island of the rod or cross," etc. Ea, in Anglesea, " the island of the Angles or English," is only a variety of spelling. 3 1 See page 124. ' 8 At a little distance from the western gate of London lay what was formerly an island of the Thames, which, from the dense bushes and thickets with which it was covered, received the name of Thorney. Robert Wace, in his Roman de Rou, mentions this island, and it is quite interesting to notice, in his phonetic spelling, the natural difficulty of the Frenchman in pronouncing the th, as well as the indistinct manner in which the English even then pronounced the letter r. " En un islet esteit assise, Zonh out nom, joste Tamise ; Zonie por 90 l'apelon, Ke d'espine i out foison, Et ke l'ewe en alout environ. Ee en engleis isle apelon, Ee est isle, Zon est espine, Seit rainz, seit arbre, seit racine ; Zonie 50 est en engleis, Isle d'espine en franceis." (10653.) 1 7 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Another word which denotes the occasional presence of the sea-rovers is ness or naze, which means " nose ; a promontory of land." It is the German nose and the Dutch neus, which has the same meaning, and is also used to denote a headland, as Cape Ter Neuze, for instance. In the same way we find capes Grinez and Blancnez, near Calais, and the Naze in Essex. But, although the suffix ness is common in English names, it has only this Norse meaning when on the coast or on rivers near the coast where such a headland does exist ; 1 whereas, in places in- land it has the meaning which we find in the suffix of the word "wilderness," in Dutch wildernis, "an uncultivated or desert region." Holt is a Norse name, and corresponds to the German holz and the Dutch hout, all with the same meaning of " wood." The park of Haarlem, renowned for its fine old oaks, is called the "Hout." This form occurs in Sparsholt, Alder sholt, and in the shorter forms of Alder shot, Bagshot, Bramshot, etc. The Wolds in Yorkshire is a Frie- sian name, analogous to holt, and also means " the woods." Just as holt in Dutch is hout, so wold in Friesian and Dutch is woud, meaning " a forest." The word force, which is exclusively Norwegian, is the ordinary name for " waterfall " in the Lake District, and corresponds to the Icelandic foss, with the same meaning. Gill means " a ravine." Haugh is the old Norse haugr, " a sepulchral mound," the same word which ap- pears in the haughs of Northumberland. Kirk is the Dutch kerk for " church " ; and bjorn, now borne, is found in Os- born, from Aesborn, "children of God," etc. But the Scandinavian word which outstrips all others, both in number and in its exclusively national character, is the suffix by. This word originally meant " a dwell- ing," or "a farm," and in course of time came to denote "a village" or "a town." We find it as a suffix in the village-names of Denmark, and of all countries colonized by the Danes. In England it always denotes Danish col- onization, " a permanent abode," inasmuch as in places visited only for purposes of trade or plunder no dwell- ings would be required. There are scores and scores of names ending in by all over England ; in Lincolnshire alone there are more than one hundred. To the north of Watling Street there are some six hundred instances of its 1 On the Hudson river we have St. Anthony's neus ; St. Anthony's nose. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I?9 occurrence ; to the south of it but few. This suffix is common both to the Norwegian and Danish districts of England, though it is more frequent in the latter. Thus we have Grimsby, Swainsby, Rolfsby, Ormsby, Whitby, Col- by, Malt by, Hacomby, Ingersby, Osgodby, Stokesby, etc., all family names, indicating the original owner of the farm or founder of the village. Saxby, Scotsby, Frisby, Frankby, Flemingby, show that the name was applied originally by the Danes to the farm of some Saxon, Scot, Friesian, Frank, or Fleminger living in their districts. Wherever the Danes went this form is always certain to be found. Thus the meaning of Derby, Deriventby, Netherby, Appleby, and the like, are easily understood. Coningsby is Danish for the English Cunningham, literally "the king's farm, the king's home." The spelling is Anglicized in Batters- bee, Homsbee, and Ashbee. Rokeby has become Rugby. The Danes were fond of adding the particle to the names of their gods, and thus wrote Thoresby and Balder sby— justi- fying the poet when he sings of the Northmen that " they gave the gods the land they won." Other Danish names, such as Kirkby and Crosby, show that, at the time these names were given, the Christian bishop had driven out the heathen priest, and that the Christian Church and cross had succeeded to the pagan altar. 1 In that part of England which was settled by the Danes, the missionary efforts seem to have been of a parochial character. We find the prefix kirk, a church, in the names of no less than sixty-eight places in the Danelagh, while in the Saxon por- tion of England we find it scarcely once. Kirby means church-village, and the Kirbys which are dotted over East Anglia and Northumbria speak to us of the time when the possession of a church by a village community was the exception, and not, as is now, the rule. These names point to a state of things somewhat similar to that now prevailing in Australia or Canada, where often but a sin- gle church and a single clergyman are to be found in a district fifty miles in circumference. Thus we may regard these Kirbys distributed throughout the Danelagh as the sites of the mother churches, to which the surrounding 1 Many village names still localize the scenes of the labors of early mission- aries. At Kirkcudbright, for instance, we find the name of St. Cuthbert, a shep- herd-boy, who became abbot of Melrose, and the Thaumaturgus of Britain. Baxter, who wrote in the second part of the last century on British antiquities, thought the name was Celtic. It is, he says, forsan, " Caer gin aber rit," id est "Arx trajectus flumiali Aestuarei. — Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicorum, p. 40. 180 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE parishes, whose names contain no such prefix, would bear a filial relationship. The Danes appear to have frequented the southeastern portion of the island for purposes of plunder rather than of colonization. This we gather from the fact that the Norse names in these parts are found chiefly in the immediate vicinity of the coast, and designate either safe anchorages or dangerous headlands. Here we find hardly one solitary instance of the occurrence of the suffixes by, toft, thorpe, or thwaite, which would indicate permanent resi- dence. London was repeatedly besieged by the Danes. With the hope of capturing the rich and unrifled prize, their fleets lay below the city for many months together. 1 Their stations were at Deptford, Greenwich, and at Wool- wich. The spits and headlands, which mark the naviga- tion along the Thames and the adjacent coasts, almost all bear characteristic Norse names, such as Shelness, Sheer- ness, Shoeburyness, Wrabness, and the Naze near Warwich. On the Essex coast we find Danesey Flats, Langenhoe, and Aires ford. The few scattered Danish names in Suffolk, such as Ipswich, Dunwich, Alderswick, are all near the coast. Norwich, too, is probably Norse, since the city is situated on what was formerly an arm of the sea, and was visited by Danish fleets. 3 In the extreme southeastern cor- ner of Norfolk there is a dense Danish settlement, occu- pying a space some eight miles by seven, well protected on every side by the sea, and the estuaries of the Bure and the Yare. In this small district eleven names out of twelve are unmistakably Norse, compounded mostly of some common Danish personal name and the suffix by. When we cross the Wash, and come to Lincolnshire, we find overwhelming evidence of an almost exclusive Dan- ish occupancy. While in this county the Danish suffix by is found in more than one hundred names, the total number of Scandinavian names of all kinds amounts to about three hundred — more than are found in all the rest of Southumbrian England. From Lincolnshire the Danes spread inland over the contiguous counties. The Dane- lagh, or Danish district by agreement between Alfred and Guthrum, renewed by Edmund and Anlaf in 941, was divided from the Saxon kingdom by a line passing along the Thames, the Lea, and the Ouse, and then following ^Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1013, 1014, 1016. s Sharon Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii, p. 317. — Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1004. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. iSl the course of Watling Street, the Roman road which runs in a straight line from London to Chester. North of this line we find in the local names abundant evidence of Dan- ish occupancy, while to the south of it hardly a name is to be found denoting any permanent Scandinavian coloni- zation. As we approach the northeastern extremity of Scot- land we again find a large number of Norse names ; they are, however, no longer Danish as heretofore, but exclu- sively Norwegian. Indeed, we know from history that down to a comparatively late period, A. D. 1266, the Shet- lands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man were not dependencies of the crown of Scotland, but jarldoms attached to the kingdom of Norway. In the Shetlands every local name, without exception, is Norwegian ; in the Hebrides nearly all are. The Isle of Man must at one time have contained a considerable Norwegian popula- tion, to judge from the Norse names of the villages, which, it will be seen, are mainly confined to the south of the isl- and — a circumstance which is accounted for by the his- torical fact that when Goddard of Iceland conquered Man, he divided the fertile southern portion among his followers, while he left the natives in possession of the northern and more mountainous region where, conse- quently, Celtic names prevail. 1 In the same way that the Danish names in England are seen to radiate from the Wash, so the Norwegian immigration seems to have proceeded from Morecambe Bay and that part of the coast which lies opposite the Isle of Man. Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Dumfriesshire contain a very considerable number of Scandinavian names, but comparatively few of a distinct- ively Danish cast. The Lake District seems to have been almost exclusively peopled by Celts and Norwegians. The Norwegian suffixes, gill, garth, haugh, thwaite, force, and fell are there abundant ; while the Danish forms, thorpe and toft, are almost unknown. Although there are but few Norse names found inland to the south of Watling Street, it is not the less certain that the sea-rovers, knowing all the good harbors of the island, did not overlook the fjords of Pembrokeshire as shelter for their vessels. Thus there were no less than twenty-four of the headlands on the Pembrokeshire coast 1 Train, Isle of Man, vol. i, p. 78. t82 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE occupied by Scandinavian camps, which were probably at first little more than nests of pirates, who sallied forth from the deep land-bound channels to plunder the oppo- site coast, and to prey upon any passing merchant craft. There is, however, occasionally in Pembrokeshire a difficulty in distinguishing between the Norse names and those which are due to the colony of Flemings which was established in this district during the reign of Henry I. 1 These colonists came from a portion of Flanders which was submerged by an irruption of the sea in the year I no. Leweston, Richest on, Robes ton, Rogeston, Johnston, Wal- terston, Herbrandston, Thomaston, Williamston, and Jeffrey, ston belong to a class of names which we find nowhere else on the English map ; names that were given, not by Saxon or Danish pagans, but by Christian settlers, men bearing the names, not of Thurstan, Gorm or Grim, but of Lewes, Richard, Robert, Walter, and others common in the twelfth century. The Northmen would appear to have established themselves in Ireland rather for purposes of trade than of colonization. Their ships sailed up the great fjords of Waterford, Wexford, Strangford, and Carlingford, and an- chored in the bays of Limerick and Wicklow. In Kerry we find the name of Snierwick, then apparently, as now, a trading station for the produce of the surrounding dis- trict. The name of Copland Island, near Belfast, shows that here was a trading station of the Norse merchants, who trafficked in English slaves and other merchandise. 2 As we approach Dublin, the numerous Norse names along the coast — Lambay Island, Dalkey Island, Ireland's Eye, the Skerries, etc., prepare us to learn that the Scandinavians in Dublin were governed by their own laws till the thir- teenth century, and that, as in London, they had their own separate quarter of the city, guarded by walls and gates. 3 The general geographical acquaintance which the Northmen had with the whole of Ireland is shown by the fact that three out of the four Irish provinces, namely, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster, present the Norse suffix ster, " a place," which is not Celtic, but essentially Scan- 1 Flandrenses, tempore Regis Henrici prirai .... ad occidentalem Wallise partem apud Haverford sunt translati. — Higden's Chronicle. 5 See Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, p. 48. 3 Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, pp. 323-349. The Scandinavians, called Ostmen, possessed the four cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and Cork. There were Ostmen kings of Limerick, Dublin, and Waterford. — Lap- penberg, Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 64. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 183 dinavian, and exceedingly common in the Shetlands and in Norway. The traditions of ancient Scandinavian liberties are associated with the places where the Things, that is " the judicial and legislative assemblies of the Scandinavian na- tions," were wont to meet. These institutions, of which we find traces in all regions colonized by the Northmen, were derived from the parent country, Norway, where there was an Althing, or general assembly, and four dis- trict things for the several provinces. The Norwegian parliament still goes by the name of the Stor-thing, or "great council." The Thing usually met on some island, hill, or promontory, where its deliberations could be car- ried on secure from lawless disturbance. The Northmen introduced their Things into England. The very name survives in the English words " meeting," from met thing, or assembly of freeholders, and " hustings," or house things, at which the duly qualified householders still assemble to delegate their legislative powers to their representatives in parliament. In the Danelagh, as well as in most of the detached Scandinavian colonies, we find local names which prove the former existence of these Things in Eng- land. Not far from the center of the Cheshire colony in the Wirall, we find the village of Thingwall. In the Shet- land islands, Sandsthing, Althsthing, Delting, Nesting, and Lunziesting were the places of assembly for the local Things of the several islands, while Tingwall seems to have been the spot where the Althing, or general assem- bly, was held. In the Shetlands, the old Norwegian laws are even now administered at open courts of justice, which still go by the name of Lawtings. The old Norse Thing has survived in the Isle of Man to the present day. It would demand more space than the interest of the subject would warrant to trace the local vestiges of the worship of the Scandinavian deities. They have left their names scattered far and wide all over England, Scotland, Ireland, and the smaller isles, where the presence of ancient Scandinavian runes bear testimony to the long duration and great difficulty of the process by which the Scandinavian settlers were converted to Christianity. Of the mythic heroes of Scandinavian legend, the name of Weland, the northern Vulcan who fabricates the arms of the heroes of the early Sagas, is preserved at a place in Berkshire called Waylandsmith. Here still stands the structure which the Saxons called Welandes Smidde, " We- !84 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE land's Forge " — a huge megalithic monument, consisting of two chambers constructed of upright stones and roofed with large slabs, undoubtedly some work of Celtic origin. Daring sailors, and indomitable fighters, the Northmen were not a constructive race, and their pride revolted at the idea that a people stronger than themselves could have brought there such gigantic masses and placed them in position. All such works they invariably attributed to the complacent co-operation of the enemy of mankind, which some one must have necessarily paid for at the price of soul and body. Hence all the marvelous legends which often linger round the numerous places called the Devil's Dyke, the Devil's Punchbowl, and the like, and which all originated in Norse and Saxon superstition. There is yet in the Lake District a dark and rugged rock which bears the name of Scratch Meal Scar. Here we may de- tect the names of two personages who figure in the Norse mythology, Skratti, a demon, and Mella, a weird giantess. 1 This demon Skratti still survives in the superstition of Northern Europe. The Skratt of Sweden, with a wild horse-laugh, is believed to mock travelers who are lost upon the waste ; and sundry haunted rocks on the coast of Norway still go by the name of Skrattaskar? In the north of England the name of Skratti continues to be heard in the mouths of the peasantry, and the memory of " Old Scratch," as he is familiarly called, may probably be destined to survive through many future Christian centuries, in company with " Old Nick," who is no other than Nikr, the dangerous water-demon of Scandinavian legend. 3 This dreaded monster, as the Norwegian peas- ant will gravely assure you, demands a human victim every year, and carries off children who stray too near to his abode, beneath the waters. In Iceland, also, Nykr, the water-horse, is still believed to inhabit some of the lonely tarns scattered over the savage region of desolation which occupies the central portion of the island. Many similar traces of the old northern mythology are to be found in that well-stored antiquarian museum, the English language. In the phrase " Deuce take it," the deity Tiw still continues to be invoked. 4 The nursery 1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythology, p. 493. a Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i, p. 250. 8 Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i, p. 92. 4 Quosdam daemones quos dusios Galli nuncupant — Augustin. De Civitate Dei, xv, c. 23. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I g s legend of " Jack and Jill " is found in the younger Edda where the story of Hjuki, " the flow," and Bil, " the ebb," the two children of the moon, appears to be merely an exoteric version of the flowing and ebbing of the tides. 1 The morning " gossamer " is the gott-cymar, the veil or trail left by the deity who has passed over the meadows in the night. The word "brag" has an etymological connec- tion with the name of Bragi? the Norse god of song and mirth, while the faithful devotees of Bragi are apt to fall, after a while, under the power of Mara? a savage demon' who tortures men with visions, and crushes them even to death, and who still survives, though with mitigated pow- ers, as "the Nightmare " of modern days. 4 While the words by, thwaite, toft, holm, force, gill, haugh, ey, are distinctly Norse forms, and mark the sites of Scan- dinavian settlements in England ; while thorpe, drop, dorp, and dorf—boec, bee, beck, and beek— fjord, ford, vord, and voort—vic, wick, wic/i, and wyk, seem to be as much ortho- graphic as phonetic varieties of the same words which the Low Dutch and Scandinavian languages have in common, there are other forms which, on the European continent, extend not much farther north than Friesland, and south not much below the river Seine, and which, found in great numbers in England also, mark there with great pre- cision the sites of what may be called the Anglo-Saxon colonies. Foremost among these stands the word ton, the pri- mary meaning of which is to be sought in the Friesian te"ne, " a hedge." In Anglo-Saxon we have the verb tynan, "to close or inclose," and its derivative tyning, "an in- closure ; a yard ; a farm ; a garden." A tun or ton was a place surrounded by a hedge, a ditch, or shut in by a fence or palisade. "Hedging and lining " for hedging and ditching, was a phrase current in England two hun- dred years ago. Originally a tun or ton meant only a sin- gle croft, homestead or farm, and the word retained this restricted meaning in the time of Wyclif. In his transla- tion of the Bible, the invited guest excuses himself with the words : " I have bought a toun, and I have nede to go 1 Baring-Gould, Iceland, p. 161. s Baring-Gould, ibid., p. 161. 3 Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 263 ; Laing, Heimskringla, i, p. 92. * On the subject of the Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology, as illus- trated by local names, the reader may consult Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythol- ogy, passim. 14 1 86 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE owt and se it"; and in the reference to it, Matt, xxii, 5, " But they dispisiden and wenten forth, oon into his toun, another to his marchaundise." This usage of the word is retained in Scotland, where a solitary farmstead still goes by the name of toun. In Dutch, tuin means " a gar- den, and tuinman means " a gardener " ; but in some com- binations it still retains its original meaning of inclosure. Houttuinen are " lumber-yards," and teertuinen are " yards where the ship-chandlers keep tar, cordage," etc. In many parts of England the rickyard is called barton — that is, the inclosure for the bear or " crop " borne by the land. There are still lone farmhouses in Kent in whose names the form ton figures as a suffix. But in most cases the isolated ton became the nucleus of a village, and the vil- lage grew into a town, and at last the word town has come to denote, no longer the one small croft inclosed from the forest by the Saxon settler, but the dwelling-place of a vast population, often much larger than that which the whole of Saxon England could boast. 1 All these forms of ton, tun, toun, and town, are found as suffixes in English local names, and invariably show the sites of original Sax- on settlements. Tunbridge is one of the few names in which the old form is fully preserved. Generally, how- ever, it has been lengthened into toun or town, as in Hope- toun, Watertown, or shortened into ton, as in Acton, origi- nally Oaktown, Bratton, Leighton, Leamington, etc. Al- most everywhere we find Norton, Sutton, Easton, Weston. Local names of this kind were readily transferred to men, and hence such names as Walton, Milton, Wootton, Staun- ton, Morton, Appleton, Wellington, Washington, and the like, are apt to indicate Saxon descent, in contradistinction to the many English patronymics that show a Celtic or Scandinavian extraction. The Anglo-Saxon yard, and the Norse equivalents^, contain nearly the same idea as ton. Both denote some place fenced in, or guarded. The articulations y and^ being interchangeable, the meaning of the word garden is readily accounted for as " an inclosed cultivated place in which flowers, fruits, vegetables, etc., are reared." The same may be said respecting stoke, another common suffix, which we find in Alverstoke and Bassingstoke. In Dutch, a stok means a " stick." In Old English a stoke was a place 1 It appears from Domesday-book that the population of Saxon England was, in the eleventh century, about a million and a half. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 187 stockaded, surrounded with stocks or piles. A somewhat similar inclosure is denoted by the suffix fold, which was a stall or place constructed ox felled trees, for the protec- tion of sheep or cattle. The Anglo-Saxon weorthig, which appears in English names in the form of worth, bears a meaning analogous to all these. It denotes a place ward- ed, or protected. It was probably an inclosed homestead for the churls, subordinate to the tun. We find this suffix in the names of Boszvorth, Wahvorth, Kenilworth, and many other places in England. The prevalence of these suffixes in English names, all conveying the notion of inclosure or protection, show how eager every man was to possess some land which he could call his own, and guard from the intrusion of others. Even among those portions of the Teutonic race which remained on the Continent, we do not find that this idea of privacy and seclusiveness has been manifested in local names to the same extent as in England. The feeling seems, indeed, to have been more or less enchorial, for we find strong indications of it even in the pure Celtic names of Britain. Probably more than one half of the Celtic names in Wales and Ireland contain the roots llan, kil, or bally, all of which originally denoted an inclosure of some kind. The Teutonic suffixes which do not denote incis- ures are not reproduced in England to nearly the same extent as on the Continent. It would seem, therefore, that the love of inclosure and privacy, of something hedged, walled in, or protected, is due more or less to the Celts, who were gradually absorbed among the Saxon colonists. The ancient name of burg or burgh, so frequently found in all Teutonic countries, where it originally meant " a small fortified height," and gave the name of burgers or burghers to the people living under the protection of the burgh, is of course not wanting in England. It there as- sumes varied forms, changing from the full Scarborough to the shortened Edinbord ', and occasionally appearing as bury, in Salisbury, Malmesbury, and others. Brough in West- moreland is a contraction of borough, and in this form it appears as the root in the compound Brougham. The old Scottish form of the word is brogh, with the guttural strongly pronounced. Burgh and brough are Anglian, as are probably four fifths of the " boroughs," while bury is the distinctly Saxon form. Dun is both Saxon and Celtic. In both it means " a !88 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE height," and in the latter language often "a fortified height," as we have seen in Dumbarton, " the fortress of the Britons." In Anglo-Saxon it rather means " an emi- nence stretching out in gentle slope." Such are the Dunes on the French coast, and the Duinen in Holland, and there they form the first part of the name of Dunkerque, in Dutch Duinkerken, pronounced nearly alike, and equivalent to Kirk on the Downs. We find this form in Southdowns, Landsdowne, Huntingdon, Maldon, Brandon, Farringdon, etc. The Scots place it first, and say Dunkeld, Dunbar, Dunrobin, which shows these words to be of Celtic origin, as observed already elsewhere. 1 The vast tract in Kent and Sussex which is now called "the Weald," is the remains of a Saxon forest called An- dredesleah. In this district almost every local name, for miles and miles, terminates in hurst, ley, or den. The hursts were the denser portions of the forest, the leys, leahs, or leas, in modern English leigh, were the open forest glades, and the dens were the deep-wooded valleys. All these words are found as parts of local names in Orleigh, Wad leigh, Berkeley, Hamersley, Wellesley, Lyndhurst, Hawkshurst, Maiden, Hampden, Tenterden, and the like. The dens were the swine pastures ; and down to the seventeenth century the " Court of Dens," as it was called, was held at Alding- ton to determine disputes arising out of the rights of for- est pasture. The surnames Hayward and Howard are cor- ruptions of Hogwarden, an officer elected annually to see that the swine in the common forest pastures or dens were duly provided with rings, and were prevented from stray- ing. So the Woodward was the wood warden, whose du- ties were analogous to those of the howard. The Anglo-Saxon field or field, in Dutch veld, is an open space of land, an inclosed portion of cultivated soil, a part of the wood where the trees have been felled. In old writers wood and field are continually contrasted. Like our modern term " clearing," the word field bore witness to the great extent of unfelled timber which still remained. With the progress of cultivation the word lost its primi- tive meaning, and is often found with a prefix referring to the cause or circumstance in which the name origi- nated. Lichfield, in Hampshire, for instance, literally means " field of corpses," and evidently refers to some bloody conflict of which history has preserved no other 1 See pages 124 and 177. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 189 record than its name and the city arms, which are " a field covered with dead bodies." Thmidersfield, in Sur rey, is a survival of the ancient worship of the Anglo Saxon god Thunor, in Danish Thor, in Dutch Donder and \ n r E ?^ sh Sunder. Fairfield, Marshfield, Bloomfield, Hartfield speak for themselves. So do the Dutch Blau- velt, Rosevelt, Westervelt, Harteveld, etc. Combe is a common word in England and northern France, meaning " a cup-shaped depression in the hills." It enters into the formation of many English local names, as Farncombe, Hascombe, Newcomb, Compton (a contraction of Combe-ton), etc. The word also existed in Welsh in the form ewm, pronounced coom, and with the same meaning. Cum bychan literally means "a little combe." Out of Wales all these names appear in their Saxonized form, as Wycombe, Gatcomb, Appledurcomb, and so they are even in those parts where the Celtic element is strongest. In Devonshire there is an Ilfracombe, a Yarcombe, a Luscombe, and a Combe Martin; and the combes among the Mendip hills are very numerous. The Celtic County of Cumber, land has been supposed to take its name from the combes with which it abounds. 1 The Dutch word meer, " a lake," is found in Lickmere, Uggmere, Windermere, Buttermere, and Eastermaer. Vliet, which in Dutch means " a flow of water," as Meervliet, Watervliet, is found with the same meaning in Ebbfieet, Southfteet, Northfleet, Port fleet, etc. The Fens in Cambridge- shire and Huntingdonshire are named after the veens in Friesland and elsewhere in Holland, which are swampy lands formed by a natural accumulation of decayed vege- table substance, occurring in strata more or less deep. The fuel made of it goes by the name of turf, which, as an English word, has gained a more extensive mean- ing. The English moor and morass are the Dutch moer and moeras. The name of Moerdyk is one that explains itself. Holland is full of dykes. It is by means of this kind of embankment that, from time immemorial, its low- lands have commenced to be reclaimed from the sea and overflowing rivers. In Holland they serve as a protec- tion against the fury of the waters ; in England a dyke 1 Anderson, a Cumberland poet, says of his native county : " There's C«««whitton, C«*»whinton, Cawzranton, C«#zrangan, Cumrew, and Cumcatcb, And mony mair Cums i' the County, But nin wi' C«/»divock can match." igo ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE was a " rampart for purposes of defense," and served to mark the boundaries between hostile kingdoms. One of the most important of these Saxon dykes was the Wans- dyke, in Anglo-Saxon times Wodnesdzc— the ancient bound- ary of Wessex — which still stretches across the downs of Somerset and Wilts. Offa's Dyke, which stretched from Chester to the Wey, guarded the frontiers of Mercia against the Welsh; Grim's Dyke, near Salisbury, marks the position of the Welsh and Saxon frontier at an earlier period ; and the Devil's Dyke served as the defence be- tween the kingdom of East Anglia against Mercia. But by far the most important elements which enter into Anglo-Saxon names are the suffixes ham and ing. Like many other Saxon forms already considered, the suffix ham signifies primarily " an inclosure ; something that hems in " — a meaning not very different from that of ton or worth, or even of the Norse by. But while the lat- ter syllable is generally found attached to some personal Danish name, we find the suffix ham, in the Anglo-Saxon charters, united with the names of families only ; never with those of individuals. This word, with some phonetic modifications, is found in all parts of continental Europe whose people contributed to the Saxon conquest of Eng- land. In France we find the names Ham, Hame, Haines, Le Ham, Le Hamelet, Bazingham, Etreham, Ouistreham, etc., as a bequest from the Franks. As we approach the Bel- gian frontier, ham passes into hem, as Inghem, Linghem, Bouquinghem, Hardinghem, Maninghem ; and even into hen, as Berlinghen, Massinghen, Velinghen. Caen was originally written Cathem and Catheim. All along the river Rhine, hem takes the form of heim, as Hochheim, Rudesheim, Gei- senheim, etc. In Holland it becomes heem, as Heemskerk, Heemstede, 1 or else it takes the shorter form of hem, as in Arnhem, Gorinchem, or even of em, as in Haarlem. Hem or em becomes um in Friesland, as Boerum, Dokkum, Wie- rum, Ryssum, Witmarsum ; and all along the coast-line of Hanover we find such names as Bornum, Eilum, Hallum, Berlikum, etc. Then, again, it changes into om, as Blari- com, Heukelom, in which form we find it in the old Friesian settlement of Holderness in Yorkshire, as Newsom, Rysom, and even as am in the village names of Arram and Argam, in the same district. Elsewhere in England it assumes the form ham, generally attached to some family name, as 1 The English word " homestead " is a literal translation from the Dutch. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I9I Ingham, Lingham, Banning/tarn, Billingham, Birmingham, Buckingham, Brantingham, Cardingham, Hardingham, Wool- singham ; sometimes as a suffix to a word descriptive of the site, as Farnham, which still abounds in ferns, and Den- ham, which lies in a snug- den. Langham, Higham, Wind- ham, and Shoreham explain themselves. Walt ham is " the home in the wood or the weald." Durham has not the same origin. In this word the suffix is not the Saxon ham, but the Norse holm. It was written Dunholm in the Saxon Chronicle A. D. 1072 ; and Duneltn, which is the sig- nature of the bishop, further reminds us that the prefix is the Celtic dun, "a hill fort," and not dur, the Welsh word for " water." The suffix ing, so frequent in Dutch names, as Budding, Groening, Wilmerding, or with the addition of en in local names, as Groningen, Harlingen, Vlissingen, Wieringen, Vlaar- dingen, Scheveningen, Wageningen, etc., and found wherever the Saxons, Franks, and Friesians had their settlements, occurs in the names of a multitude of English villages and hamlets, often as a simple suffix, as in the case of Barking, Dorking, Harling, Hastings ; but more frequently as the medial syllable of names ending in ham or ton, as Birming- ham, Buckingham, Wellingham, Kensington, Islington, Welling- ton, etc. This syllable ing was the usual patronymic among the early Saxon settlers, 1 and had with them very much the same significance as the prefix Mac in Scotland, 0' in Ireland, Ap in Wales, or Beni among the Arabs. A whole tribe, claiming to be descended from a real or mythic pro- genitor, or a body of adventurers attaching themselves to the standard of some chief, were thus distinguished by a common patronymic or clan name. 2 This kind of family bond was the ruling power which directed the Teutonic colonization of England, and the Saxon immigration was doubtless an immigration of such associations. It existed in Roman times, and probably continued on a more ex- tensive scale, for a century or so, during the intervals be- tween the larger expeditions, which achieved the con- quest of the island. Britain was an attractive land for those who wanted to better themselves, and leave the un- healthy, marshy tracts of Friesland and of Holland. In 1 In the Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 547, we read : " Ida wses Eopping ; Eoppa wks Esing ; Esa waes Inguing ; Ingui, Angenwiting " ; that is : Ida was Eop- pa's son ; Eoppa was Esa's son ; Esa was Ingwy's son ; Ingwy, Angenwit's son. ! The Scotch word clan is here purposely used to indicate the patriarchal nature of the Teutonic family bond. See page 118. ig 2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE that case the head of the family built or bought a ship, and embarked in it with his wife and children, his freed- men, and his neighbors, and established a family colony on any shore to which the winds might carry him. The subsequent Scandinavian colonization was, on the other hand, wholly or mainly effected by soldiers of fortune, who abandoned domestic ties at home, and, after a few years of piracy, settled down with the slave women whom they had carried off from the shores of France, Spain, or Italy, or else roughly wooed the daughters of the soil which their swords had conquered. Thus the Scandina- vian adventurers Grim, Orm, Hacon, or Asgar, left their names at Grimsby, Ormsby, Haconby, and Asgarby, whereas in the Saxon districts of the island we find the names, not of individuals, but of tribes or parts of tribes, or, as the Scots would call them, clans. It is these family settle- ments which are denoted by the syllable ing. Where this patronymic stands without any suffix, as in the case of Mailing, Dorking, Woking, it is supposed that we have the original settlements of the clan, and that, where we find it with the suffix ham or ton subjoined, the name denotes the filial colonies sent out from the parent settlement ; which seems to be proved from the way in which these patronymics are distributed throughout the English counties. By a reference to the map of England, it will be seen that the names of the former class are chiefly found in the southeastern districts of the island, where the earliest Teutonic settlements were found, name- ly, in Kent, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the adjoining counties, and that they gradually dimin- ish in frequency as we proceed toward the northern and western counties. Still farther to the west, as in Glouces- tershire and Warwickshire, the names of the former class are very rare ; those of the second abound. In the semi- Celtic districts of Derbyshire, Devonshire, and Lancashire, names of either class become scarce; while in Cumber- land, Westmoreland, Cornwall, and Monmouth, they are wholly or almost wholly wanting. This remarkable dis- tribution of the simple ending ing, and the compound forms ingham or ington, in English local names, can not be accidental, and seems to indicate, as is now believed, that the Saxon rule was gradually extended over the western and central districts by the descendants of families already settled in the island, and not by fresh immigrants arriving from abroad. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. x ^ Now, whence came originally all these Teutonic immi- grants whom the Roman Notitia refers to as Saxons, and who are mentioned by British authors afterward by no other name, 1 is a question already partially answered by a comparison of local names in England and on the Con- tinent, and which may be further solved by a careful ex- amination of the map of those parts of Western Europe where Saxons, Franks, and Friesians have been generally located. That the Franks, especially the Salian Franks, formed no considerable part of them is quite evident from the many names in the old French provinces of Picardy and Artois, which the Franks brought there from Hol- land, 2 and which are, most of them, identically the same with village names to be found in England. The Dutch word tuin, for instance, in English tun, toun, ton, is there reproduced, as clearly and correctly as French orthogra- phy can make it, in the suffix thun. Thus — Frethun in France is Freton in England. Allencthun Allington " Colincthun " Collington " Pelincthun Pallington " Podincthun " Poddington " With the suffix Aam, hem, hen, the resemblance is still more apparent. Thus we find — BazingJiam in France and Bassingham in England. Balinghem " Ballingham " Eringhem Erringham " Hardinghem " Hardingham " Inghem Ingham " Linghem Lingham " Losinghem Lossingham Maninghem Manningham " Berlinghen Birlingham " Elinghen Ellingham " Masinghen Massingham " Velinghen Wellingham " A comparison of such names, which are numerous in both countries, renders it quite evident that the same fami- lies which gave their names to many English villages had also their representatives in that part of northwestern France which was settled by the Salian Franks. Even 1 Even now the Welsh and the Bretons, the Gaels of Scotland, the Irish, and the Manxmen, respectively, call the English Saeson, Saoz, Sasunnaich, and Sagsonack. 2 See page 107. i 9 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE before we hear of them under that name, we find them in- troduced into Gaul as subsidized colonists, by the Roman rulers, to defend the frontier. They were then called Lceti, 1 and, according to the Notitia, there were Batavian Lceti at Arras. The Emperor Julian transported thousands of the Chattuari, Chamavi, and Frisii to the neighborhood of Amiens, Beauvais, and Langres. 2 The system was con- tinued at a later period. Charlemagne transported into France a vast multitude of Saxons ; s but, though many of the German names in France may be due to these forced emigrations, there is no doubt that by far the greater number are records of the settlements of the Frank and Burgundian conquerors. In the southern portion of what was known in mediaeval times as Franken or Franconia, "the land of the Eastern Franks," the suffix en for ham is almost universal in local names, whereas in Westphalia, which has been generally assumed to be the original home of the Saxons, it assumes the form of hausen, which also conveys the meaning, it is true, of "scattered dwellings; a hamlet," but is too remote in sound and form from the suffix ham to be considered a phonetic variety of that Teutonic word. Still a large number of families whose names are found in Westphalian settlements with the suf- fix hausen, are also represented in English village names with the suffix ham or ton, as will be seen by the following list of family names corresponding to their settlements in both Westphalia and England : FAMILIES. WESTPHALIA. ENGLAND. ALscings Assinghausen Assington Bcedlings Betlinghausen Bedlington Billings Billinghausen Billingham Bennings Benninghausen Bennington Birlings Berlinghausen Birlingham Cidings Keddinghausen Keddington Cyllings Kellinghausen Kellington £>eddings Dedinghausen Dedington Frilings Frilinghausen Frilinghurst Heddings Heddinghausen Heddingham Hellings Hellinghausen Hellinghill Hemings Heminghausen Hemington Lmferings Leveringhausen Leverington Lullings Lollinghausen Lullington 1 See pages 207 and 466. ! Latham, Channel Islands ; Nationalities of Europe, ii, p. 204. 8 Annal. Laureshamenses, vol. i, pp. ng, 120. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 195 FAMILIES. Millings Massings Ratlings Hillings Sydlings Wealings Warings WESTPHALIA. Millinghausen Messinghausen Ratlinghausen Rielinghausen Siedlinghausen Vellinghausen Weringhausen ENGLAND. Millington Massingham Ratlinghope Rillington Sydling Wellington Werrington These double suffixes, ington, ingham, inghem, inghen, derived from family names, often take the form igny in northern France, as — FAMILIES. FRANCE. ENGLAND. flings Alligny Allington Antings Antigny Antingham Arrings Arrigny Arrington Artings Artigny Artington Peelings Baligny Ballingham Berrings Berigny Berrington Bobbings Bobigny Bobbington Bantings Bontigny Bondington Brantings Brantigny Brantingham Buttings Bullingny Bullingham Callings Caligny Callington Cofings Cauvigny Covington Dartings Dartigny Dartington Holdings Hadigny Haddington Leasings Lassigny Leasingham Lings Ligny Lingham Marings Marigny Marrington Maessings Massigny Massingham Palings Paligny Pallingham Polings Poligny Pollington Remings Remigny Remington Seafings Savigny Seavington Sulings Soulangy Sallington Syfings Sevigny Sevington It is difficult to account for all these resemblances on the ordinary theory that England was colonized exclu- sively by the Saxons and Angles, and France by the Franks and Burgundians. A large number of Frank adventurers must have joined in the descents which the Saxons made on the English coast, and many Saxons must have found a place in the ranks of the Frankish armies which con- quered northwestern France. The chroniclers, when mentioning the earlier invasions and piratical attacks, at- igS ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE tribute them to Franks and Saxons, 1 and when on eastern France to Saxons and Lombards in conjunction. The tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe — Franks, Saxons, Angles, Sueves, Lombards, and Burgundians — were prob- ably united by a much closer connection — ethnological, feographical, and political, than is commonly supposed, ndeed, there is strong reason for believing that the names of Frank, Saxon, or Lombard are not true ethnic names, but that they were only the designations of temporary confederations for military purposes, and that these names were derived from their usual armament, the franca, seax, or the lang-barta? Guided by this geographical nomenclature the reader, on scanning the map of England, will be able to form an idea of the many nationalities which, under the general names of Celts, Saxons, and Danes, were to be found in England at the end of the tenth century. He will find the Celts as a body in possession of Ireland, the western coast of England, almost all of Scotland, and the remain- der dispersed among the Saxons and the Danes. The Saxons he will find distributed over the rest of England, with the exception, however, of the eastern and northern shires, where the Danish conquest has left its deepest im- press, and where even at this day the popular language would be strictly intelligible to a Dane or a Norwegian, were it not for the French words which the Norman con- quest subsequently introduced in great numbers. This difference of dialect is, moreover, invariably accompanied by a difference in customs and manners, and certain local traditions which, disappearing but slowly before the in- dustries of modern civilization, still point to those times when fear and distrust kept each family in its own town, each individual in his own family ; when the cultivator went armed to the field, and shut himself up at night in his walled town, his borough; when the inhabitants of neighboring villages looked upon each other as enemies, considering every journey dangerous, every business risky, and never marrying but among themselves. Their dia- lects differed often so much as in many instances to be unintelligible to people living in each other's immediate vicinity. l Eutropius, Julian, and Ammianus Marcellinus, associate the Franks and Saxons in this manner. ! A long pole terminating in a battle-axe, and overtopped by a spear-head ; a halbert. l L ' r AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. lg? _ It was impossible that in such circumstances the na- tional character should not have become deteriorated and that the country should not have lagged behind in the career of wealth, of the arts, of literature, and of every other line of public prosperity and greatness. Accord- ingly, at the era of the Norman invasion, England was still a country of no account on the political map of Eu- rope. Some foreign commerce was springing up under Edward the Confessor; but still its intercourse, either commercial or of any other description, except with Nor- mandy, was apparently very limited. A certain degree of excellence, indeed, seems to have been attained by its artists in some kinds of ornamental work, in the fabrica- tion of trinkets and other articles of luxury, 1 as is shown by the immense spoils of William, of which he sent a large part to the churches and monasteries in Normandy, and a taste for which probably prevailed among the wealthier inhabitants of England ; and on a first view we might be disposed to conjecture that other and more necessary kinds of industry must needs have also flour- ished where there was room and encouragement for the exercise of this species of refined and expensive ingenuity. But nothing can be more unsafe and fallacious than such a mode of inference, by which some particular feature is taken to indicate in one age, or country, or state of socie- ty, the same thing which it would indicate in another. It would be quite unwarrantable to assume the existence of any general wealth or refinement among the English of the eleventh century merely from their passions of show and glitter, which, in its lower manifestations, is an instinct of the rudest savages ; and, even when directed with very considerable taste, may co-exist both with the most im- perfect civilization and with much general poverty and squalor, as we see it doing in eastern countries at the present day. No other species of art or manufacture, ex- cept the ordinary trades required for the supply of their most common necessities, appears to have been practiced among them. But the backward and declining condition of the country was most expressively evinced by the la- mentable decay of all liberal knowledge among all classes 1 The production of such jewels has been ascribed to monks, who, accord- ing to Malmesbury, were the most skilled artists of that period in England, so much so that curious reliquaries, finely worked and set with precious stones, were called throughout Europe opera Anglica. — J. A. Weisse, Origin, Progress, and Destiny of the English Language and Literature, p. 131. I9 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE of people. The oldest historians are unanimous in their attestations to the general ignorance and illiteracy that prevailed among the English of the age. Ordericus Vi- talis, a contemporary writer, and himself a native of Eng- land, describes his countrymen as a rustic and illiterate people. Malmesbury, another Englishman, writing sixty or seventy years later, and, as he informs us himself, as much a Saxon as a Norman by descent, assures us that when the Normans first came over, the greater number of the- English clergy could hardly read the church serv- ice, and that, as for anything like learning, they were nearly to a man destitute of it ; if any of them understood grammar, he was admired and wondered at by the rest as a prodigy. The English monks are described by him as stupid and barbarous, and even the archbishop and bish- ops, in Edward's time, as having been illiterate men. The rest of his account represents the upper classes in general as sunk in sloth and self-indulgence, and addicted to the coarsest vices. Many of the nobility, he says, had given up attending divine service in church altogether, and, as a class, were universally given to gluttonous feed- ing and drunkenness, continuing over their cups for whole days and nights, and spending all their incomes in riotous feasts, at which they ate and drank to excess, without any display either of refinement or of magnificence. The dress, the houses, and all the domestic accommodations of the people of all ranks are stated to have been mean and wretched in the extreme. 1 Even long before the Norman conquest, the native language of England had commenced to fall into con- tempt among the upper classes, and French to be substi- tuted in its stead. As early as the year 952, it was a com- mon practice among the English nobles to send their sons to France for education, 2 and not only the language but the manners of the French were esteemed the most polite of accomplishments. In the reign of Edward the Con- fessor, the resort of Normans to the English coast was so great that the affectation of imitating the French customs became almost universal, 3 and even the lower classes of 1 Willelm Malmesbury, de gest. rer. Angl., lib. iii, pag. IOI, etc. 3 Ob usum armorum, et ad lingua native barbariem tolendam. (Du Chesne, vol. iii, pag. 307.) — Warton, History of English Poetry, L. 3. 3 Coepit ergo, tota terra sub Rege et sub aliis Normannis introductis Angli- cos ritus dimittere, et Francorum mores in multis imitari. (Ingulf., Hut Croy- land, pag. 895.) AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Igg the people were ambitious of catching the foreign idioms to the detriment of the native English, the alphabet of which had fallen into discredit and disuse a long time previous, and become so difficult and obsolete that few beside the oldest men could understand the characters., Edward is said to have favored this movement by making French the court language ; but if he preferred the use of this language, it is more than probable that it was on ac- count of his having almost entirely forgotten his native English. He was only thirteen years old when he was first sent into Normandy; he was somewhat past forty when he ascended the English throne ; so that for twenty- seven years he had been accustomed to foreign manners and habits, and to convey all his thoughts and feelings through the medium of Norman French. Thus he pre- ferred the society of Normans, among whom the best years of his life had been passed, to that of his own sub- jects, whose civilization and social refinement, owing to the terrible wars the nation had been so long engaged in, had not kept pace with that of their French neighbors. Those, therefore, who hoped to prosper at court, learned to speak French, and imitated the dress, the style, and manners of the latter. Even in those rude ages fashion had her influence and her votaries. Not to know French was to acknowledge one's social inferiority ; and, follow- ing the example of the court, the rich, the young, and the gay of both sexes were not satisfied unless their tunics, their chausses, their streamers, and mufflers were cut after the latest Norman pattern. " England was slumbering in this declining state when the Norman conquest, like a moral earthquake, suddenly shook its polity and population to their center, crushed and hurled into ruin all its ancient aristocracy, destroyed the native proprietors of its soil, broke up its corrupt habits, thinned its enervated population, kindled a vigor- ous spirit of life and action in all classes of its society, and excited that national taste for letters, and commenced that system of education which, assisted by new sources of instruction, produced a love and cultivation of knowl- edge which has never since departed from the island." 1 The conquest of England by William, duke of Nor- mandy, in 1066, which is now to be considered, is the last territorial conquest that has occurred in Western Europe. 1 Sharon Turner, History of England, P. I, ch. iii. 200 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Since then there have been only political conquests, far different from those in which whole tribes invaded a neighboring country, with the avowed purpose of divid- ing the conquered territory among themselves, and of ► leaving the people nothing but their lives, on condition of keeping quiet and toiling for their new masters. The Norman conquest of England having taken place at a period less remote than those of the Saxons and Danes, we are in possession of documents relating to this epoch far more complete than those which refer to previous times. Availing ourselves of these data, as collected by the best writers on the subject, we will now present, in brief outline, such parts as relate to the origin and histo- ry of the men who weighed so heavily in the destinies of England ; their character and institutions ; their social and political relations with the conquered population ; the gradual emancipation of the latter, and the final amalga- mation of the contending races, which will enable us to discuss understanding^ with our readers the causes and circumstances that led to the fusion of the various idioms and dialects once current in England, and the formation of the English language. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 201 CHAPTER V. THE NORMANS IN GAUL. 1 We must here cast a retrospective glance upon the history of these northern adventurers who, expelled from their own country, had sought their fortune in Gaul, where, more successful than their Scandinavian brethren in England, they established a permanent dominion in one of the best parts of the country, giving the world the in- teresting spectacle of a barbarous people civilizing them- selves with unexampled rapidity, so much so as, within one hundred and fifty years after their arrival, to be ranked among the most influential and most civilized na- tions of the age. The prominent part they were then about to take in the destinies of England renders it im- portant that we should acquaint ourselves with the men whose energies had been so well directed, and among whom originated many of the best of our present institu- tions. In a former chapter we had occasion to mention that, at the close of the ninth century, Harald Harfager, king of one portion of Norway, extended by force of arms his power over the remainder, and made of the whole coun- try one sole kingdom. This destruction of a number of petty states, previously free, did not take place without resistance. Not only was the ground disputed inch by inch, but, after the conquest was completed, many of the inhabitants preferred expatriation and a wandering life on the sea to the domination of a foreign ruler. These exiles infested the northern seas, ravaged the coasts and 1 Man en engleiz e en noreiz Senefie hom en francheiz ; Justez ensemle north e man, Ensemle elites done Northman, Qo est hom de North en romanz. De 50 vint li non as Normanz. Normant solent estre apel6, E Normendie k'il ont pople\ — Roman de Ron. 15 202 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE islands, and constantly labored to excite their countrymen to insurrection. Political interest thus rendered the con- queror of Norway the most determined enemy of the pirates. With a numerous fleet he pursued them along the coasts of his own kingdom, and even to the Orcades and Hebrides, sinking their vessels, and destroying the stations they had formed on many of the islands of the northern. seas. He, moreover, by the severest laws, pro- hibited the practice of piracy and of every species of armed exactions throughout his states. 1 It was an immemorial custom of the Vikings to exer- cise upon every coast, without distinction, a privilege which they termed strandhug or impressment of provis- ions. When a vessel found its stores drawing to an end, the pirate crew landed at the first place where they per- ceived a flock insecurely guarded, and seizing upon the animals, killed them, cut them up, and carried them off without payment, or at best, with a payment quite below the value. The strandhug was thus the scourge and ter- ror of the country districts which lay along the sea-coast or the banks of rivers, and all the more so as it was often .exercised by men who were not professional pirates, but to whom power and wealth gave impunity. 2 There was at the court of King Harald, among the iarls or chieftains of the first rank, a certain Rognvald, whom the king greatly loved, and who had served him zealously in all his expeditions. Rognvald had several sons, all of them noted for their valor. Of these the most renowned was Hrolf or Rolf, or, by a sort of euphony common to many Teutonic names, Roll. He was so tall that, unable to make use of the small horses of his coun- try, he always marched on foot, a circumstance which procured him the appellation of Gaungu Rolfur, that is, " Roll the Walker." 3 One day when he, with his compan- ions, was on his return from a cruise in the Baltic, before landing in Norway, he shortened sail off the coast of Wig- gen, and there, whether from actual want of provisions, or simply availing himself of an opportunity, he exercised 1 Mallet, Histoire du Danemarck, i, 223. 2 Depping, Histoire des Expeditions Maritime* des Normands. a Rolfur var vikingur mikill, harm var sva mikill mathur vexti, at engi hestur matti bera bann, oc geek harm hvargi sem harm for, harm var kallathur Gaungu Rolfur {Harald Harfagers-saga, cap 24), that is : " Rolf was a powerful vikingr, and of such a large size that no horse could carry him ; he therefore was obliged always to go on foot, whence he was called Gaungu Rolfur (Rollo the Walker). AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 203 strandhug. It so happened that King Harald was iii the vicinity at that moment, and the peasants having laid their complaints before him, he at once, without heeding the position of the offender, summoned a Thing, or high council of justice, to try Roll according to law. Ere the accused appeared before the assembly, which would in all probability sentence him to banishment, his mother has- tened to the king and implored for pardon. But Harald was inexorable ; sentence was pronounced ; and Roll, find- ing himself banished for life, collected some vessels, and sailed toward the Hebrides. There he met a number of dissatisfied Norwegians who, after the conquests of Har- ald, had emigrated, and who were all men of high birth and great military reputation. With these he entered into association for the purpose of piracy, and his vessels, added to theirs, formed a numerous fleet which, it was agreed, should act under the orders, not of one sole chief- tain, but of the confederates generally, Roll having no other pre-eminence than that of his personal merits and of his name. 1 Sailing from the Hebrides late in the season, the fleet doubled the extreme point of Scotland, and effected a landing on the east coast of England ; but either that their countrymen would not have anything to do with them, or that they were prevented from joining them by the English, Roll and his companions encountered a body of the latter on their way, and lost many of their number. Still they managed to hold their own, and to winter on the island, living on pillage as usual. Early in spring they set sail for the Continent, and entered the Scheldt, robbing and taking whatever they could lay their hands upon ; but as Flanders, naturally poor and already devas- tated on several occasions, offered very little to take, the pirates soon put to sea again. Going farther south, they sailed up the Seine as far as Jumieges, five leagues from Rouen. It was just at this period that the limits of the kingdom of France had been definitively fixed between the Loire and the Maas. To the protracted territorial revolutions which had lacerated that kingdom, there had succeeded a political revolution, the object of which, real- ized a century later, was the expulsion of the second dynasty of the Frank kings. The king of the French, a descendant of Karl the Great, and bearing his name — the 1 Harald Harfagers-saga, cap. 24 ; Snorre's Heimskringla, i, 100. 204 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE only resemblance between them — was disputing the crown with a competitor whose ancestors had never worn that crown. The conqueror and the conquered, the king of ancient race and the king by election, alternately became master ; but neither the one nor the other was powerful enough to protect the country against foreign invasion ; all the forces of the kingdom were engaged on either side in maintaining the civil war ; no army, accordingly, pre- sented itself to stay the pirates, or prevent them from pil- laging and devastating both banks of the Seine. 1 The reports of their ravages soon reached Rouen, and filled that city with terror. The inhabitants did not ex- pect any succor, and despaired of being able to defend their walls, already in ruins from former invasions. Amidst the universal dismay, the archbishop of Rouen, a man of prudence and firmness, took upon himself to save the city, by negotiating with the enemy before the attack. 1 There is still much uncertainty among modern historians as to the exact time of Rollo's descent on French soil. Asser, the biographer of Alfred, says it was in 876. " Anno dominicas incarnatimis 876 Rollo cum suis Normanniam penetravit." — Vita Alfredi. This has been objected to on the ground that Asser died in the year 909, which was before Neustria was ceded to the Nor- mans, and hence could not have made use of the term Normandy, which was of later adoption. It was concluded, therefore, that the above passage was inter- polated in subsequent copies of his work. This, however, is not certain, and it is more probable that a later copyist has changed the name of Neustria into that of Normandy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says : " A. D. 876, Her Rodla thurferde Normandi mid his here, and he rixade fifti vintra." The date may have been copied from Asser, but the statement that Rollo reigned fifty winters agrees with tradition, which places his death, others say his abdication, at A. D. 926. As regards the date of his landing, the following chroniclers seem to be all agreed. Thus the Chronic. Florent. Wigorn., ad ann. 876 says : " Rollo cum suis Normanniam penetravit 15 kal. decembris." " Anno 876 Rollo paganus, genere Danus, cum suis Normanniam intravit et obtinuit, qui postea baptizatus, vocatus est Rodbertus." — Chronica de Mailros. ," Ann. 876, venit Rollo Danise in Neustriam cum suis, volens earn sibi ac- quirere." — Chronic. Fiscanense. " Hoc anno 876, Rollo cum suis Normanniam penetravit 15 kal. decem- bris." — Chronic. Rotomag. " Hoc anno 876 Rollo cum suis Normanniam acquisivit xv kal. decembris." — Chronic. Thosanum (Chronicalia de Normannis, MS. de la Bibliotheque du roi, a Paris). " Anno 876 Rollo in Normanniam cum suis venit xv kalend. decembris." — Chronic. Fontanellense (in cod. monast. S. Michaelis de Monte). "An. 876, rege Carolo, Rollo quidam, natione Danus, cum suis Franciam intravit." — Vita S. Waningi, torn. II des Acta SS. ord. S. Bened. Though a later date is assigned to the event by modern historians, it is not the less certain that the historians of the Dukes of Normandy, viz., Dudo de Saint Quentin, Guillaume de Jumieges; the Trouveres Wace and Beneoit de Sainte-More, as well as the ecclesiastic historian Ordericus Vitalis, have all accepted the same date as correct. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 205 Without being deterred by the hatred often so cruelly testified by the pagans of the north toward the Christian clergy, the bishop repaired to their camp near Jumieges, and, in the name of the people, spoke to the Norman chief through the medium of an interpreter. 1 He did so well that he concluded a truce with the enemy, guaranteeing them ready admission to the city, and receiving from them in return the assurance that no violence should be committed by them. So the Norwegians peacefully land- ed. Having moored their vessels, the chiefs went through the city in diSerent directions ; they carefully examined the ramparts, the quays, the fountains, and, finding every- thing to their liking, resolved to make it the citadel and headquarters of their new establishment. 3 Evreux and several other neighboring towns next fell into the hands of the Normans, who thus extended their dominion over the greater part of the territory which thus far had been known by the old name of Neustria. Guided by a certain political good sense, they ceased to be cruel when they no longer encountered resistance, and contented themselves with a tribute regularly levied upon the towns and country districts. The same good sense told them that the time had come to elect a supreme chief, invested with permanent authority, and the choice fell on Roll, " whom they made their king," says an old chroni- cler, which title, in their mind, was probably something like sea-king, according to Scandinavian fashion, but which was ere long to be replaced by the title of duke, which in France was that of any prominent military leader, corre- sponding to the old Latin title dux. Though pirates to all intents and purposes, and as such not better than their forefathers, the present invaders of France were in many respects a different class of men from those who for half a century had been harassing the English so fearfully. In the age of Rollo the great feature 1 Lors fist assembler Rou les gens de la ville et du pays, et leur dist qu'il entendoit et vouloit illec a demourer, et y faire sa maistre-ville ; et ils lui dirent .... qu'ils n'avoient aucun qui les deffendist, et que s'il lui plaisait de les gar- der et deffendre et tenir en justice, ils le tenroient a seigneur, et lui donneroient nom de due. — Chronique de Normandie, MS. de la Bibliothique du Roi, No. 9857. Et les gens de Rouen et autres ordonnerent que leur archevesque iroit & Rou, et mettroit en son obeissance la cite et le pais, et ainsi il fist. — Ibid. * E Rou esgarda la vile e lunge et lee, E dehorz e dedenz l'a sovent esgardee ; Bone li semble e bele, mult li plest e agree, E li compaignonz 1'ont a rou mult loee. Wace, Roman de Rou., i, 60. 206 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE of the Northman character was a love of glory, pursuing its gratification by an assiduous cultivation of bodily strength, agility, and manual dexterity; and combining with the most daring intrepidity, tenacity of purpose, and great warlike fortitude. To climb steep and towering rocks, and to descend from them rapidly with a heavy burden ; to walk on the outer edge of a ship, and even outside of it, on the oars, while the men were rowing it ; to use both hands alike, and throw two darts at once ; to play with three swords, with such correctness of eye and nerve that there would always be one in the air while the others were caught by the handles, were accomplishments of dexterity coveted even by their kings. 1 To hew well with the sword, to wrestle, to cast heavy weights, to run on skates, to sit firmly on horseback, to swim with vigor, to hurl the lance with skill, to manage the oar dexterous- ly, were also their warrior's boasts. Vigor in archery was an object of emulation; and they proved their strength by sending a blunted spear through a raw bull's hide. 2 All these qualifications proceeded from the great actuat- ing principle of the Northman's mind — the love of per- sonal distinction and public admiration. Such were the first Normans, who in the beginning of the tenth century settled themselves in Normandy ; a country which from former devastations had become an unpeopled and ruined desert, abandoned to a wild vege- tation, and uncultivated in every part. A barbarous peo- ple, thus located in a desolate country, might seem to promise a perpetuity of barbarism ; but very different were the results. The wasted state of Normandy not only proved favorable to the growth of the Norman mind, by presenting no luxuries or corrupting influences to weaken it ; but it made wisdom in the chief, and industry and con- stant exertion in his followers, indispensable to their ex- istence. It compelled them to be an agricultural as well as a warlike people. The character of their chief was suited to the exigency ; and Rollo, like Romulus, by his prudent regulations, laid the foundations of the improved character, and prepared the future triumphs of his rapa- cious countrymen. A steady observance of justice in his own conduct, and an inflexible rigor toward all offenders, gradually produced a love of equity and subordination to law among his people which mainly contributed to their 1 Snorre, Ola/ Saga, vol. i, p. 290. 3 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 19, AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 07 future eminence ; while the adoption of Christianity as his national religion powerfully accelerated all his legislative exertions, by enlightening both himself and his country- men, and gradually awakening their moral sensibilities. It is related of him that, on returning from the chase, while stopping for his midday repast in the forest on the banks of the Seine, near Rouen, he hung up his golden brace- lets on the branch of an oak while eating. These brace- lets remained there for three years, unguarded and un- touched, such was under his reign the respect of proper- ty, or perhaps also the dread of his justice. 1 He was reputed the sternest enemy of robbers, and the most vig- orous justiciary of his time in any part of France ; and the popularity of his name, spreading far and wide, en- couraged many artisans and laborers of the neighboring districts to emigrate, and to establish themselves in the dominions of Duke Rollo, or Rou, as he was called in French. As he and his men were all bachelors, they married Frankish women ; and the children, of course, being brought up mainly by their mothers, in course of time spoke all the kinds of French then current in that coun- try, so that within two or three generations the difference of language which had at first marked the line of separa- tion between the invaders and the natives had almost ceased to exist, and it was by his importance alone, as be- longing to the ruling class, that the Norman of Scandina- vian descent was distinguished from the Gallo-Frank. Even at Rouen, and in the palace of the successors of Rollo, no other language was spoken at the beginning of the eleventh century than that called by the name of Ro- mance or French. To this, however, the town of Bayeux was an exception, the dialect there preserved being a mixture of Frankish, Saxon, and Scandinavian, the city being originally a Saxon settlement, which had contrived to keep up almost intact its ancient ways and language. 2 1 Guillaume de Jumieges, Trad. Guizot, Hist, des Normands, vol. ii, ch. 17. The oak stood near a pond, which since has borne the name of Mare de Rollon. 8 The Swabian Lteti who, as we learn from the Notitia, were settled at Ba- joccas (Bayeux), may have formed the nucleus of this settlement. In the year 843 the annalists mention the existence of a district in this neighborhood called Otlinga Saxonica, and Gregory of Tours speaks of the Saxones bajocassini. The term Otlinga Saxonica, which has elicited so many ingenious etymological guesses, does not mean the district where the Saxon language was spoken, but, as Grimm has suggested, it was the abode of Saxon nobles, Adelings or AZthelings. — Gesch. derDeut. Sprach., p. 626. According to Dudo de St. Quentin, iii, 100, their 208 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE So, when new emigrants arrived from the north of Europe to visit their relatives in Normandy, and to obtain land, they established themselves, as a matter of choice, in the country about Bayeux, and thus kept up the use of their language in that neighborhood. It was for this reason, if we may believe one of the chroniclers, that the dukes of Normandy sent thither their children to learn to speak Danish as a matter of pride, or perhaps of policy. 1 The Danes and Norwegians maintained relations of alliance and of affection with Normandy so long as they found in a similarity of language a token of their ancient national consanguinity ; but when the use of French became gen- eral throughout Normandy, the Scandinavians ceased to look upon the Normans as their natural allies by blood ; they even ceased to give them the name of Normans, but called them Velskes or Welches, 2 by which name they designated indiscriminately the entire population of Gaul. As the old ties of relationship gradually died out, the Normans became more and more French in feeling and in interest, and what was once called " the pirates' land " sank into the most loyal of the fiefs of France. language differed but little from the Scandinavian dialects, " qualem decet esse sororem." We have already observed elsewhere that the difference between the Low Dutch and Scandinavian dialects was much less in those days than at present. See page 172. 1 Dudo de St. Quentin, referring to this subject, places the following words in the mouth of Duke William I : Quoniam quidem Rothomagensis civitas ro- mana potius quam dacisca utitur eloquentia, et Bajocacensis fruitur frequentius dacisca lingua quam romana ; volo igitur ut ad Bajocacensia deferatur quanto- cius moenia, et ibi volo ut sit, Botho, sub tua custodia, et enutriatur et edocea- tur cum magna diligentia, fervens loquacitate dacisca, tamque discens tenaci memoria, ut queat sermocinari profusius olim contra Dacigenas. (Dudo S. Quantini, apud du Chesne, 112, D.) Beneoit de Sainte-More makes substantially the same statement : Si a Roem le faz garder Et norrir gaires longement, II ne saura parlier neient Daneis, kar nul ne l'i parole. Si voil qu'il seit a tele escole Ou Ten le sache endoctriner Que as Daneis sache parler, Ci ne sevent riens fors romanz : Mais a Baiues en a tanz Qui ne sevent si daneis non ; Et pur ceo, sir quens Boton, Voil que vos l'aiez ensemble od vos ; De lui enseigner corius Garde e maistre seiez de lui. — Chron. des dues de Norm. s Contes populaires, prijuges, patois, etc., de I'arrondissement de Bayeux, par Fre'denc Pluquet, Rouen, 1834. On the name of Welches, given by all Teu- tonic tribes to conquered nations, see pages 20 and 484. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 0Q During the long reign of Richard I 1 the descendants of heathen Scandinavian pirates had all become French Christians. Even during the reign of Rollo, the clergy did them the justice to declare that after their conversion they showed but few traces of former paganism. Of course, men passing their lives on the high seas had but little time to study Scandinavian mythology, and what little they knew of it was readily forgotten under different influence's. Still, under excitement, the old heathen was apt to come out again, and in more than one engagement the cry of Thor aide was heard for a long time after, in- stead of Dieu aide, which was the battle cry of the Nor- mans in the eleventh century. By that time all traces of {mganism had well nigh disappeared, except an unshaken aith in elves, mountain dwarfs, 2 werewolves, 3 and the like, which they had in common with the Britons, the Saxons, and all other Celtic and Teutonic nations in general. 1 Rollo died in the year 926 ; William I died in the year 943 ; Richard I died in the year 1002 ; Richard II died in the year 1026 ; Robert I died in the year 1035 ; William II (the Conqueror) died in the year 1087. 8 Mauger, a prelate of Rouen, who was charged with practising magic, was believed to own one of these hobgoblins, called Thoret, after Thor, and who could be neither heard nor seen, but was at the command of the prelate at any moment, day or night, and did the most awful things. It is thus referred to by Wace, in his Roman de Sou, v. 9713, and following : Plusors distrent por verite, Ke un deable aveit prive, Ne sai s'estait lutin u non, Toret se feseit apeler, E Toret se feseit nomer. E quant Maugier parler voleit, Toret appelout, si veneit. Plusors les poeient oi'r, Mais nuz d'els nes poet veir. 8 The werewolf was called in Frenchgarwal,garul,garoul,garou, loup-garou; and bisclaveret in Breton. This is the way Marie de France describes the thing : Bisclaveret ad nun en Bretan Garwal l'apelent li Norman. Jadis le poet-hum oir, E souvent souleit avenir, Hunes plusurs garwal devindrent, E es boscages meisun tindrent. Garwal si est beste salvage ; Tant cum il est en cele rage, Humes devure, grant mal fait, Es granz forest converse e vait. In some parts of France they called it garulf, gerulf whence the Low Latin gerulphus, found in the following passage of Gervais de Tilbury, quoted by du Cange : " Vidimus enim frequenter in Anglia per lunationes homines in lupos mutari, quod hominum genus gerulphos Galli nominant, Angli vero were- wolf dicunt ; were enim anglice viram sonat, wolf lupum." — Otia imperal., pars, i. 2IO ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE As in England, so in France, the conversion of the northern heathens was, at first at least, a matter of diplo- matic arrangement rather than of sincere conviction, so we must not expect any great fervor at first among the chiefs and principal nobles in the observance of the new doctrines ; but no sooner had the religious movement spread to the people than it was welcomed with an almost passionate fanaticism. Every road was crowded with pil- grims, monasteries rose in every forest glade, and Nor- mandy, which had now become the principal center of religion and of science, soon boasted of its schools of Rouen, Caen, Fontenelle, Lisieux, Fecamp, and a count- less number of minor renown. Often it was far away from the noise and bustle of city life, in the deep solitudes of dense forests, that could be found an asylum devoted to study and religious meditation. Thus arose, in an island of the Seine, the famous abbey of Jumieges, surrounded by its forests, its meadows, and its silence. The abbey of Bee, more celebrated still, and of which we may still see the ruins near the small town of Brionne, in the midst of a high forest by the side of a brook, was the seat where once taught the Italian monk Lanfranc, one of the most learned men of the age, and after him the Piedmontese Anselm, a man still more eminent, and his pupil. In the course of a few years their teaching had made Bee the most famous school of Christendom, before they succes- sively filled the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. The whole mental activity of the time seemed concentrated in the group of scholars who gathered around them, and who, spreading their knowledge to other seminaries of learning, caused the Normans of the eleventh century to become the most polished and best educated nation of Europe, and their schools to be the resort of students from all the surrounding countries. It was, however, not always this thirst for knowledge, or the new form of religious faith only, which drove Nor- man pilgrims in flocks to the shrines of Italy and the Holy Land. Often the old Norse spirit of adventure turned the Pilgrims into Crusaders, and at one time the flower of the Norman knighthood, impatient of the stern rule of their dukes, followed Roger de Toesny against the mos- lem of Spain, or even enlisted under the banner of the Greeks, in their war with the Arabs, who had conquered Sicily. The Crusaders became conquerors under Robert Guiscard, a knight who had left his home with a single AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 II follower, but whose valor and wisdom soon placed him at the head of his fellow-soldiers in Italy. Attacking the Greeks, whom they had hitherto served, the Norman knights wrested Apulia from them in an overthrow at Cannas ; Guiscard himself led them to the conquest of Calabria and the great trading cities of the coast, while thirty )'ears of warfare gave Sicily to the followers of his brother Roger. The two conquests were united under a line of princes to whose munificence art owes the splen- dor of Palermo and Monreale, and literature the first out- burst of Italian song. Normandy, still seething with vig- orous life, was stirred to greed and enterprise by this plunder of the south, and the rumor of Guiscard's ex- ploits roused into more ardent life the daring ambition of its nobles and their duke. Constantly surrounded by danger, and always on the alert, their warlike energies had never had leisure to abate, and from their perpet- ual exertions the Normans, whether at home or abroad, had become everywhere distinguished for their indomita- ble valor and their great skill in war. We thus see in the Scandinavian settlers in Gaul, after they had put on the outward garb of their adopted coun- try, a people restless and enterprising above all others, adopting and spreading around them all that they could make their own, in their new land and everywhere else — a people in many ways highly gifted, greatly affecting and modifying every country in which they settled, and so identifying themselves with its interests as to gradually lose themselves among the people of the land. In this respect, as in many others, the expeditions of the Nor- mans in Gaul may be looked upon as continuations of the Danish expeditions in England. The people were by de- scent the same, and both were led by the same old spirit of war and adventure. Their national character remained largely the same in both countries ; but even as the Danes in England in course of time became English, so the Nor- mans, in contact with what remained of Roman civiliza- tion, became French in religion, in language, in law, and in society, in thoughts and feelings in all matters. The change was as rapid as it was thorough and effective. The early part of the tenth century was the time of the settlement of the Northmen in Gaul ; by the end of it, any traces of heathen faith, or of Scandinavian speech, re- mained only here and there as mere survivals. The new creed, the new speech, the new social system had taken 212 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE such deep root that the descendants of the Scandinavian settlers were better fitted to be the armed missionaries of all these things than the neighbors from whom they had wrested their new possessions. With the zeal of new converts, they set forth on their new errand very much in the spirit of their heathen forefathers. The same spirit of enterprise which brought the Northmen into Gaul seems to carry the Normans out of Gaul into every cor- ner of the world. Their character is well painted by a contemporary historian of their exploits. 1 He sets the Normans before us as a race specially marked by cunning, despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imi- tation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavish- ness and greediness — that is, perhaps uniting, as they cer- tainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their chief men, he adds, were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, very skill- ful in flattery, given to the practice of fine speaking, so that the very boys were orators and natural debaters ; a race altogether unbridled, unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They could endure toil, hunger, and cold, whenever ill-fortune sent them ; they were fond of hunt- ing and hawking, and delighted in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war. But if the Nor- man was a born soldier, he was also a born lawyer. It is the excessive litigiousness, the fondness for law, legal forms, legal processes, which has ever been characteristic of the Norman people. Even Norman lawlessness in some sort took a legal shape. In the worst days of Norman history, the robber-baron could generally give elaborate reasons for every act of wrong that he did. For the rest, strict observers of form in all matters, the Normans at- tended to the forms of religion with special care. No people were more bountiful to ecclesiastical bodies on both sides of the Channel ; and strict attendance to re- 1 Geoffrey Malaterra, i, 3. " Es quippe gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix, spe alias plus lucrandi, patrios agros vilipendens, qusestus et dominationis avida, cujuslibet rei simulatrix, inter largitatem et avaritiam quoddam medium ha- bens. Principes vero delectatione bonse famos largissimi, gens adulari sciens, eloquentiis in studiis inserviens in tantum, ut etiam ipsos pueros quasi rhetores attendas, quae quidem, nisi jugo justiciar prematur, effrenatissima est ; laboris, inediae, clgoris, ubi fortuna expedit, patiens, venationi accipitrum exercitio in- serviens. Equorum, cseterorumque militiae instrumentorum, et vestium luxuria delectatur. Ex nomine itaque suo terrse nomen indiderunt North, quippe Angliqa lingua aquilonaris plaga dicitur. Et quia ipsi ab aquilone venerant ter- rain ipsam etiam Normanniam appellarunt." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 213 ligious observances, as well as a wide bounty to religious foundations, may be set down as national characteristics of the Normans. Such were the people among whom Edward, son of Ethelred and Emma, sister of Richard II, Duke of Nor- mandy, had spent the days of his youth before ascending the throne of England, and who, from the joint effects of situation, exigencies, wise legislation, Christianity, and natural energy, had so much improved within one hun- dred and fifty years, after they had quitted the Baltic, as to be described in the following manner by a historian of the country which they had most afflicted : " Their dukes," he says, " as they were superior to all others in war, so they as much excelled their contemporaries in their love of peace and liberality. All their people lived harmo- niously together, like one great body of relations, like one family, whose mutual faith was inviolable. Among them, every man was looked upon as a robber who, by false- hoodi, endeavored to overreach another in any transac- tion. They took assiduous care of their poor and dis- tressed, and of all strangers, like parents of their children ; and they sent the most abundant gifts to the Christian churches in almost every part of the world." 1 1 Glaber Rodolphus, c. v, p. 8. 214 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE CHAPTER VI. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. From the time of Rollo's settlement in Normandy, the communications of the Normans with England had be- come more and more frequent and important for the two countries. The success of the invasions of the Danes in England in the tenth century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danish line, had obliged the princes of the Sax- on race to take refuge in Normandy, the duke of which, Richard I, had given his daughter Emma in marriage to their grandfather Ethelred II. At the end of the Danish rule in England, a national message was sent to Prince Edward in Normandy, to announce to him that the people had elected him king, upon condition that he should bring but few Normans with him. Edward obeyed, and came attended by very few followers. On his arrival he was proclaimed king, and crowned in the cathedral of Win- chester, A. D. 1042. On handing him the crown and scep- ter, the bishop made him a long speech upon the duties of royalty, and the mild and equitable government of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors. As he was unmarried, he selected for his queen Edith, daughter of the powerful and popular man to whose influence especially he owed his kingdom — Godwin, the father of Harold, who ere long was to play a part as short as it is memorable in the his- tory of England. The withdrawal of the Danes, and the complete destruction of their dominion, by awakening patriotic thoughts, had rendered the old Anglo-Saxon customs dearer to the people. They desired to restore them in all their pristine purity, freed from all that the mixture of races had added to them of foreign matter. This wish led them to revert to the times which preceded the great Danish invasion, to the reign of Ethelred, whose institutions and laws were sought out with a view to their establishment. Their restoration took place to the utmost extent possible ; the name of King Edward became con- nected with it, and it was soon a popular saying that this AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 215 good king had restored the good laws of his father Ethelred. Every Dane in any way connected with the former government had been expelled ; but the English, restored to liberty, did not drive from their habitations the labori- ous and peaceable Danes who, swearing obedience to the common law, were content to exist simply as cultivators or citizens. The Saxon people did not, by way of re- prisal, levy extra taxes on them, or render their condition worse than their own. In the eastern, and especially in the northern provinces, the children of Scandinavians continued to exceed in number those of the Anglo-Sax- ons ; hence these provinces were distinguished from the midland and southern by a remarkable difference of idiom, manners, and local customs, but not the slightest resist- ance was raised to the government of the Saxon king. Social equality soon drew together and fused the two na- tions, formerly hostile. This union of all the inhabitants of the English soil, proved formidable to foreign invad- ers, who stayed their ambitious projects, and no northern kings ventured on disturbing the peace that England was now enjoying. These kings, on the contrary, sent mes- sages of peace and friendship to the peaceable Edward. "We will," said they, "allow you to reign unmolested over your country, and we will content ourselves with the land which God has given us to rule." Fortune now seemed favorable to the Anglo-Saxons ; but, under this outward appearance of prosperity and in- dependence, the germs of fresh troubles and national ruin were silently developing themselves. Edward, half a Norman by birth, and brought up from his infancy in Normandy, had returned almost a stranger to the land of his forefathers ; the language of his youth had been that of a foreign people ; he had grown old among other men and other manners than the manners and men of England ; his friends, his companions in pleasures and hardships, his nearest relatives, and the husband of his sister, all dwelt across the sea. He had sworn to bring with him only a small number of Normarik ; and but few in fact accompa- nied him, but many arrived afterward; those who had loved him when in exile, or assisted him when in poverty, eagerly beset his palace. He could not restrain himself from welcoming them to his home and his table, nor even from preferring them to those formerly unknown to him, but to whom he was indebted for his home, his table, and 2l6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE his royal dignity. The irresistible strength of old affec- tions led him so far astray from the path of prudence as to confer the high dignities and great offices of the coun- try on men born on other soil, and without any real affec- tion for England. The fortresses of the island were placed in the keeping of Norman captains ; Norman [)riests obtained English bishoprics, and became chap- ains, councilors, and trusted confidants of the king. A number of persons styling themselves relatives of Edward's mother crossed the straits, and were sure to be well received. No one who solicited in the Norman tongue ever met with a refusal. This language even ban- ished from the palace the Anglo-Saxon, which was be- come an object of ridicule to the foreign courtiers, and no flattering discourse was any longer addressed to the king but in Norman French. Such of the English nobility as were most ambitious tried to speak the new and favorite language of the court, and even in their own mansions stam- mered French as being that fittest for a man of birth and education ; they changed their long Saxon mantles for the short cloaks of the Normans ; in writing they imitated the lengthened form of the Norman letters ; and instead of signing their names to civil acts, they suspended to them seals of wax, in the Norman manner. Every one of the national customs, even in the most indifferent things, was abandoned to the lower orders. But the people who had shed their blood that Eng- land might be free, and who were little struck by the grace and elegance of the new fashions, imagined that they beheld the government by foreigners revived under a mere change of appearances. They cursed the fatal marriage of fithelred with a Norman woman, that union, contracted to save the country from a foreign invasion, but from which there now resulted a new invasion, a new conquest, under the mask of peace and friendship. 1 Among those who came from Normandy and France to visit King Edward, the most considerable was William, 1 We find the trace, perhaps indeed the" original expression of these nation- al maledictions, in a passage of an ancient historian, in which the singular turn of idea and the vivacity of the language seem to reveal the style of the people : " The Almighty must have formed, at the same time, two plans of destruction for the English race, and have desired to lay for them a sort of military ambus- cade ; for he let loose the Danes on one side, and on the other carefully created and cemented the Norman alliance ; so that if by chance we escaped from the open assaults of the Danes, the bold cunning of the Normans might still be in readiness to surprise us."-^Henry Huntingdon, Hist. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 217 Duke of Normandy, bastard son of Robert, the late duke, whose violent temper had acquired for him the name of Robert le Diable. In his journey through England, A. D. 1051, he might have believed that he was still in his own territories. The fleet which he found at Dover was com- manded by Normans ; at Canterbury Norman soldiers composed the garrison of the fort ; elsewhere other Nor- mans came to salute him in the dress of captains or of prelates. Edward's favorites came to pay their respects to the chief of their native country ; and, to use the lan- f;uage of that day, " thronged round their natural lord." V"illiam appeared in England more like a king than Ed- ward himself ; and it was, probably, not long before his ambitious mind conceived the hope of becoming so with- out difficulty at the death of that prince, so much the slave of Norman influence. Indeed, such thoughts could not fail to arise in the breast of the son of Robert ; how- ever, according to the testimony of a contemporary, he kept them perfectly secret, and never spoke of them to Edward, believing that things would of themselves take the course most to the advantage of his ambition. 1 Nor did Edward, whether or not he thought of those projects, and of his having some day his friend and cousin for a successor, converse with him on the subject during his visit, yet he received him with great tenderness, and load- ed him with all sorts of presents and assurances of affec- tion. At the death of Godwin, which took place in 1054, his eldest son, Harold, succeeded him in the command of all the country south of the Thames. He distinguished him- self by his military talents, fully paid to the king that re- spectful and submissive deference of which he was so jealous, and thus added rapidly to his renown and popu- larity among the Anglo-Saxons. Some ancient recitals say that even Edward loved him, and treated him like his own son ; at least he did not feel toward him the kind of aversion mixed with fear with which Godwin had in- spired him ; nor had he any longer a pretext for detain- ing, as guarantees against the son, the two hostages whom he had received from the father. Toward the close of the year 1065 Harold, the brother of the one and the uncle of the other of these hostages, thinking the moment 1 De successione autem regni, spes adhuc aut mentio nulla facta inter eos fuit.— Hist. Ingulf. Croyland apud rer. anglic. Script., vol. i, p. 65. 16 218 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE favorable for obtaining their deliverance, asked the king's permission to go and claim them in his name from Will- iam, and bring them home to England. Edward, without any reluctance to part with the hostages, was alarmed, however, at Harold's intention of going into Normandy. " I will not restrain thee," said he, " but if thou departest it will be without my consent ; for thy journey will cer- tainly bring some misfortune upon thyself and upon our country. I know Duke William, and his crafty spirit. He hates thee, and will grant thee nothing, unless he sees some great advantage therein ; the only way to make him give up the hostages would be to send some other person than thee." 1 Harold, brave and full of confidence, did not act upon this advice ; but setting out, as if on a journey of pleasure, he embarked at one of the ports of Sussex, and repaired to Rouen. Duke William received the Saxon chief with great honors, and an appearance of frankness and cordial- ity ; he told him that the two hostages were free at his mere request, and he might return with them immediately, but that, as a courteous guest, he ought not to be in such haste, but to stay at least for a few days, to see the towns and the amusements of the country. Harold went from town to town, and from castle to castle, and with his young companions took part in military jousts. Duke William made them chevaliers, that is, members of the high Norman military order, a sort of warlike fraternity, into which every man of wealth who devoted himself to arms might be introduced, under the auspices of some old member, who, with due ceremony, presented to him a sword, a baldrick plated with silver, and a lance decorated with a streamer. 2 The Saxon warriors received from 1 Chronique et Normandie ; Recueil des hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p 223 ; Wace, Roman de Ron, torn, ii, p. 108. 8 The institution of a superior class among those who devoted themselves to arms, and of a ceremonial, without which no one could be admitted into that military order, had been introduced into and propagated throughout all the west of Europe by the Germanic nations who had dismembered the Roman empire. This custom existed in Gaul ; and, in the Roman tongue of that country, a member of the high military class was called a cavalier or chevalier, because at that time, throughout Gaul and on the Continent in general, horsemen formed the principal strength of armies. It was otherwise in England : perfection in equestrian skill was not at all considered in the idea entertained in that island of an accomplished warrior. The two only elements of the English idea were youth and strength ; and the Saxon tongue gave the name of cniht, that is to say, young man, to the warrior who by the French, the Normans, the southern Gauls, and also the Germans, was designated horseman. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 219 their sponsor in chivalry presents of fine arms and horses of great value. William then proposed that they should trv their new spurs by following him in an expedition which he was undertaking against his neighbors of Brit- tany. Harold and his friends, foolishly eager to acquire a re- nown for courage among the men of Normandy, displayed for their host, at the expense of the Britons, a prowess which was one day to cost them and their country very dear. During the whole war, Harold and William had but one tent and one table. On their return they rode side by side, amusing each other on the way with friendly discourse. One day William turned the conversation upon his early intimacy with King Edward. " When Ed- ward and I," said he to the Saxon, " lived like brothers under the same roof, he promised that, if ever he became king of England, he would make me heir to his kingdom. Harold, I wish that thou wouldst assist me to realize this promise ; and be sure that if, by thy aid, I obtain the king- dom, whatever thou shalt ask, I will grant it thee." 1 Har- old, though surprised at this unexpected excess of confi- dence, could not refrain from answering by some vague promises of adhesion thereto; and William resumed in these terms : " Since thou consentest to serve me, thou must engage to fortify the castle at Dover, to sink in it a well of fresh water, and to give it up to my troops ; thou must also give me thy sister, that I may marry her to one of my chiefs ; and thou thyself must marry my daughter Adela ; moreover, I wish thee, at thy departure, to leave me one of the hostages which thou claimest, as a surety for the fulfilment of thy promise ; he shall remain in my keeping, and I will restore him to thee in England when I shall arrive there as king." 2 On hearing these words, Harold perceived all his danger, and that into which he had unconsciously drawn his two young relatives. To escape from his embarrassment, he complied in words with all the Norman's demands ; and he who had twice taken up arms to drive away the foreigners from his coun- try promised to deliver up to a foreigner the principal fortress in that same country, reserving to himself to break this unworthy engagement at a future day, while purchasing his safety, for the moment, with a falsehood. 1 Chron. de NormandU ; Rectuil des hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p. 223. 8 Eadmeri, Hist, nov., lib. i, p. 5- 220 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE William pressed him no further at that moment ; but he did not long leave the Saxon at peace on this point. In the town of Avranches, others say in that of Bayeux, Duke William convoked a great council of the lords and barons of Normandy. The day before that fixed for the assembly William had caused to be brought, from all the places around, bones and relics of saints, sufficient to fill a great chest or cask, which was placed in the hall of council and covered with cloth of gold. 1 When the duke had taken his seat in the chair of state, holding a drawn sword in his hand, crowned with a circlet of gems, and surrounded by the crowd of Norman chiefs, among whom was the Saxon, two small reliquaries were brought and laid upon the golden cloth which covered the cask of rel- ics. William then said, " Harold, I require thee, before this noble assembly, to confirm by oath the promises which thou hadst made me, that is, to assist me in obtaining the kingdom of England after King Edward's death, to marry my daughter Adela, and to send me thy sister, that I may give her to one of my followers." The Englishman, once more taken by surprise, and not daring to deny his own words, approached the two reliquaries with a troubled air, laid his hand upon them, and swore to execute to the ut- most of his power his agreement with the duke, if he lived, and with God's help. The whole assembly repeat- ed, " May God be thy help ! " % William immediately made a sign, on which the cloth of gold was removed, and dis- covered the bones and skeletons, which filled the cask to the brim, and which the son of Godwin had sworn upon without knowing it. The Norman historians say that he shuddered, and his countenance changed at the sight of this enormous heap. 3 Harold soon after departed, taking with him his nephew, but was compelled to leave his young brother behind him in the power of the Duke of Normandy. William accompanied him to the seaside, and made him fresh presents, rejoicing that he had by fraud and surprise obtained from the man in all England most capable of frustrating his projects a public and sol- emn oath to serve and assist him. When Harold, on his return to his native country, presented himself before 1 Tut une cuve en fist emplir, Pois cTun paele les fist covrir, Ke Heraut ne sout ne ne vit. — Roman de Rou, torn, ii, p. 113. 8 Ibid. f torn, ii, p. 114. 8 Chron* de Norm. ; Recueil des hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p. 223. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 221 King Edward, and related all that had passed between Duke William and himself, the king became pensive, and said to him : " Did I not forewarn thee that I knew this William, and that thy journey would bring calamity on thyself and on our nation ? Heaven grant that these mis- fortunes may not happen during my life ! ' n These words and this sadness may seem to prove that Edward had really, in his youthful and thoughtless days, made a fool- ish promise to a foreigner of a kingdom which did not belong to him. It is not known whether, after his acces- sion, he had nourished the ambitious hopes of William by words ; but, in default of express words, his constant friendship for the Norman had, with the latter, been equivalent to a positive assurance, and a sufficient reason for believing that Edward continued favorable to his views and wishes. An oath sworn upon relics, whether forced or volun- tary, called down the vengeance of the church if violated ; and in such a case, in the opinion of all Christendom, the church struck legitimately. Therefore, whether from a secret presentiment of the perils with which England was threatened by the spirit of ecclesiastical revenge, com- bined with the ambition of the Normans, or from a vague impression of superstitious terror, a great dejection of mind overcame the English nation. Sinister reports were circulated ; men feared and were alarmed without any positive cause for alarm. They dug up old predictions, attributed to saints of former times. One of them had prophesied misfortunes such as the Saxons had never suf- fered since they left the banks of the Elbe. 3 Another had foretold an invasion by a people of an unknown tongue, and the subjection of the English people to masters from beyond the sea. All these rumors, hitherto unheeded or unknown, forged perhaps at that very moment, were eagerly received, and kept the minds of the people in ex- pectation of some great and unavoidable calamity. The health of Edward, who was naturally of a weak constitution, and had, it would appear, become aware of his country's danger, declined from the period of these events. He could not disguise from himself that his 1 Nonne dixi tibi .... me Willelmum nosse ait ? — Eadmeri, Hist, nov., lib. i, p. 5, ed. Selden. 2 Venient super gentem Anglorum mala, qualia non passa est ex quo venit in Angliam usque tempus illud. — Johan. de Fordun, Scotichronicon, lib. iv, cap. xxxvi. 222 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE love of foreigners was the sole cause of the evils which seemed to threaten England ; and his gloom on this ac- count was greater than that of the people. In order to stifle these thoughts, and perhaps the remorse which preyed upon his mind, he gave himself wholly up to the details of religious observances ; he made large donations to the churches and monasteries ; and his last hour sur- prised him in the midst of these mournful and unprofita- ble occupations, A. D. 1066. 1 Lying on his couch, almost at the point of death, he was surrounded by Harold and his kindred, who prayed the king to name a successor by whom the kingdom might be governed securely. " Ye know," said Edward, " that I have left my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy ; and are there not here among ye, those who have sworn to assure his succession ? " Harold advanced, and once more asked the king on whom the crown should devolve. " Take it, if it is thy wish, Har, old," said Edward ; " but the gift will be thy ruin ; against the duke and his barons thy power will not suffice." Han old declared that he feared neither the Norman nor any other foe. The king, vexed at this importunity, turned round in his bed, saying, " Let the English make king whom they will, Harold or another ; I consent ; " and shortly after expired. The very day after the celebration of his obsequies, Harold was proclaimed king by his par- tisans, amid no small public disquietude, and Eldred, Archbishop of York, lost no time in anointing him. The commencement of the new reign was marked by a complete return to the national usages that had been abandoned in the preceding reign. Harold did not, how- ever, drive from the kingdom, nor from their offices, the few Normans who were there in condescension toward Edward's old affections. These foreigners continued in the enjoyment of every civil right ; but, instead of being grateful for this generous treatment, they employed them- selves in intriguing at home and abroad for the foreign Duke of Normandy. From them it was that William re- ceived the message that informed him of Edward's death and of the election of the son of Godwin. Immediately after receiving this important intelligence the duke sent a messenger to Harold, who addressed him in these words : " William, Duke of the Normans, sends to 1 About a century after his death the title of Confessor was conferred on him by Pope Alexander III, which had a similar meaning to that of Saint. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 223 remind thee of the oath which thou hast sworn to him with thy mouth and with thy hand upon good and holy relics." " It is true," replied the Saxon king, "that I took an oath to William ; but I took it under constraint. I promised what did not belong to me ; a promise which I could not in any way perform. My royal authority is not my own ; I could not lay it down against the will of the country ; nor can I, against the will of the country, take a foreign wife. As for my sister, whom the duke claims, that he may marry her to one of his chiefs, she has died within the year." The Norman ambassador carried back this answer ; and William replied by a second message, with reproaches, but expressed in mild and moderate terms, and entreating the king, if he did not consent to fulfil all the conditions he had sworn, at least to perform one of them, and to receive in marriage the young princess whom he had promised to make his wife. Harold answered that he would not fulfil that obligation ; and, to give proof of this resolution, he married a Saxon woman. Upon this the final words declarative of rupture were pronounced. William swore that within the year he would come to ex- act all his due, and to pursue his perjured foe even to those places where he could hope to make the surest and the boldest stand against his vengeance. As far as publicity could go in the eleventh century, the Duke of Normandy published what he called the in- justice and bad faith of the Saxon, and the opinion of the mass of men on the Continent went for William against Harold. He also brought an accusation of sacrilege against his enemy before the pontifical court, and de- manded that England should be laid under interdict by the Church, and declared to be the property of him who should first take possession, with the reservation of the pope's approval. He assumed the character of a plaintiff at law, requiring that justice should be done to him, and desirous that his adversary should be heard in answer. But Harold, refusing to acknowledge himself amenable to that court, was in vain cited to defend himself before the tribunal of Rome. Consequently a judicial sentence was pronounced by the pope himself, 1 according to the terms of which William, Duke of Normandy, had permis- sion to enter England, and Harold and all his adherents were excommunicated by a papal bull, which was trans- 1 Pope Alexander II. 224 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE mitted to William by the hands of his envoy ; and to it was, moreover, added the gift of a banner from the apos- tolic church, and a ring containing one of St. Peter's hairs, encased beneath a diamond of some price. Before the bull, the banner, and the ring arrived in Normandy, contributions came from all parts for getting up the expedition ; one subscribed for vessels, another for well-appointed men-at-arms, and many promised to march in person. The priests gave their money, the merchants their stuffs, and the country people their provisions. But when the consecrated objects arrived from Rome, their sight excited double eagerness : every one brought what he could ; and mothers sent their sons to enlist for the salvation of their souls. William had his proclamation of war published in the neighboring countries, and offered good pay and the plunder of England to every able-bodied man who would serve him with spear, sword, or cross- bow. A multitude came, by all roads, from far and near, from the north and from the south. Some arrived from the province of Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and from Brittany, from France and from Flanders, from Aquitaine and from Burgundy, from Piedmont and from the banks of the Rhine. All the adventurers by profes- sion, all the outcasts of Western Europe, came eagerly and by forced marches. Some were cavaliers or warlike chiefs, others were simply foot-soldiers and sergeant-at- arms, as they were then called. Some asked' for pay in money ; others only for their passage and all the booty they could make ; many wished for land among the Eng- lish, a demesne, a castle, or a town ; while others would be content with some rich Saxon woman in marriage. Every wish, every project of human covetousness pre- sented itself. William rejected no one, says the Norman chronicle, but promised favors, duly registered, to every one according to his ability. The place of meeting for the vessels and the warriors was at the mouth of the Dive, a river that flows into the sea between the Seine and the Orne. For a month the winds were contrary, and kept the Norman fleet in port ; but at daybreak of the 27th of September, the sun, which until that morning had been obscured by clouds, arose in full splendor, while a fine easterly breeze blew from the shore. The camp was immediately broken up, every preparation for immediate embarkation was made with zeal and with no less alacrity, and a few hours before sunset the entire AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 22 t fleet weighed anchor. Four hundred ships with large masts and sails, and more than a thousand transport-boats manoeuvred to gain the open sea, amid the noise of clarions and the wild shout proceeding from sixty thou- sand warriors. Unfortunately for the English their ves- sels, which had so long been cruising off the coast of Sussex, had just before returned to harbor for want of provisions, so that William's troops landed, without en- countering any resistance, at Pevensey, near Hastings, on the 28th of September, 1066. The archers landed first, the cavaliers next, and after them the workmen of the army — pioneers, carpenters, and smiths — who unloaded on the shore, piece by piece, three wooden castles, framed and prepared beforehand. The duke came ashore last of all. In setting his foot upon the sands he made a false step, and fell upon his face. A murmur immediately arose ; and some voices cried, " God preserve us ! This is a bad sign ! " But William rising, exclaimed, " What is the matter with ye? What astonishes ye ? I have seized on this land with both my hands ; and, by the splendor of God, as much as there is of it, it is ours." 1 This quick repartee instantly prevented their being discouraged by so ill an omen. The army marched upon the town of Has- tings ; near that place an encampment was formed, and two of the wooden castles were erected and furnished with provisions. Bodies of soldiers overran all the neigh- boring country, plundering and burning houses. The English fled from their dwellings, concealed their furni- niture and cattle, and flocked to the churches and church- yards, which they thought the most secure asylum from enemies who were Christians like themselves. But the Normans made but little account of the sanctity of places, and respected no asylum. Harold was at York, when a messenger came in great haste to tell him that William of Normandy had landed and planted his standard on the Anglo-Saxon territory. He immediately marched toward the south with his army, publishing, as he passed along, an order to all his chiefs of counties to put all their fighting men under arms and lead them to London. One of those Normans who had been allowed to remain in England, and who now played 1 Seignors, par la resplendor De, La terre ai as dous mainz seizie . . . Tote est nostre quant qu'il i a Roman de Rou t torn, ii, p. 152. 226 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE the part of spies and secret agents of the invader, sent word to the duke to be on his guard, for that in four days the son of Godwin would have round him one hundred thousand men. Harold, too quick in his movements, did not wait four days. He could not master his eagerness for coming to an engagement with the foreigners, espe- cially when he learned the ravages of every description which they were committing round their camp. The hope of sparing his countrymen some misery, and per- haps the desire of making a sudden, an unexpected attack upon the Normans, determined him to march toward Hastings with forces only one quarter as numerous as those of the Duke of Normandy. But William's camp was carefully guarded against a surprise, and his posts extended to a considerable dis- tance. Detachments of cavalry gave notice, by their fall- ing back, of the approach of the Saxon king. Harold's design of assailing the enemy unawares being thus pre- vented, he was obliged to moderate his impetuosity. He halted at the distance of seven miles from the camp of the Normans, and, all at once changing his tactics, intrenched himself, in order to wait for them, behind ditches and palisades. On the ground which afterward bore, and still bears, the name of Battle, the Anglo-Saxon lines occupied a long chain of hills, fortified with a rampart of stakes and osier hurdles. In the night of the 13th of October, William announced to the Normans that the next day would be the day of battle. The priests and monks, who had fol- lowed the invading army in great numbers, being attract- ed, like the soldiers, by the hope of booty, assembled to- f ether to offer up prayers and sing litanies, while the ghting men were preparing their arms. The soldiery employed the time which remained to them after this first care in confessing their sins and receiving the sacrament. In the other army the night was passed in quite a differ- ent manner ; the Saxons diverted themselves with great noise, singing their old national songs, and emptying around their watch-fires their horns of beer and wine. In the morning the bishop of Bayeux, brother, on the mother's side, of Duke William, celebrated mass in the Norman camp, and gave a blessing to the soldiers ; he was armed with a hauberk under his pontifical habit ; he then mounted a large white horse, took a baton of com- mand in his hand, and drew up the cavalry into line. The AND OF THE' ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 227 army was divided into three columns of attack: in the first were the soldiers from the county of Boulogne and from Ponthieu, with most of the adventurers who had engaged personally for pay; the second comprised the auxiliaries from Brittany, Maine, and Poitou ; William himself commanded the third, composed of the Norman chivalry. The duke mounted a Spanish charger; from his neck were suspended the most venerated of the relics on which Harold had sworn, and the standard conse- crated by the pope was carried at his side. At the mo- ment when the troops were about to advance, the duke, raising his voice, thus addressed them : " Remember to fight well, and put all to death ; for if we conquer we shall all be rich. What I gain, you will gain ; if I conquer, you will conquer ; if I take this land, you shall have it. "Know, however, that I am not come here only to obtain my right, but also to avenge our whole nation for the felonies, perjuries, and treacheries of these English. Come on, then, and let us, with God's help, chastise them for all these misdeeds." 1 The army was soon within sight of the Saxon camp, near Senlac, to the northwest of Hastings. The priests and monks then retired to a neighboring height to pray and to witness the conflict. As soon as the archers came within bowshot they let fly their arrows, and the cross- bowmen their bolts ; but most of the shots were deadened by the high parapet of the Saxon redoubts. The in- fantry, armed with spears, and the cavalry, then advanced to the entrances of the redoubts, and endeavored to force them. The Anglo-Saxons, all on foot around their stand- ard planted in the ground, and forming behind their re- doubts one compact and solid mass, received the assail- ants with heavy blows of their battle-axes, which, with a back-stroke, broke their spears and clove their coats of mail. The Normans, unable either to penetrate the re- doubts or to tear up the palisades, and fatigued with their unsuccessful attack, fell back upon the division command- ed by William. The duke then commanded all his arch- ers again to advance, and ordered them not to shoot point- blank, but to discharge their arrows upward, so that they might fall beyond the rampart of the enemy's camp. Many of the English were wounded, chiefly in the face, 1 Chron. de Normandie ; Recueil des Hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p. 232 ; Roman de Rau„ torn, ii, pp. 187-190. 228 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE in consequence of this manoeuvre ; Harold himself lost an eye by an arrow, but he nevertheless continued to com- mand and to fight. The close attack of the foot and horse recommenced, to the cry of " Notre Dame ! Dieu aide ! Dieu aide ! " But the Normans were driven back at one entrance of the Saxon camp, as far as a great ravine covered with grass and brambles, in which, their horses stumbling, they fell pell-mell, and numbers of them perished. There was now a momentary panic in the army of the invaders: the report spread that the duke was killed, and at this news they began to flee. William threw himself before the fugitives and barred their pass- age, threatening them and striking them with his lance ; then uncovering his head, " Here I am," he exclaimed ; " look at me ; I live, and with God's help I will conquer." The horsemen returned to the redoubts ; but, as be- fore, they could neither force the entrance nor make a breach. The duke then bethought himself of a stratagem to draw the English out of their position, and make them quit their ranks. He ordered a thousand horse to ad- vance and immediately to take flight. At the sight of this feigned rout the Saxons were thrown off their guard ; and all set off in pursuit, with their axes suspended from their necks. At a certain distance, a body of troops, post- ed there for the purpose, fell on their flank ; the fugitives then turned round, and the English, surprised in the midst of their disorder, were assailed on all sides with spears and swords, which they could not ward off, both hands being occupied in wielding their heavy axes. When they had lost their ranks the gates of the redoubts were forced, and horse and foot entered together ; but the combat was still fierce, pell-mell, and hand to hand. William had his horse killed under him. King Harold and his two broth- ers fell dead at the foot of their standard, which was torn up and replaced by the banner sent from Rome. The re- mains of the English army, without a chief and without a standard, prolonged the struggle until the close of day, so that the combatants on each side could recognize one another only by their language. Having, says an ancient historian, rendered all which they owed to their country, the remnant of Harold's com- panions dispersed, and many died on the roads, in conse- quence of their wounds and the day's fatigue. The Nor- man horse pursued them without relaxation, and gave quarter to no one. They passed the night on the field of AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 229 battle ; and on the morrow, at dawn of day, Duke Will- iam drew up his troops, and had the names of all the men who had followed him across the sea called over from the roll, which had been prepared before his departure from Normandy. Of these a vast number, dead and dying, lay beside the vanquished on the field. The fortunate sur- vivors had, as the first profits of the victory, the spoils of the dead. In turning over the bodies, the corpse of King Harold was found under a heap of slain, but so much dis- figured by wounds that it could hardly be recognized. These events are all related by the chroniclers of the Anglo-Saxon race in a tone of dejection which it is diffi- cult to transfuse. They call the day of battle a day of bitterness, a day stained with the blood of the brave. " England, what shall I say of thee ? " exclaims the his- torian of the church of Ely ; " what shall I say of thee to our descendants ? That thou hast lost thy national king, and hast fallen under the domination of foreigners ; that thy sons have perished miserably; that thy councilors and thy chieftains are vanquished, slain, or disinherited." Long after the day of this fatal fight patriotic superstition still saw traces of fresh blood upon the ground where it had taken place ; they were visible, it was said, on the heights northwest of Hastings when a slight rain had moistened the soil. Immediately after his victory, William made a vow to build an abbey on the spot, dedicated to the Trinity and Saint Martin, the patron of the warriors of Gaul. The vow was soon accomplished, and the high altar of the new monastery was raised on the very spot where the stand- ard of King Harold had been planted and torn down. The outer walls were traced at once around the hill, which the bravest of the English had covered with their bodies, and the whole extent of the adjacent land, upon which the famous scenes of the battle had taken place, became the property of this abbey, which was called in the Norman language L Abbaye de la Bataille} The Norman army now advanced toward London by the great Roman way, called by the English Wasthlinga- street, referred to in a former chapter as a common limit in the partitions of territory between the Saxons and the 1 The Bayenx Tapestry, and Guy's Carmen de Belle Hastingensi, are espe- cially to be consulted by those who wish to study all the circumstances of the great battle. 230 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Danes. 1 Meanwhile, small bodies of troops were approach- ing on several points, and traversing in various directions the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, plunder- ing and burning the towns and hamlets, and butchering the men whether with arms or without. William did not go on to London, but stopped at the distance of a few miles, and there, having received the keys of the city, he sent forward a strong detachment of soldiers with instruc- tions to build a fortress for his residence in the center of the town. While this work was proceeding with rapidity, the Norman council of war were discussing in the camp near London the means of promptly completing the conquest so successfully begun. The familiar friends of William said that, in order to render the people of the yet uncon- quered provinces less disposed to resistance, the chief of the conquest must, previous to any ulterior invasion, take the title of King of the English. This proposal, which was, doubtless, the most agreeable to the Duke of Nor- mandy, met with the general approbation of his chiefs, and they unanimously resolved therefore, that, before the conquest was pushed any further, Duke William should cause himself to be crowned King of England by the small number of Saxons whom he had succeeded in terrifying or corrupting. Christmas-day, which was then approaching, was fixed on for the ceremony. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, was invited to come and impose hands, and to crown him, according to the ancient custom, in the church of the Monastery of the West, in English West-mynster, nigh to London. Stigand refused to go and give his bene- diction to a man who was stained with blood, and the in- vader of the rights of another. But Eldred, Archbishop of York, with greater worldly discretion, seeing, say the old historians, that it was necessary to conform to the times, consented to perform the important ceremony ; and it was he who, accompanied by a few priests of both na- tions, and in presence of the counts, barons, and the chiefs of the army, to the number of two hundred and sixty, re- ceived, all trembling, from him whom they saluted king, the oath to treat the Anglo-Saxon people as well as they had been treated by the best of the kings whom they had elected in former times. 1 See page 155. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 231 On that very day the city of London had cause to know the value of such an oath from the mouth of a foreign con- queror. An enormous war-tribute was imposed on the citizens, and their hostages were imprisoned. Commis- sioners were sent through the whole extent of country in which the army had left garrisons. They made an exact inventory of all estates, public and private, registering them with great care and minuteness. Inquiry was made into the names of all the English who had died in battle, or who had survived their defeats, or whom their domes- tic affairs had, contrary to their desire, detained from joining the standards of their country. All the posses- sions of these three classes of men, whether in lands, or revenues, or chattels, were confiscated. The children of the first were declared disinherited forever. The second were likewise permanently dispossessed. Lastly, those men who had not taken part in the battle were also stripped of everything for having intended to fight ; but by special favor, after many years of obedience and devotion to the foreign power, not they, but their sons, might obtain from the bounty of the new masters some portion of the pater- nal inheritance. Such was the law of the Conquest, ac- cording to the credible testimony of a prelate who was nearly a contemporary, and who himself was descended from the Norman invaders. 1 The immense produce of this universal spoliation served for rewards to the adventurers who had enlisted under the standard of the Norman duke. In the first place, their chief, the new king of the English, kept as his own share all the treasure of the ancient kings, the gold vessels and ornaments of the churches, and everything rare and precious that could be found in the shops. William sent a part of these riches to Pope Alexander, together with Harold's standard, in return for the holy standard which had triumphed at Hastings ; and all the churches abroad in which psalms had been sung and tapers burned for the success of the invasion, received in recompense crosses, chalices, and stuffs of gold. When the king and the priests had taken their share, the warriors had theirs, according to their rank and the conditions of their engagement. Those who, at the camp on the river Dive, had done homage to William for lands which were then to be cori- 1 Ricardus Nigellus, Richard Lenoir or Noirot, bishop of Ely in the twelfth century. 232 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE quered, received those of the dispossessed English. The barons and knights had extensive domains, castles, town- lands, and even entire towns, allotted to them ; the meaner vassals had smaller portions. Some took their pay in money ; others who had stipulated beforehand for Saxon wives, received also strict attention ; and, according to the Norman chronicle, William caused them to take in mar- riage noble ladies, the heiresses of great possessions, whose husbands had been slain in battle. The man who had crossed the sea with the quilted cas- sock and black wooden bow of the foot-soldier now ap- peared, to the astonished eyes of the new recruits who had come after him, mounted on a war-horse and bearing the military baldrick. He who had arrived as a poor knight soon lifted his banner — as it was then expressed— and commanded a company, whose rallying-cry was his own name. The herdsmen of Normandy and the weavers of Flanders, with a little courage and good fortune, soon be- came in England men of consequence, illustrious barons ; and their names, ignoble and obscure on one shore of the strait, became noble and glorious on the other. The serv- ant of the Norman man-at-arms, his lance-bearer, his es- quire, became gentilhomme in England ; they were men of consequence and consideration when placed in com- parison with the Saxon, who had himself once enjoyed wealth and titles, but who was now oppressed by the sword of the invader, who was expelled from the home of his fathers, and had not where to lay his head. This natu- ral and general nobility of all the conquerors increased in the same ratio as the authority or personal importance of each. In the new nobility, after the style and kingly title of William, was classed the dignity of the governor of a province, as count or earl ; next to him that of his lieutenant, as vice-count or viscount ; and then the rank of the warriors, whether as barons, knights, esquires, or ser- geants-at-arms, of unequal grades of nobility, but all re- puted noble, whether by right of their victory or by their foreign extraction. All the portion of territory occupied by William's gar- risons was in a short time crowded with citadels and for- tified castles. All the native population within it were disarmed, and compelled to swear obedience and fidelity to the new chief imposed on them by the lance and the sword. Such was the yoke the English race received, as the standard of the three lions progressively advanced AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 333 over their fields, and was planted in their towns. Famine, like a faithful companion of the conquest, followed its foot- steps. From the year 1067 it had been desolating those provinces which alone had, up to that period, been con- quered ; but in 1070 it spread through the whole of Eng- land, and appeared in all its horror in the newly-conquered territories. The inhabitants of the province of York, and the country to the north of it, after feeding on the flesh of the dead horses which the Norman army had aban- doned on the roads, devoured human flesh. More than one hundred thousand people, of all ages, died of want in these countries. " It was a frightful spectacle," said an old annalist, " to see on the roads, in the public places, and at the doors of the houses, human bodies a prey to the worms; for there was no one left to throw a little earth over them." This distress of the conquered country was confined to the natives, for the foreign soldier lived there in plenty. For him there were in the fortresses vast heaps of corn and other provisions, and supplies were pur- chased for him abroad with gold taken from the English. Moreover, the famine assisted him in the complete subju- gation of the vanquished ; and often, for the remnants of the meal of one of the meanest followers of the army, the Saxon, once illustrious among his countrymen, but now wasted and depressed by hunger, would come and sell himself and all his family to perpetual slavery. Then was this shameful treaty inscribed on the blank pages of an old missal, where these monuments of the miseries of an- other age, in characters nearly effaced by the worm of time, are to be traced even at this day, and simply furnish a theme for the sagacity of antiquaries. The whole country of the Anglo-Saxons was now con- quered, from the Tweed to the Land's End, and from the sea of Gaul to the Severn (a. d. 1070) ; and the English pop- ulation was subdued in every part of the island, and over- awed by the presence of the army of their conquerors. There were no longer any free provinces, any masses of Englishmen united in arms or under military organization. A few separate bands, the remnants of the Saxon armies or garrisons, were to be met with here and there ; soldiers who were without leaders, or chiefs without followers. The war was continued only by the successive pursuit of. these partisans ; the most considerable among them were solemnly judged and condemned ; the rest were placed at the discretion of the foreign soldiers, who made 17 234 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE them serfs on their acquired estates, or frequently sub- jected them to massacre, under such circumstances of bar- barity that an ancient historian, alluding to the same, re- fused to enter into details, these being either inconceivable or hazardous to relate. Such of the vanquished as had any means left for expatriating themselves repaired west- ward to the ports of Wales, or to those of Scotland, where they embarked, and went, as the old annals express it, to roam through foreign kingdoms, exhibiting their sorrows and miseries in a state of exile. Holland, Denmark, Nor- way, and the countries where the Teutonic dialects were spoken, were in general the destination of the emigrants. Some of the English fugitives, however, were seen to di- rect their course to the south of Europe, and crave an asylum among nations of entirely different origin and speaking a different language. From the time that the conquest began to prosper, not young soldiers and warlike chiefs alone, but whole families, men, women, and children, emigrated from every remote district of Gaul, to seek their fortunes in England. To the people on the other side of the Channel the island was like a newly-discovered land, to which colonists re- pair, and which is appropriated by the first or by every comer. The bishoprics and abbeys of England were em- ployed, as heretofore the wealth of the rich and the liber- ties of the poor had been, to pay off the debts of the con- quest. A crowd of adventurers came over from Gaul to pounce upon the prelacies, the abbacies, the archdeacon- ries, and deaneries of England, which, without any ob- stacle, were given to clerks from every other land. The prelate of foreign extraction then delivered, before a Sax- on auditory, his homilies in the French tongue ; and on their being attentively listened to, either in astonishment or from fear, the foreigner would assume pride on the unction of his persuasive discourses, which so miracu- lously charmed the ears of the barbarians. 1 The contempt which the clergy of the conquest professed for the natives of England was even greater than that of the soldiers, and all that had been anciently venerated in England was, by the new comers, looked upon as vile and despicable. But violence done to the popular conviction, whether true or false, rational or superstitious, is often more pow- 1 Qui, licet latine rel gallice loquentem ilium minime intelligerent, tamen intendentes ad ilium, virtuteverbi Dei .... ad lacrimas multoties compuncti. — Petri Blesensis Ingulfi, Continuat., apudrer. Anglic. Script., vol. i, p. 115. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 235 erful in stimulating the courage of the oppressed than the loss even of liberty and property. The insults lavished upon the subjects of ancient worship, and the sufferings of the Saxon clergy, together with some degree of fanati- cal hatred of the religious innovations of the conquest, strongly agitated the public mind, and became the motive causes of a great conspiracy, which extended over all Eng- land (a. d. 1 071). To arrest this danger, William adopted the same means which he had already, more than once, found to answer his expectation, namely, promises and lies. He invited, by messages, the chiefs of the insur- gents to his residence, where he received them with the utmost kindness, affecting toward them an air of mildness and good faith. A lengthened discussion was then held on their respective interests, which was terminated by an agreement. All the relics of the Church of St. Alban's had been brought to the place of conference. A missal was laid upon these relics, and opened at the gospel ; and William, placing himself in the situation in which he had himself so memorably placed Harold, swore by the sacred bones and the holy gospels to observe inviolably the good and ancient laws which the holy and pious kings of Eng- land, especially King Edward, had formerly established. The English, being well pleased with this concession, re- plied to William's oath by taking that oath of fidelity and peace which it had been the custom to take to the Saxon kings, and dispersed, satisfied and full of hope ; they then, quitting the royal presence, severally went their way, and broke up that great association which they had just formed for the deliverance of their country. These good and ancient laws, these laws of Edward, the renewed promise of observing which had the power of allaying the spirit of insurrection, were not a particular code, no settled system of written regulations ; but these words simply implied that mild and popular administra- tion of the laws and government which had existed in the time of the national kings. After the Danish dominion, the English people, in their request addressed to Edward, had asked for the laws of Ethelred, that is, for the abo- lition of the odious laws of conquest ; to ask under the Norman dominion for the laws of Edward, was only ex- pressing the same desire ; but it was a fruitless hope, and one which, in despite of his promises, the recent con- queror could not satisfy. In vain might he, in good faith, have restored every legal practice of the olden time ; if 236 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE he had maintained, to the letter, this rule of practice through the medium of his foreign justices, the laws so observed would not have secured to the people the same benefits; for it was not the non-observance of their an- cient laws which rendered the situation of the English people so disastrous, it was the ruin of their independence and their existence as a nation. Neither William nor his successors showed any great hatred for the Saxon legis- lation, whether criminal or civil ; they allowed it to be observed in many transactions, but this was not attended with any material advantage to the Saxons. They allowed the rate of fines for theft and murder committed upon an Englishman to vary, as before the conquest, according to the division of the great provinces. 1 They allowed the Saxon accused of murder or pillage to justify himself, ac- cording to the ancient custom, by the ordeal of red-hot iron or boiling water ; while a Frenchman, accused of the same crime by a Saxon, vindicated himself by duel, or simply by his oath, according to the law of Normandy. This difference of legal proceedings, evidently to the dis- advantage of the conquered population, did not disappear till after the lapse of a century and a half, when the decre- tals of the Roman church forbade judgments by fire and water in all countries. Moreover, among the old Saxon laws there were some which must have been especially favorable to the conquest, such as that which rendered the inhabitants of each district responsible for every of- fence committed within it, of which the offender remained undetected ; a law admirably convenient, in the hands of the foreigner, for creating and perpetuating terror. Such 1 Thus, for instance, section viii of these laws says : Si home occit alter, et il seit conusaunt, e il deive faire les amendes, dur- rad de sa mainbote al seignor, pur le franc home x solz, et pur le serf xx solz. La were del thein xx livres en Merchenelae, e xxv livres en Westsaxenelae, e la were del vilain c solz en Merchenelae e ensement en Westsaxenelae. Translation into Modern French.— Si un homme en tue un autre, et qu'il reconnaisse le fait, et doive payer les amendes, il donnera pour sa mainbote au seigneur, pour l'homme libre dix sous et pour le serf vingt sous. La were du thain est de vingt livres dans la loi des Merciens et de vingt-cinq livres dans la loi de Wesfsex, etla were du vilain est de cent sous dans la loi des Merciens ainsi que dans la loi de Westsex. The mainbote or manbote was a bote, that is, " a penalty " or " compensa- tion " to the lord for any of his men killed. If a serf, the loss was considered greater than in case of a free man, on which he had only certain signorial rights, whereas the former was his personal property. Hence the difference in the rates of compensation. Were is an abbreviation of weregeld from wer, " a man," and geld, " money " ; in Latin, hominis pretium. Thein or thain is the Anglo- Saxon thane. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 337 laws as these it was to the interest of the conqueror to maintain ; and as to those which related to transactions between individuals, the upholding of them was a matter of indifference to him. In this view, therefore, he per- formed the promise which he had made to the Saxon con- federates, without at all troubling himself as to whether they understood that promise in a different sense. He sent for twelve men out of each province, who came to him in London, and declared on oath what were the an- cient customs of the country. What they said was digest- ed into a sort of code, in the French idiom of that day, the only legal language recognized by the government of the conquest. The Norman heralds were then sent about, and proclaimed by sound of horn, in the towns and vil- lages, " The laws which King William granted to all the people of England, the same which King Edward, his cousin, had observed before him." 1 The laws of Edward were published ; but the days of Edward did not return. The English burgess no longer enjoyed his municipal freedom, nor the countryman his territorial franchise ; thenceforward, as before, every Norman had the privilege of killing an Englishman, with- out being criminal, or even sinning in the eyes of the church, provided he thought him concerned in rebel- lion. On the contrary, 'by a peculiar application of the laws, the Englishman was, as it were, obliged to watch over the safety of the Norman, as will be seen from the following law, which had for its object the repression of assassination of members of the victorious nation. It was couched in these terms : " When a Frenchman is killed or discovered slain in any hundred, 2 the inhabitants of the hundred shall seize and bring up the murderer within eight days ; otherwise they shall pay, at their common cost, a fine of forty-seven marks of silver." 3 An Anglo-Norman writer of the twelfth century 4 1 Ces sount les leis et les custumes que li reis William grentat a tut le puple de Engleterre apres le conquest de la terre. Ice les meismes que li reis Ed- ward sun cosin tint devant lui. — Leges Willhelmi regis. See page 270. 2 Shires, hundreds and tens of families are territorial divisions and local cir- cumscriptions, as old in England as the establishment of the Saxons and the Angles. The custom of counting the families as simple units, and aggregating them in tens and hundreds to form districts and cantons, was known to all na- tions of Teutonic origin. 8 De murdre. — Ki Freceis occist, e les hommes del hundred Tie 1'prengent et amenent a la justise dedenz les oit jours pur mustrer pur qui il l'a fait, sin rendrunt le murdre xlvii mars. * Dialog, de Scaccario, in notis ad Matth. Paris. 238 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE makes the following exposition of the motive of this law : " In the early days of the new order of things which fol- lowed the conquest, such of the English as were suffered to live were continually laying ambushes for the Nor- mans, and murdering all whom they found alone in desert or solitary places. In revenge for these assassinations, King William and his barons inflicted on the subjugated the most refined punishments, the most exquisite tortures ; but these chastisements had scarcely any effect. It was then decreed that every district or hundred in which a Norman should be found dead, without any individual being suspected of committing the assassination, should nevertheless pay a heavy sum of money to the royal treasury. The salutary fear of this punishment, inflicted upon all the inhabitants in a body, must, it was considered, insure the safety of passengers, by inducing the men of the place to denounce and give up the guilty person, who alone, by his crime, occasioned an enormous loss to the whole neighborhood." The men of the hundred in which the Frenchman was found dead had no other means of escaping this pecuniary loss than that of destroying every outward mark that could prove the corpse to be that of a Frenchman ; for then the hundred was not responsible, and the Norman judges did not make their official in- quest. But the judges foresaw this artifice, and frus- trated it by a strange legal fiction or presumption. Any man found assassinated was considered French, unless the hundred judicially proved that he was of Saxon birth ; which proof must be given before the king's justice, on the oath of two men and two women, the nearest of kin to the deceased. Without these four witnesses, the fact of the deceased being an Englishman — his Anglaiserie or Englishry (as the Normans expressed it) — was not suffi- ciently established, and the hundred had to pay the fine. More than three centuries after the invasion, as the anti- quarians testify, this inquest was held in England on the body of every assassinated man ; and, in the legal lan- guage, it was still called presentment of Englishry} Such was the benefit the Anglo-Saxons derived from the concession which had appeared to them of so gratify- ing a nature. The vain expression, " the laws of King Edward" was all that thenceforward remained to this na- ' Prdsentement osition which it thus appears to have held in England or some time after the conquest is easily explained. The advantage which it derived from being the language of the court, of the entire body of the nobility, and of the opulent and influential classes generally, is obvious. This not only gave it the prestige and attraction of what we now call fashion, but, in the circumstances to which the country was reduced, would very speedily make it the only language in which any kind of regular or grammati- cal training could be obtained. With the native popula- tion almost everywhere deprived of its natural leaders, the old landed proprietary of its own blood, it can not be supposed that schools in which the reading and writing of the vernacular tongue was taught could continue to subsist. This has been pointed out already. But what we may call the social cause, or that arising out of the relative conditions of the two races, was probably assisted by another which has not been so much attended to. The languages themselves did not compete upon fair terms. The French would have in the general estimation a decided advantage for the purposes of literature over the English. The latter was held universally to be merely a barbarous form of speech, claiming kindred with nothing except the other half-articulate dialects of the woods, hardly one of which had ever known what it was to have any acquaint- 294 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ance with letters, or was conceived even by those who spoke it to be fit to be used in writing except on the most vulgar occasions, or where anything like either dignity or precision of expression was of no importance ; the former, although somewhat soiled and disfigured by ill usage re- ceived at the hands of the uneducated multitude, and also only recently much employed in formal or artistic elo- quence, could still boast the most honorable of all pedi- frrees as a daughter of the Latin, and was thus besides al- ied to the popular speech of every more civilized province of western Christendom. The very name by which it had been known when it first attracted attention with ref- erence to its literary capabilities was the Rustic Latin — Lingua Romana Rustica. Even without being favored by circumstances, as it was in the present case, a tongue hav- ing these intrinsic recommendations would not have been easily worsted, in a contest for the preference as the organ of fashionable literature, by such a competitor as the un- known and unconnected English." - 1 The national tongue possessed, however, one great ad- vantage with which it was impossible for the other to cope. This was the fact of its being the speech of the great body of the people ; and as these far outnumbered the foreign population, so it was the English tongue which in course of time absorbed the Norman idiom, and not the Norman which absorbed the English. That in the process of assimilation the original form of language underwent great alteration there can be no doubt ; that in the storm of national calamity the language itself ceased almost en- tirely to be either written or read is equally certain ; but it remained the people's speech none the less, and that fact alone was sufficient to preserve the general character of the language, through all its vicissitudes, as we shall find it when, after a time, it began again to be employed in writing, although in an altered form. The nature of the alterations which distinguished the written English, on its reappearance after the Norman conquest is twofold, and its transformation comprises two distinct processes, namely, i, the infusion of foreign words and phrases ; and, 2, the loss of inflexions and the general breakup of grammatical forms ; and these, although going on simultaneously, require for the sake of clearness to be examined each by itself separately. 1 G. L. Craik, Manual of English Literature, AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 295 I. Infusion of Norman Words and Phrases into the Native Saxon. The introduction of Norman words into the English vocabulary commenced many years before the conquest, as we have seen, and according to an English authority, 1 their number amounted at least to one hundred and fifty in the reign of Edward the Confessor. The account which a contemporary historian gives of this matter is, as has been explained elsewhere, that Edward, having been educated at the court of his uncle, Duke Richard II, and having resided in Normandy many years as a friend and relative of Duke William, had become almost a French- man ; that upon his return from France, and his accession to the throne of England in 1043, he brought over with him a number of Normans whom he promoted to the highest dignities; that, under the influence of the king and his Norman favorites, many people began to lay aside their English fashions and to imitate the manners of the French, and that not only the nobility, but all who laid claim to education and good breeding commenced to speak French as an acknowledged mark of gentility. The fashion, however, of speaking French, having been adopted only in compliance with the caprice of the reign- ing prince, would not probably have spread very far or lasted very long ; but at the changes which followed soon after, in 1066, the language of the Norman conqueror be- came interwoven with the new political system, and the various establishments which were made for the support and security of the latter, all contributed to the diffusion and permanency of the former. To begin with the court. If we consider that the king himself, the chief officers of state, and by far the greater part of the nobility were all Normans, and could probably speak no language but their own, it is evident that French was the ordinary language of the court. The few Saxons who for some time were admitted there 2 must have had the greatest inducements to acquire the language, if they did not speak it already, not merely for the sake of understanding and answering insignificant questions in the circle, but because in that age affairs of the greatest importance were publicly trans- 1 P. L. Kington Oliphant, Sources of Standard English, page 240. * After the death of Edwin, in 1070, we do not read of any Saxon earl ex- cept Waltheof, and he was executed for misprision of treason about three years after. — Ordericus Vitalis, I, iv, p. 536. 296 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE acted in the king's court ; and there they might be called upon to answer for what little property was left to them, and even for their lives. Thus, in an ecclesiastical synod, held in the presence of the king, in 1072, the venerable Bishop of Worcester, Wulstan, was obliged to defend the rights of his see by an interpreter, " a monk of very little eloquence," says the historian, " but who had a smattering of the Norman language," 1 and it was only his " holy sim- plicity," as the same historian calls it, 2 which seems to have preserved him from the degradation which almost all the other English prelates underwent. This consider- ation, however, was only of temporary avail, for in 1095 another synod formally decreed to depose him as being "an idiot who did not know French." 8 If we consider further that the great barons, to whom William distributed a large share of his conquests, when released from their attendance at the king's court, retired to courts of their own, where they in their turn were sur- rounded by a numerous train of vassals, chiefly their own countrymen, we may be sure that the French language traveled with them into the most distant provinces, and was used by them, not only in their common conversation, but in civil contracts, their judicial proceedings, and even in the promulgation of their laws. 4 The many churches and castles which the Normans built in different parts of the island must also have contributed very much to the propagation of the French language among the vast num- ber of native laborers and mechanics employed in the work, as it may be well supposed that the foreigners in charge, architects, engineers, and their chief workmen and overseers, being unable to speak English, would carry on all their transactions in their own language. 5 But the great alteration which, from political motives, was made in the state of the clergy at that time, probably operated more efficaciously than any other cause to give the French language a deep root in England. The Con- 1 Ita data benedictione Monacho minimse facundias viro, sed Normannicffi linguae sciolo, rem perovans obtinuit. — William of Malmesbury I, iii, p. 118. 3 Hie sancta semplicitas beati Vulstani, etc. — Ibid, 8 Quasi homo idiota, qui linguam Gallicanum non noverat, nee regiis con- siliis interesse poterat, ipso Rege consentiente et hoc dictante decernitur de- ponendus. — Matthias Paris, ad ann. 4 The ancient earls had a power of legislation within their counties. 6 Custodes in castellis strenuos viros ex Gallis collocavit, et opulenta bene- ficia, pro quibus labores et pericula libenter tolerarent distribuit.— Ordericus Vitalis, I, iv, p. 506. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2Q7 queror seems to have been fully aware of the strength which the new government would derive from a clergy more closely attached to himself by a community of inter- ests than the native English were likely to be. Accord- ingly, from the beginning of his reign, all ecclesiastical preferments, as fast as they became vacant, were given to his Norman chaplains; and, not content with availing himself of the ordinary course of succession, he contrived, upon various charges of real or pretended irregularities, to remove several of the English bishops and abbots, whose places were immediately supplied by foreigners. In short, in the space of a very'few years, all the sees of England were filled with Normans, and the greater part of the abbeys in the kingdom were under governors of the same nationality. It must not be supposed, however, as has been often repeated, that William so hated the language of the island that he determined to eradicate it, and to introduce the Norman in its place; 1 on the contrary, we know from a contemporary historian that he took great pains himself to acquire the language of his subjects. 2 In general a great deal too much has been attributed to the Conqueror, and many historians have ascribed to particular parts of his policy effects directly opposite to those which they were naturally calculated to produce. In fact, he must have remembered that the Franks, who conquered Gaul, and his own ancestors, who settled in Neustria, had not been able to substitute the Teutonic or Scandinavian for the Romance language in their dominions ; or, if his knowledge of history did not go back so far, he must have known that his kinsmen who subdued Naples and Sicily did not aim at establishing their language in the conquered territory ; that the measure was not at all necessary to the establishment of his power ; and that such an attempt is in all cases no less impracticable than absurd, because the patient indocility of the multitude 1 This supposition has been founded on a passage of Robert Holcot, in which he says that the Conqueror, " deliberavit quomodo linguam Saxonicam posset destruere, et Angliam et Normanniam in idiomate concordare." But Holcot wrote only in the fourteenth century, whereas none of the earlier his- torians impute to the king such a project. An extract of a contemporary, con- tained in the following note, teaches us quite the contrary. * Anglicam Iocutionem plerumque sategit ediscere : ut sine interprete que- relam subjectse Iegis posset intelligere, et scita rectitudinis unicuique (prout ratio dictaret) affectuose depromere. Ast a perceptione hujusmodi durior EEtas ilium compescebat, et tumultus multimodarum occupationum ad alia necessario adtrahebat. — Orderic. Vital., I, iv, p. 520. 21 298 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE must ultimately triumph over the caprice and tyranny of their armed preceptors. But, having conquered a king- dom, and being determined to retain his conquest, he in- troduced a code of laws which placed his power on a mili- tary basis ; and he introduced it in the language in which it was to become familiar to that army to which he looked for his security. By requiring the study of French in the schools, he gave his subjects the means of understanding the laws which he expected them to obey. He enforced this perhaps tyrannically and harshly ; but it is in noway proved that he acted with the view of making French the universal language of his subjects, or that he expected the children, on their return from school, to talk French in their own homes; he might with equal wisdom have supposed that they would converse in Latin, which they had an opportunity of learning in the same schools. Still, whatever may have been the ultimate effects of the policy of William and his immediate successors on the degeneracy of the native English, it continued for a long time to maintain its ground, was generally spoken, and even employed in a few works of information for at least a century after the Norman conquest. This is in- contestable proved by what is commonly called the " An- glo-Saxon Chronicle," which is continued to the death of Stephen, A. D. 11 54, and in the same language. In the mean time, we may trace in this very document, though in a small degree, the influence of the Norman contact. Besides the neglect of several grammatical rules, French words, now and then, obtrude themselves, especially in the latter pages of this chronicle. Thus we find in — a. d. 1086. Se cing .... dubbade 1 his sunn Hemic to ridere. a. d. 1 1 12. Rotbert de Baslesme he let niman and on pristine don. a. d. 1 135. Pais he makede vor men and dser .... Balduin accordede. a. d. 1 13 7. He hadde get his tresor .... canceler .... prt- sun .... iustise .... martyrs .... carited .... rentes .... privileges .... miracles. a. d. 1 138. He dide god iustise and makede pais. A. d. 1 140. Candles .... in prisun and quarteres .... cuntes- se in Anjou .... Alle sweren the pais to halden. a. d. 1 154. The eorl heold micel curt .... Wilhelm de Wat- tenile god clerc and god man. . . . The cing was underfangen mid micel procession. 1 Dubbade, according to Kemble, is the French verb adouber in the weak Anglo-Saxon form. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 299 Truly, these are but rare instances, but we must re- member that Peterborough, where this chronicle was compiled, was quite an English monastery ; its endow- ments and its abbot were Saxon ; and the political spirit it breathes in some passages is that of the indignant sub- jects of the Norman usurpers. If its last compilers, there- fore, gave way to some innovations of language, we may presume that these prevailed more extensively in places less secluded, and especially in London. 1 It would be difficult to fix the exact date of the commencement of the amalgamation of the Norman and Saxon idioms, but, from causes explained above, it evi- dently began soon after the conquest, and formed by de- grees a jargon which was, for the first century at least, not applicable to any literary purpose, but only employed for common intercourse between the conquerors and the conquered. Without any precise data as regards the composition of this mixture, the author of " The Sources of Standard English" contrives, nevertheless, to give us a specimen of what it may have been, founded on docu- ments which have come down to us. " We may imagine," he savs, " a cavalcade of the new aristocracy of England, ladies and knights, men who perhaps fought at Hastings in their youth ; these alight from their steeds at the door of one of the churches that have lately arisen throughout the land in a style unknown to Earl Godwin. The riders are accosted bj- a crowd of beggars and bedesmen, who put forth all their little stock of French : ' Lady Countess, clad in ermine and sabeline, look from your palfrey. Be large of your treasure to the poor and feeble; of your char- ity bestow your riches on us rather than on jogelours. We will put up our orisons for you, after the manere and cus- toms of our religion. For Christ's passion, ease our poverty in some measure; that is the best penance, as your chaplain in his sermons says. By all the Confessors, Patriarchs, and Virgins, show us mercy.' Another speech would run thus : ' Worthy Barons, you have honor at court, speak for my son in prison. Let him have justice ; he is no robber or lecher. The sergeants took him in the market; these catch- poles have wrought him sore miseise. So may Christ ac- cord you peace at the day of livreison ! ' Not one of these forty French words were in English use before the battle of Hastings ; but we find every one of them set down in 1 For a description of this remarkable monument of the Anglo-Saxon Ian- guage, see pages 381-383. 3 oo ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE writing within a century after that date, so common had they then become in English mouths." 1 One of the causes which favored the introduction of foreign words into the English vocabulary, and which may be fittingly also noticed here, was that produced by the change which the Norman conquest wrought in the English system of nomenclature in reference to proper names. " In this matter of nomenclature," remarks Dr. Freeman, " that is to say, in that part of our vocabulary which consists of proper names, the Norman conquest not only wrought a great and more lasting change than it did in anything else, but it wrought a more immediate change. The cause is plain. To adopt a foreign name is still easier than to adopt a foreign word ; and of all kinds of words, proper names are those which are most thoroughly under the dominion of fashion. In all times and places, the names of kings and princes find their way among all classes of their subjects, and it is also thought to be a point of civility to give the godchild the name of his god- father. The change began at once. The Norman names became the fashion. The Englishman whose child was held at the font by a Norman gossip, the Englishman who lived on friendly terms with his Norman lord or his Nor- man neighbor, nay, the Englishman who simply thought it fine to call his children after the reigning king and queen, cast aside his own name and the names of his parents, to give his sons and daughters names after the new foreign pattern. When this fashion once set in, it took root. The Norman names gradually spread them- selves through all classes, till even a villain was more commonly called by a Norman than by an English name. The great mass of the English names went out of use, a few only excepted. 2 Although vanity and frivolity may have had some- thing to do with this remarkable change in particular in- stances, it is hardly probable that any such worthless motives could have prevailed with the great bulk of the nation, and have induced a sad and oppressed people to leave off suddenly names that were dear to them by na- 1 They may be found in the Saxon Chronicle and in the First Series of Homilies. — Early English Text Society ; Standard English, p. 218. ! History of the Norman Conquest, p. 559. Among women the loss of Eng- lish names is even more complete than among men. Indeed, Edith and Emma are about all that remain in common use of the former, and Alfred, Edgar, Ed- mund, Edward, Edwin, and Egbert of the latter. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 301 tional and family remembrances, in order to adopt those of a detested foreign oppressor. The cause of such a sweeping and universal change must be sought, it seems, in some far more powerful influence — probably that of the Norman clergy, who, introducing the continental custom, baptized the children with the names of patron saints. This custom, moreover, was not new in England, having been practiced to a great extent before the conquest among native churchmen, who exchanged their Saxon names for scriptural and saintlv names at their ordina- tion or monastic profession. Still the change was an important one, and may have had even a political bear- ing in breaking up, also, this connection with former traditions. Besides this change in personal nomenclature, this in- troduction of a new set of Christian names, the Norman conquest also brought with it the novelty of family no- menclature, that is to say, the use of hereditary surnames. Until that time " one person, one name " was the rule throughout all England, even as in the early state of so- ciety, Abraham and Moses among the Jews, Achilles and Ulysses among the Greeks, were known to their respective contemporaries by the single names by which they are mentioned in Holy Writ, and in the poetry of Homer. But even early in the eleventh century, long before the invasion, it had become the practice among the members of the great Norman houses to take surnames, sometimes territorial, sometimes patronymic, which in course of time became hereditary. Thus, when Robert of Bruce and William of Percy found themselves the possessors of far greater estates in England than in Normandy, and their main interests were no longer Norman but English, and even when their descendants had lost their original connection with the place of Bruce or Percy, and the name no longer suggested the thought of the place, Bruce and Percy remained the hereditary surnames of their fami- lies. Many such English family names are found on the Roll of Battel Abbey. There was nothing like this in Eng- land before the conquest, but ever since then the practice has prevailed among English land-owners of taking their hereditary surnames from their estates in England. Those who, not being possessed of any landed prop- erty, had no such surname to take, were in the habit of taking their father's name instead, and thus the son of John or William became Fitz-John or Fitz-William if he 302 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE was of Norman ; ' Johnson or Williamson if of English or Danish descent. But even as the territorial, so the patro- nymic surname lost its original meaning on becoming he- reditary, and thus applied to women as well as to men. It may be interesting to notice to what a variety of diminu- tives and derivatives this class of English surnames gave rise. From Henry or Harry, for instance, with its regular derivative Harrison, we have Harris, Herries, Hall, Halket, Halkin; Haws, Hawes, and Hawkins. Elias produces Ell, Ellson, Elkin, Elkinson ; Ellice, Ellis, Ellison; Ellet, Elliott, and Elliotson. From David we have not only Davidge and Davidson, but also Davy, Davis, Davison; Davies, Dawes, Dawson, and Dawkins. From Hugh we have Hughes, Hug- get t, Huggins, Hugginson ; Hew, Hewson, Hcwison, Hewett, Hewetson, Hewlet, Hewell, and seemingly, also, Whavell. From Nicholas we have Nichols and Nicholson contracted into Nixon; also Cole, Colet, Colley, and Collins. From Benjamin came the diminutive Benn and its derivative Benson. From Gregory, Gregg and Gregson. From Gilbert, Gibbs, Gibson, Gibbins, and Gibbon. From Matthew, Mat- thews, Mathison, Madison, Matsell, and Mattson. From Simon, Sim, Sims, Simmes, Simmons, and Simpson. From Timothy, Tim, Timms, Timmings, and Timpson. From Bartholomew, Batts, Bates, Bartlett, and Batson. From Richard, in addi- tion to Richards and Richardson, Dick, Dickens, Dickinson, and also Dix and Dixon. In the same way from Alexan- der we have Sanders and Sanderson ; from John, Jones and Johnson, Jack and Jackson ; from Lawrence, Larry, Larkins, and Lawson ; from Thomas, Thorn, Thorns, Thompson, and Thompkins ; from Walter, Watts, Watson, and Wat kins ; and from William, Williams, Williamson, Wills, Wilks, Wilkinson, Bill, Bilson, Wilson, etc. This primitive custom of making the father's Chris- tian name the surname of the child, to distinguish him from other persons bearing the same appellation, and which in course of time and under various influences has led, in England, to changes and disguises so curious as to be often hardly recognizable, finds its origin in the high- est antiquity. Caleb the son of Jephunneh, Joshua the son of Nun, are early examples ; so also Icarus the son of Dcedalus, Dadalus the son of Eupalmus ; and it is worthy of observa- tion that this primitive practice has descended to modern times in such designations as William Fitz-Hugh, Stephen 1 Fitz, prefixed to Norman names, is a corruption oijils, in Latin Jilius. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 303 Isaacson, and the like. Sometimes the adjunct expressed the country or profession, or other distinctive character- istic of the bearer, as Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Poly- cletcs the Sculptor, Diogenes the Cynic, Dionysius the Tyrant, The Romans had a very complete system of nomen- clature. The whole commonwealth was divided into various clans called gentcs, each of which was subdivided into several families. Thus in the Gens Cornelia were in- cluded the families of the Scipiones, Lentuli, Cethegi, Dola- bellce, CinncB, Syllce, etc. It is doubtful, however, whether these familuz were descended from a common ancestor, though they had religious rites in common. To mark the different gentes and families, and to distinguish the indi- viduals of the same race, they had usually three names, viz., the priomcn, the nomen, and the cognomen. The prcenomen denoted the individual, the nomen marked the gens, and the cognomen distinguished the/«- milia. Thus in Publius Cornelius Scipio, Publius corre- sponded to our John, Thomas, William; Cornelius pointed out the clan 01 -gens ; and Scipio conveyed the information that the individual in question belonged to that particular family of the Cornelii which descended from the pious Scipio who, from his practice of leading about his aged and blind father, thus figuratively became his scipio or staff. Persons of the highest eminence, particularly military commanders, sometimes received a fourth name, or agno- men, often commemorative of conquests, and borrowed from the proper name of the hostile country, as Coriolanus, Africanus, Asiaticus, Germa?iicus, etc. In general, only two of the names were used — frequently but one. In address- ing a person, the prcenomen was generally employed, since it was peculiar to citizens, for slaves had no prcenomen. Although the Anglo-Saxons had no regular system of family nomenclature resembling that of the Romans, or that which we now possess, there was nominally among them something like an attempt to show derivation and family relationship by the use of similar personal names. Thus in one family we find in succession, or simultaneous- ly, Wigmund, Wighelm, Wigldf Wihstdn; or Beornric, Beorn- hedh, Beornhehn. Of the seven sons of ^Ethelfrith, king of Northumberland, five bore names compounded with os; Oslaf Osldc, Oswald, Oswin, and Oswidu. In the succes- sion of the same royal family we find the male names, Os- 304 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE frith, Oswine, Osric, Osraed, Oswulf, Osbald, and Osbeorht, and the female Osthryth; and some of these are repeated several times. The following genealogical table shows how strongly this practice was adhered to by the progeny of Alfred the Great : ALFRED. Eddweard the Elder = Eddgyfu. Eddwine. Eddmund I. 7 Eddred. Eddbmh. Eddwig. Eddgdr. 7 Eddweard. Eddgyih. Eddmund. 1 JEthelrad. 7 Eddmund. T 1 Eddwig. 1 Eddgyih. i Eddweard. Eddmund. Eddweara. 7 Eddgdr-JEtheling. In a genealogy of the West Saxon kings we find the names of Eadgar-Eadmunding, Eadmund-Eadwarding, Ead- wardsElfreding, ^Elfred-Awolfing, etc., of which the ter- minative syllable ing, as indicating clan, family, or tribe, has been explained elsewhere. 1 Personal characteristics were also used at an early date among the Anglo-Saxons to designate individuals. Thus Bede, speaking of the two missionary apostles of the old Saxons, says : " As they were both of one devo- tion, so they both had one name, for each of them was called Hewald, yet with this distinction, taken from the color of their hair, that one was styled Black Hewald, and the other White Hewald." From this it would appear that White, Black, Red, Ba ld, etc., were then common as second 1 See page 192. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 305 or descriptive names, as were also Good, Canning, Proud and the like. Sometimes, also, they were taken from the place of residence, with the particle at, as Eadmaer at Burhliam, for instance. The names of At mere, Atwcll, Att- wood, Att water, Attemore, Attegate, Attcr cliff e, Atterbury, Updyke, Upton, Underwood, Underhill, and the like are of this description. The precise period at which such second names be- came stationary, or, in other words, began to descend hereditarily from father to son, it would at this distance of time be impossible to show. Camden says, "about the year of our Lord 1000, surnames became to be taken up in France ; and in England about the time of the conquest, or else a very little before, vnder King Edward the Confessor, who was all Frenchified. . . . This will seem strange to some Englishmen and Scottishmen, whiche, like the Arcadians, thinke their surnames as an- tient as the moone, or at the least to reach many an age beyond the conquest. But they which thinke it most strange (I speake vnder correction), I doubt they will hardly finde any surname which descended to posterity before that time : neither haue they seene (I feare) any deede or donation before the conquest, but subsigned with crosses and single names without surnames, in this manner: •{• Ego Eadredus confirmaui. »|« Ego Edmundus corroboraui. »f« Ego Sigarius conclusi. •{« Ego Olfstanus consolidaui" etc. However this may be, and whatever may be advanced in favor of an earlier adoption of family designations or surnames in particular cases, it is certain that the practice of making the second name of an individual stationary, and transmitting it to descendants, gradually came into common use during the eleventh and three following centuries. By the middle of the twelfth it began, in the estimation of some, to be essential that persons of rank should bear some designation in addition to the baptismal name. We have an instance of this in the wealthy heiress of the powerful baron Fitz-Hamon's making the want of a surname in Robert, natural son of King Henry I, an ob- jection to his marriage with her. The lady is represented as saying : It were to me great shame, To have a lord withouten his twa name ! 1 1 Robert of Gloucester. 3 o6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE when the monarch, to remedy the defect, gave him the surname of Fitz-Roy ; a designation which has been given at several subsequent periods to some of the progeny of the English kings. The practice of borrowing family names from patri- monial estates became usual about the commencement of the eleventh century, as we have said, in Normandy and the contiguous parts of France. Chiefly of this kind are the names which appear in the Great Roll of Battel Abbey, a list of the principal commanders and companions in arms of William the Conqueror. Under the feudal sys- tem the great barons assumed as surnames the proper names of their seignories ; the knights who held under them did the like ; and these in turn were imitated by all who possessed a landed estate, however small. Camden remarks, that there is not a single village in Normandy that has not surnamed some family in England. The French names introduced at the conquest may generally be known by the prefixes de, du, des, de la, st. or saint, and by the suffixes font, ers, fant, beau, age, mont, ard, aux, bois, ly, eux, et, val, court, vaux, lay, fort, ot, champ, and ville ; most of which are component parts of proper names of places, as one may convince himself by a glance at the map of northern France. It would be a great mistake, however, in English per- sons bearing names of French origin to conclude, with- out further evidence, that they must needs be descended from some stalwart Norman who hacked his way to emi- nence and fortune through the serried ranks of the Sax- ons at Hastings. It should be remembered that, in the eight centuries that have elapsed since the conquest, there have been numerous settlements of the French in Eng- land ; for instance, Queen Isabella of France, the consort of Edward II, introduced in her train many personages bearing surnames previously unknown in England ; as Longchamp, D' Ever eux, D'Arcy, Savage, Molineux, D'Anvers, and others, to say nothing of the various settlements of merchants, mechanics, artists, and refugees of all kinds who have sought and found, at all times, an " island home " in Great Britain. A great many surnames occur in Domesday - book. Some of these are local, as De Grey, De Vernon, D'Oily; some patronymical, as Richardus filius Gisleberti; and oth- ers official or professional, as Gulielmus Camerarius (the chamberlain), Radulphus Venator (the hunter), Gisleber- AND OF THE EXGLISH LANGUAGE. 307 tus Coats (the cook), etc., etc. " But very many," as Cam- den remarks, " occur with their Christian names only, as Olaff, Nigcllus, Eustachius, Baldricus." It is to be observed that those with single names are "noted last in every shire, as men of least account," and as sub-tenants. Although the practice of adopting hereditary sur- names from manors and localities originated in Norman- dy, we are not therefore to conclude that every name with de prefixed is of Norman origin, for in course of time many families of Saxon lineage, upon acquiring wealth, copied the example of their conquerors in this particular. Often, moreover, this de was of no account whatever, and, instead of indicating the ownership of great landed es- tates, mainly referred to the town or district the person originally came from. When found with Dutch or Flem- ish names, it is always the definite article corresponding to the Norman le added to names, denoting trades and business occupations. The original Norman de invaria- bly referred to territorial possessions, whether in Eng- land or on the Continent. In some cases the Normans preferred the surname de- rived from their ancient patrimonies in Normandy ; in others they substituted one taken from the estate given them by the Conqueror and his successors. In a few in- stances the particle de or d' is still retained ; but, gen- erally speaking, it was dropped from the surnames about the time of Henry VI, when the title esquier among the heads of families, and gentylman among younger sons, be- gan pretty generally to be substituted. Thus, instead of John de Alchorne, William de Catesby, etc., the landed gen- try wrote themselves, John Alchorne of Alchorne, Esq., William Catesby of Catesby, Gent., etc. As most people were not distinguished by the posses- sion of landed estates, it is interesting to notice the sources from which English family names have been generally de- rived. In the first place, for want of being able to use the f>refix de in the sense of ownership, it was quite natural or people, in order to avoid confusion, to name the place they came from. This will account for such names as Kentish, Devenish, Cornish, though family names derived from counties in the British dominions came generally to be used without this termination, as Cheshire, Kent, Corn- wall, Devon, Durham, Dorset, Renfrew, Somerset, Montgom- ery, etc. The same with surnames derived from towns and 3 o8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE cities, as Bath, Hull, Lincoln, Lester, Winchester, Chichester, Warwick, Bedford, Carlisle, Hastings, Blackburn, Hampton, Huntingdon, Wells, Poole, Rugby, Grimsby, Halifax, and others too numerous to mention. Thousands of English surnames are derived from villages and obscure towns, as Battle, Barnham, Compton, Arlington, Deane, Clayton, Goring, Heath- field, Hartfield, Kingston, Preston, Sutton, Penhurst, Wad- hurst, Waldron, etc., etc. Numerous as are the surnames thus derived, those borrowed from manors, farms, and single houses, are very much more so ; hence, the sur- names of local origin in England may be counted by thou- sands. Most of them are descriptive, and their meaning can be readily understood. One would suppose that, when almost every description of locality, whether county, town, village, manor, park, hill, dale, bridge, river, pond, wood, or green, when every imaginable modification of every Christian name had con- tributed to the family nomenclature of the English people, the few millions of families inhabiting the island would have all been supplied with surnames. But such was not the case, and having used local names and others describ- ing the various features of the land as suitable family names, it is but natural that in course of time its products, and in fact every natural object, should be used for the same purpose. Thus, the following names of trees con- stantly occur as family surnames : Alder, Ashe, Aspen, Beech, Birch, Box, Cherry, Chestnut, Crabtree, Elmes, Hazel, Haw- thorne, Laurel, Maples, Oakes, Pine, Plumtree, Sickles, Thome, and Willows. In addition to these we have the names of Almond, Barberry, Bramble, Brier, Beet, Budd, Bean, Broome, Clover, Cockle, Damson, Daisy, Feme, Fennel, Flower, Flax, Furze, Hempe, Lily, Medlar, Melon, Nutt, Nettle, Peach, Plum, Primrose, Rose, Stock, Straw, Sage, Tares, Thistle, Weed, and Wood. From this to the animals that live in the field is but a step, and so we find the names of Bear, Buck, Badger, Bull, Bidlock, Boar, Beaver, Colt, Deer, Doe, Fox, Fawn, Hart, Hogg, Hare, Hound, Lyon, Lamb, Otter, Roebuck, Ram, Roe, Setter, Steed, Squirrel, Seal, Stagg, and Capel, 1 also used as sur- names. Surnames derived from birds are full as numerous as those from quadrupeds. Thus we have Bird, Blackbird, 1 Capel is an old word, signifying a strong horse ; hence Chaucer : " And gave him cables to his carte." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 309 Bunting, Crane, Cock, Crowe, Capon, Drake, Duck, Dove, Daw, Eglcs, Fowle, Finch, Falcon, Grouse, Gander, Goose, Gosling, Gull, Goldfinch, Haivk, Heron, Jay, Kite, Linnet, Larke, Mal- lard, Nightingale, Peacock, Partridge, Pheasant, Pigeon, Par- rot, Raven, Rooke, Ruff, Swan, Sparrow, Swallow, Starling, Stock, Swift, Teale, Thrush, Woodcock, Wren. Henshaw, in old English Hemshaw, meaning " a young heron," is now obsolete. 1 From fishes we have Bass, Cod, Crabbe, Dolphin, Gud- geon, Haddock, Herring, Lamprey, Mullett, Perch, Pilchard, Plaice, Pike, Pickerel, Ray, Roach, Sliarke, Sturgeon, Salmon, Sole, Smelt, Sprat, Seal, Trout, Tench, Whiting, Whale, to which we may add Fish and Fisk, the latter being the elder form of the same word. M inerals, of course, have not been forgotten, and figure among English surnames as follows: Amber, Brass, Cris- tal, Clay, Coale, Copper, Dymond, Flint, Gold, Silver, Garnett, Gravel, Jewell, Sands, Steele, and Stone? In addition to all these different classes of surnames, derived from Christian names, local names, names of beasts, birds, fishes, trees, plants, fruits, flowers, and metals, man)', and indeed most others, are descriptive of the industrial occupations of the original bearer. The practice of using such words as family names began at an early date, and many of them still survive which were derived from crafts that have ceased to exist. Among such are Archer, Fletcher? Furbisher, Harper, Larbalestier? Lorimer? Massinger, Pointer, Lardner, etc., in French ; Arrowsmith, Billman, Bowman, Butts? Crowder? Hawker, Hostler, Pikeman, Stringer, String- 1 " He don't know a hawk from a handsaw " is a proverb often applied to an ignoramus. For handsaw read hernshaw. The saying originally and pri- marily referred to ignorance of a favorite sport — that of falconry — when the said ignoramus could not discriminate between the hawk and its pi-ey. 8 Coke has nothing to do with charred coal ; it is the old orthography of Cook : " A coke they hadden with hem for the nones To boile the chickenes and the marie-bones, He coud-e roste and sethe and boile and frie, Maken mortrewes and wel bake a pie." — Chaucer, Prologue. 8 Fletcher, from the French fleclie " an arrow," in English " arrowsmith." 4 Cross-bowman. 6 A lorimer was " a maker of bits, bridles, and spurs." 6 Butts, " marks for archery." In the days when .... England was but a fling Save for the " Crooked Stick " and the " Grey-Goose Wing," most parishes had a place set apart for this necessary sport, and the place is still indicated in many parishes by the name of " the Butts." A person resident near such a spot would very naturally assume the name of "John at the Butts." 1 A Crowder or Crowther was one who played upon the crowd, an ancient 3io ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE fellow, etc., in English. " Touching such as have their surnames of occupations," remarks v erstegan, " be they French or English names, it is not to be doubted but their ancestors have first gotten them by such trades, and the children of such parents, being contented to take them upon them, their after-coming posterity can hardly avoid them, and so in time cometh rightly to be said : " From whence comes Smith, all be he knight or squire, But from the Smith that forgeth at the fire. " Neither can it be disgraceful in any that now live in very worshipful estate and reputation that their ancestors in former ages have been, by their honest trades of life, good and necessary members of the commonwealth, see- ing all gentry hath first taken issue from commonalty." Some of the most unusual, as well as others of the most ordinary, English surnames are compounds of Smith. It is rather curious that, although the appellations of the blacksmith and the whitesmith, both very common avoca- tions, do not occur as surnames, that of brownsmith, an obsolete calling, does. The brownsmith of five centuries since must have been a person of some consideration, when the far-famed brown-bills of the English yeomen struck terror into the hearts of their enemies. Nasmyth is prob- ably a corruption of "nailsmith." The spearsmiths and shoesmiths were respectively makers of spears and of horse- shoes. Goldsmiths are numerous everywhere. Arrowsmith is not uncommon, but it must not be confounded with Arsmith, meaning in Anglo-Saxon, " a brazier," from ar, " brass." Bucksmith is doubtless a corruption of " buckle- smith." 1 In the north of England a sock means a ploughshare ; hence " socksmith," curiously corrupted to Sucksmith and Sixsmiths. Smith in Gaelic is Gow ; hence M'Gowan is Smithson. The Gows were once as numerous in Scotland as the Smiths in England, and would be so at this time had not many of them, at a very recent date, translated the name to Smith? stringed instrument, the prototype of the modern violin, called in Welsh crwth, and in Irish cruit. Spenser, in his Epithalamion, has — " The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling croud" 1 " Brydel bytters, blacke-smythes, and ferrars, Bokell-smythes, horse leches and gold beters." — Cocke Lorelle's Bote. 2 The root of this term is the Anglo-Saxon smitan, " to smite," and was therefore originally applied not merely to smiths alone, but also to wheelwrights, carpenters, masons, and smiters in general. It was, in fact, precisely among the AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3II But leaving the Smitlis and their relatives, let us notice the long list of English surnames derived from other trades and occupations. We have, then, the Masons and the Car- penters, the Bakers and the Butchers, the Butlers and Tav- erncrs, the Carters and Wagners, the Saddlers and Girdlers, the Tylers and Slaters, the Cart-wrights and Wheelwrights, the Plowrights and Wainwrights, the Woodgers and G?&- ot hym, & a ful greet cumpanye of puple. sofely whanne he came ny$ to fe $ate of ]>e cytee, lo an one- lepy sone of his modir was borne oute deade. and pis was a wid- owe, and myche cumpanye of fe cytee (came) wip hir. whom whanne pe lorde ihu had seen, he mouede by mercy upon hir, seyde to hir. nyl pou weep, and he came to, and touchide pe beer, fbrsope pei fat baren, stoden. and he sei)> }onge man, I seye to pee rise vp. and he pat was deade, sate a^en, and bigan for to speek. and he ^aue hym to his modir. solely dreede took alle men, and J>ei mag- nyfieden god seyinge. for a greet prophete ha}> risen amonge vs, for & god hap visitide his pore puple. and pis worde wente oute of hym into al Judee, and into al pe cuntre aboute. It is very probable that the language did not receive much real benefit from this indiscriminate adoption of foreign terms and idioms ; but perhaps it was in some measure indebted to them for its adoption by the Nor- man nobles and even at court, where by degrees it sup- planted the Norman French, which had exclusively pre- vailed there from the time of the conquest. This al- teration, which insured to the national literature all the advantages that patronage could bestow, seems to have commenced in the reign of Edward III, whose policy led him to proscribe the exclusive use of French in the courts AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 339 of law, and to place, there at least, the English language on equal terms of privilege with the former. Gower, as we have seen, commenced his literary career by aspiring to the character of a French poet, and only began his English work in his old age, during the reign of Rich- ard II ; the fashionable dialect, therefore, had evidently changed during the interval. It may be presumed, also, that this change procured to us the advantage of Chau- cer's talents ; had he written a few years earlier, it is probable, from the fact of his social position, that he would have employed the French language instead of the New English in his compositions. From a general review of his works, however, it ap- pears that he entertained a very mean opinion of the national language as it was before his time, as well as of the poets who had employed it. Instead of following their stiff and antiquated diction, or spending his energies in grieving over the past, he frankly adopted the new popular dialect, and endeavored to improve it by a more correct use of words and phrases borrowed from the French, which in his time began to be most abundantly introduced into the colloquial language. On this account we find that his writings contain a much greater mixture of French than those of his predecessors. With him, nouns and adjectives have scarcely undergone any alteration. Thus, for instance, in the " Canterbury Tales," verse 3, we find veine; 4, vertue ; 7, tendre ; 9, melodie ; 24, compagnie ; 25, aventure ; 28, chambres; 60, many a noble armee ; 61, mortal batailles; 72, a verray parfit gentil knyght ; 422, a verray par fit practisour ; 483 and 484, Benigne he was and wonder diligent ; and in adversitee ful pacient ; 817, And sette a souper at a certain pris. Verbs have only changed their terminations: perced, engendred, inspired, etc. Ad- verbs have taken the English terminations only : so in Verses 339 and 340, He held opinion that plein delit was veraily felicite parfit. Even we find verament in verse 12,643. Sometimes the author gives us whole phrases bor- rowed literally from the French : Verse 1,157, Par amour, I loved hire; 13,750, I hope parmafoy; 13,819, Now hold your mouth pour charite, and in the following lines : and dies certeyn were they to blame : it is ful fair to been yclep^d ma dame, A margaret in praising the daiesye, methought among hire notes swete she sayd si douce est la margaruite. 340 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE And sikerly she was of great desport, and ful plesaunt and amyable of port ; and peyned hire to countrefete Mere of Court, and been estatlich of manere ; and to been holden <2%w of reuerence. The language of Chaucer has been subject to two very- different judgments, and as these relate immediately to the formation of the English language, they require some special mention here. His contemporaries, and those who lived nearest to his time, Walton, Occleve, Lydgate, speak with rapture of the elegance and splendor of his diction, and universally extol him as the " Chief poet of Britain," " Flower of eloquence," " Honor of the English tongue," and his words as " the gold dew drops of speech," while Milton styles him the " Well of English undefiled," and Spenser, who professes to have studied him with very mi- nute and particular attention, says that " In him the pure well-head of poesy did dwell," but the critics of the sev- enteenth century accuse him of having corrupted and de- formed the English idiom by an immoderate introduction of French words, 1 and are generally agreed that he was either totally ignorant or negligent of metrical rules, and that his verses are frequently deficient by a syllable or two in measure. 2 This opinion remained generally current until contro- verted by Tyrwhitt, in " an essay on the language and versification of Chaucer," in which, after a complete anal- ysis of the English grammar as it existed during the four- teenth century, he shows that the fault lies, not with Chaucer, but partly with the critics themselves, from their obvious ignorance of the grammar and pronunciation of his time, and partly, also, with the copyists, from whose incorrect manuscripts the first editions were printed. 8 1 Some few ages after (the conquest) came the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who, writing his poesies in English, is of some called the first illuminator of the English tongue. Of their opinion I am not, though I reverence Chaucer as an excellent poet for his time. He was, indeed, a great mingler of English with French, unto which language (by like for that he was descended of French, or rather Wallon race) he carried a great affection. — Verstegan, c. 7. Ex hoc malesano novitatis pruritu, Belgae Gallicas voces passim civitate sua donando patrii sermonis puritatem nuper non leviter inquinarunt et Chaucerus poeta, pessimo exemplo, integris vocum plaustris ex eadem Gallia in nostram linguam invectis, earn, nimis antea a Normannorum victoria adulteratam, omni fere nativa gratia et nitore spoliavit. — Skinner, Etymol. L. A. Prtzf. 2 Dryden, Preface to his Fables. 3 I fynde many of the sayd bookes, whiche wryters have abrydgyd it, and many thynges left out, and in some places have sette certayn versys that he AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 341 The strange license, in which subsequent editors appear to have indulged, of lengthening and shortening the au- thor's words, according to their own fancy, and even of adding words of their own, 1 has further contributed to alter the original text, and to leave in its stead only a spu- rious translation, full of anomalies, with which it is the more unfair to charge the author, as he himself has point- ed out the danger of having the metre of his verses spoiled, either by reading or writing, at a time when the language, being in its forming stage, was subject to so many dialectic differences, 2 and when, without any settled method of or- thography, the copying of his works was too often left to the discretion of the several writers and transcribers. 8 As to his having corrupted the language by the im- moderate introduction of French words, the preceding !>ages have shown that the English language had certain- y imbibed a strong tincture of French long before the age of Chaucer, and that consequently he ought not to be censured as the importer of words and phrases which he only used after the example of his predecessors, and in common with his contemporaries, as proved by their writ- ings. But if we could for a moment suppose the contrary ; never made ne sette in hys booke ; of whyche bookes so incorrecte was one broughte to me vj yere passyd, whiche I supposed had been veray true and cor- recte, and accordyng to the same I dyde do enprynte a certayn nomber of them, whyche anon were solde to many and dyverse gentyl men, of whom one gentyl man cam to me, and sayd that this booke was not according in many places unto the booke that Gefferey Chaucer had made, etc. — Preface to Caxton's id edition of the Canterbury Tales. 1 In attempting the correction of old manuscripts, the safest is to follow the rule of Coleridge : That when we meet an apparent error in a good author, we are to presume ourselves " ignorant of his understanding, until we are certain that we understand his ignorance." * And, for there is so greate diversite in Englysh, and in writynge of our tonge so pray I God that none mis-write thee, ne thee mis-metre for default of tonge ; and redde where so thou be, or elles song, that thou be understood, God I beseech ! Troilus and Cress., B. V, v. 1803-1808. * That the author was very particular as to his own orthography, and care- fully revised the copies of his works, appears from the following address to his scribe : Adam Scryveyn, if ever it the byfalle Boec In Chaucer's time the study of French had ceased to be obligatory in English schools. Trevisa, writing in 1385, mentions that at that time, in all the grammar schools of England, the teaching of French was left off, and that 1 Let clerkes endyten in Latyn for they have the propertye of science and the knowinge in that facultye ; and lette Frenchmen in theyr Frenche also en- dyte theyr queynt termes, for it is kyndly to theyr mouthes ; and let us shewe our fantasyes in suche wordes as we lerneden of our dames tonge. — Prol. to Test, of Love. ! He calls himself a Londenois or Londoner, in the Testament of Love, Book i, p. 325 ; and in another passage, p. 321, speaks of London as the place of his engendrure. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 343 of English substituted. He even names the patriotic in- structor who first made the change. 1 But three hundred years of foreign dominion had been fatal to the old na- tional speech of England. Every ear was now familiar with the sound of French, every one knew something of the language, and few there were who liked to admit their ignorance of it. Those who, by their attention to busi- ness, had met with success, and could afford to live in com- fort, affected in general the style and manners of the Nor- mans, and as a matter of gentility usually spoke French, a knowledge of which was looked upon by them as " the badge of a gentleman." Others less favored, but not the less tenacious on points of etiquette and fashion as regards the current mode of speech, adorned their English phrases with all the French at their command ; and so common had become the practice during the fourteenth century that even countrymen indulged in it " with great earnest- ness," says a contemporary author, " in order to be thought the more of." a The first effect of this reckless practice of mixing up French and English had been to hasten the decomposition of the native speech which, already well advanced by the time of the conquest, was thereby only hurried on still ' faster, and rendered more complete. Without schools or cultivated classes, to keep up a standard of correct speak- ing and writing was utterly impossible; the numerous dialects of the country, variously affected by a state of things which allowed but little intercommunication, be- came more and more dissimilar in their vocabulary as well as in their grammar ; and so great was at one time this difference between the language of the north and that spoken in the southern districts of England, that works composed in one dialect had to be translated in order to be understood by people speaking the other. Between these two extremes stood the language of the Midland counties, partaking of the peculiarities of both, but also varying so much in different localities as to establish a distinction between East Midland and West Midland in reference to the speech of the inhabitants. Owing to this diversity of dialects, and the generally unsettled state of the language, the English vocabulary of those days was very much mixed up, and presented a mass of anomalies of which many have remained to this day in 1 See page 263. * See page 266. 344 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE the language. Though this remark applies to words of Saxon, as well as of Norman origin, it is the latter especial- ly that have undergone strange transformations. Who- ever has noticed how foreign words are apt to be mispro- nounced, even nowadays, by persons who ought to know better, will readily understand how French words fared in the mouths of those who, without special instruction, tried only to imitate the sounds they heard to the best of their ability. Thus, from sol they made soil ; from reculer, recoil ; pauvre became poor ; huissier, an usher ; tailleur, a tailor ; and boucker, a butcher. Heurter is to hurt ; bouger, to budge ; cueillir, to cull ; and nourrice is a nurse. Cdtelette is a cut- let ; e'crevisse, a. crayfish ; couleuvrine, a culverin ;. belle-fleur, a bell-flower; and courte-pointe, a counterpane. Contre- dance has made country dance ; dame-Jeanne, demi-john ; qu'en dirai-je, quandary ; and quelque chose, kickshaw. Couvre-feu has changed into curfew; and couvre-chef into kerchief, which, in its compound form of " pocket-hand- kerchief," would really mean " a covering of the head, car- ried in the hand, and small enough to be put into the pocket." In the same way we may account for the mis- pronunciation of such names as Beauchamp, which has be- come Beachame ; Belvoir, which has become Beaver ; Saint Denys, Sidney ; Saint Jean, Singon ; Saint Maur, Seymour ; Marie-la-Bonne, Malbone ; Cholmondeley, Chumley ; Lhateau- vert, Shotover ; Route du roi, rotten row ; and, as we have seen already, of Beau Desert, which is now called and even written " Buzzard." All this mainly originated in the accent being transferred, in English fashion, to the first part of the word, and refers to a time when, in the absence of regular instruction, people used foreign terms as they heard them used by others. Words thus taken up have to pass through many mouths before they enter into gen- eral circulation, and in the process of assimilation they are apt to lose a good deal of their sound and even of their meaning. This is always the case in any living lan- guage, but especially so when a language is in the course of its formation. Learned mainly by the ear, and but lit- tle by the eye, new words, on becoming popular, are sub- ject to all the freaks and fancies of a practical but igno- rant people who, in their attempts at fine speaking, do not always succeed in making nice distinctions. Not only are most foreign words disfigured and mispronounced, but often their sense is strangely distorted. Sometimes their meaning is widened, and then again it is narrowed. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 345 Some words are made to serve higher and nobler pur- poses ; others are degraded to lower and humbler uses ; while not a few, from some simple association or childish misconception, are tortured and twisted into quite fantas- tic shapes to suit the popular understanding. Thus, the " buffeteers " of the English royal household go by the name of beefeaters of the queen. The ship Bellerophon was only known to British sailors as the Billy ruffian, the ^Eolus as the Alehouse, and the Courageux as the Currant juice, in the same way as the Spanish chief Zumalacarregui was invariably called Zachary Macaulay by the British soldiers. There is a kind of shawl made of the very fine wool of a goat in Thibet, called " cachemire goat." This delicate, soft texture is usually spoken of as a camel's hair shawl, that is, a shawl made of the hair of a beast whose coat is coarser than that of a mule. It is like the cook speaking of sparrow-grass when she means " asparagus," or like the French sick-nurse asking for de I'eau d'anon, instead of " lau- danum," at the druggist's. 1 This instinctive causativeness of the human mind, this perpetual endeavor to find a reason or a plausible expla- nation for everything, has corrupted many of the words which we have in daily use, and a large allowance for this source of error must be made when we are investi- gating the original forms of ancient names. No cause has been more fruitful in producing corruptions than popular attempts to explain from the vernacular, and to bring into harmony with a supposed etymology, names whose real explanation is to be sought in some language known only to the educated. Mistakes of this kind we occasionally hear, and we only laugh at them, but in former times, when literary ignorance was widespread, such distorted names readily found a permanent place in the national vocabu- lary. Thus we may see Latin words, mispronounced by Celts and Franks, becoming French ; and in the same way French words, in Saxon mouths, have become English, but 1 In Canada, where an English-speaking population is encroaching on the old French settlers, the same process of verbal translation is going on. Les Chineaux, or channels, on the River Ottawa, are now the snows. So Les Chats and Les Joachims, on the same river, are respectively becoming the shows and the swashings, while a mountain near the head of the Bay of Fundy, called the Chapeau Dieu, from the cap of cloud which often overhangs it, is now known as the Shepody Mountain. The River Quah- Tah- Wah-Am-Quah-Duavic, in New Brunswick, probably the most jaw-breaking compound in the " Gazetteer," has had its name justifiably abbreviated into the Petamkediac, which has been further transformed by the lumberers and hunters into the Tom Kedgwick. 24 346 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE often so disguised by spelling as to conceal their true ori- gin from all but those interested in etymological studies. 1 Thus we have: prayer, friar, faith, vow, prow, newel, jewel, plush, flush, money, purse, pouch, pocket, jacket, coat, vest, boot, gaiter, gauntlet, squire, chief, tower, power, flower, pansy, car- ry, parry, bowel, towel, surgeon, sturgeon, reason, treason, faint, quaint, puny, puppy, nephew, aunt, people, waif, wafer, waiter, butcher, butler, purveyor, feast, beast, ostler, jailor, wicket, gimlet, cease, lease, clear, cheer, and hundreds of others which, thus disfigured both in spelling and pronunciation, have acquired the right of citizenship in times gone by, and now bear the mint-mark of true national coinage. All such words are of popular English origin ; they were learned by ear from people who themselves spoke very crude dialects, and were current among the English long before Chaucer wrote ; hence they differ greatly in sound as well as in their written appearance from those French words that subsequently found their way into the English vocabulary, and which, learned from books more than from sound, have kept closer to their orig- inal forms. Such are those in general that terminate in al, el, cle, die, pie, tre, able, ible, oble, uble, an, ain, ean, ian, ace, ade, age, ance, ancy, ence, ency, enger, asm, ism, ate, ent, lent, ment, et, ette, esse, esque, ic, ice, ics, He, ine, ise, ist, ite, ive, ous, eous, ious, ose, son, shion, sion, tion, ation, ar, er, or, our, ary, ory, ee, eer, ier, aign, eign, ude, tude, ule, ure, y, ty, ity, etc. Words thus terminated, which are quite nu- merous in English, are all derived from the French, with such differences of spelling as were necessary to represent their English pronunciation. Though vastly different in character from those that are of popular origin, and mixed up with Saxon words from the people's language, they are an indispensable part of the vocabulary of modern English, to represent the more delicate shades of thought, and to express the complex relations of the higher men- tal conceptions. Such nave been, in the main, the effects of the Norman conquest upon the native speech of England, and have been summed up as follows by J. Earle, late Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford : " The French language," he says, " has not only left indelible traces on the English, but has imparted to it some of its leading characteristics. It is not merely that there are many 1 See Appendix, Chap, ii, Etymologies. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 347 English words of which the derivation can not be clearly specified, owing to the intimate blending of the French and English languages at the time when such words were stamped with their present form and signification. The Romanesque influence has penetrated deeper than to the causing of a little etymological perplexity. It has modi- fied the vocalization, it has softened the obstinacy of the consonants, it has given to the whole language a new com- plexion. ... If we want to describe the transition from the Saxon state-language of the eleventh century to the Court-English of the fourteenth, and to reduce the de- scription to its simplest terms, it comes in fact just to this : That a French family settled in England, and edited the English language." 2. Loss of Inflections and Grammatical Changes in Anglo- Saxon before and after the Norman Conquest. While thus noticing all that can be laid to Norman in- fluence, which undoubtedly was as great as it has been lasting, we must not lose sight of other influences which had been at work long before the conquest, and brought on changes which w.ere not less instrumental than the in- fusion of foreign words and phrases in transforming the old Anglo-Saxon into modern English. In the first place words, like coins, get worn away by the wear and tear of ages ; and we may well believe that the forms of speech that were current in England from the eighth to the eleventh century were, on that account alone, vastly different from those that prevailed during the three centuries preceding. The original Saxon was a homogeneous language, abounding in inflections, prefixes, and suffixes, and forming its compounds and derivatives entirely from its own resources. In synthetic languages, that is languages thus inflected, the terminations must be pronounced with marked distinctness, as these contain the correlations of ideas. This implies a measured and careful pronunciation, against which the effort for ease and rapidity of utterance is constantly struggling, while indolence and carelessness continually compromise it. It is to be inferred, therefore, that in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the written language began to make its appearance, the spoken tongue had already lost many of its earlier forms, which to some extent were still pre- served in writing. Although the arts of reading and 348 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE writing were at that time cultivated only by the privi- leged few, yet with a good literary standard, such as was then springing up, the language might have maintained its inflectional character for an indefinite period, and would undoubtedly have done so but for the terrible ca- lamities that ere long befell the English nation. Toward the end of the eighth century, it will be remembered, the piratical heathens, known by the general name of Danes, began their raids on the English coasts. These isolated attacks were, as we have seen, followed by for- midable invasions, which resulted in the establishment of extensive Danish and Norwegian populations in the east- ern and northern parts of England and in the south of Scotland. For more than two hundred years these de- stroying savages were the curse of the country. Wher- ever they set their foot, progress of every kind was ar- rested, culture was blasted, and the hope of civilization died away. By their indomitable courage, energy, and tenacity, they soon overpowered the Saxon tribes, already much weakened by long internecine strife ; and as they steadily kept coming in numbers large enough, first to compel a division of the country, and finally even to place their own king on the English throne, they necessarily exerted a great influence on the language of those locali- ties at least in which they permanently settled. Although the Anglian dialect spoken in these parts is believed to have been more akin to the Old Norse idiom of the new settlers than that of other Saxon tribes — partly by a like disposition to neglect inflections, partly by a similarity of words, pointing to a common ancestry — yet lapse of time and separation in space, as well as a difference of circum- stances under which each nation had lived and expanded for centuries, must have developed a corresponding dif- ference in speech as well as customs, when they met again on English soil. But so great was the diversity of local dialects in those days, that a little more or less of foreign accent or divergence from the customary speech, in a stranger, was hardly noticed ; and so the very simi- larity of the Norse and Anglian dialects would, by fa- cilitating intercourse, only hasten the usual result of two kindred tribes being thrown together. When such an intermingling takes place, the endings of the verb and the substantive are not always caught, and therefore drop speedily out of the mouth of rude and ignorant warriors and peasants. Influences of this kind, more than AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 349 any other, tend to break up the grammatical forms of a language, and when accompanied, as they usually are, by an extensive intermixture of words, they may even change its character entirely. That a large number of Danish words found their way into the spoken tongue there can be no doubt, for, although there is no contem- porary evidence to prove this, it was made evident at a later period, when the dominion of the Norman had over- laid all preceding conquests, and the new language began to emerge from the old, when Danish words in any num- ber made their appearance in books in familiar phrase, showing that they had been for a long time current in the language. In the same way, the tendency in English to give each word its chief accent at or near the beginning, and to suffer the concluding syllables to fall into obscurity, may be traced to Danish influence. Even before the con- quest, forms which originally had strong and distinct ter- minations appeared with these endings leveled into some- thing like a silent e ;. but during the illiterate period of the language, after the conquest, this careless obscuring of the terminal vowels rapidly increased, and by de- grees became universal. During the twelfth century, while this change was mainly going on, we find great confusion of grammatical forms, the full inflections of old English standing side by side in the same sentence with the leveled ones of the Anglo-Danish forms of speech ; but very shortly after the year 1200, in the south, and considerably before that date in the north, the leveling of inflections was complete, and this fact conclusively proves that the changes which have transformed the English lan- guage from an inflectional into a nearly non-inflectional idiom, were well established long before the Normans be- gan to speak the language. Indeed, changes of this kind could only take place among those who spoke the lan- guage, not among those who were ignorant of it ; and if further changes of the same nature afterward occurred in English, it was undoubtedly from habit and the in- herent tendencies of the language, far more than from any outside influence, such as in other respects affected the condition of the people who spoke it. Besides, the written Anglo-Saxon had its prepositions as well as its inflections, from which it is to be supposed that in the spoken language the use of the former was far more frequent. The following piece, taken from Earle's 3SO ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE " Philology of the English Language," will serve to illus- trate this use of inflections and prepositions in written Anglo-Saxon : " Upahafen&w eagum on fa " With uplifted eyes to the heahnys^ and apened^w? ear- height and with outstretched mum ongan gebiddan mid ]>eera arms she began to pray with welera styrungz*#z on stilnes^. stirrings of the lips in stillness. " Here we observe,' in the first place, that terminations in the elder speech are replaced by prepositions in the younger. ' Upahaienum eagum ' is ' with uplifted eyes,' and ' atyenedutn earmum ' is ' with outstretched arms ' ; and the infinitive termination of the verb ' gebidan ' is in Eng- lish represented by the preposition to. " We observe, however, in the second place, that on the Saxon side also there are prepositions among the in- flections. The phrases ' on fa heahnysi?,' ' mid .... styrun- gum,' 'on stilnes^,' are at once phrasal and inflectional. This indicates a new growth in the language : the inflec- tions are no longer what once they were, self-sufficient. Prepositions are brought to their aid, and very soon the whole weight of the function falls on the preposition. The inflection then lives on as a familiar heirloom in the language, an ancient fashion, ornamental rather than neces- sary. At the first great shake which such a language gets, after it is well furnished with prepositions, there will most likely be a great shedding of inflections. And so it hap- pened to our language after the shock of the conquest." Distinct from these inflectional changes, though inti- mately connected therewith, are the great phonetic changes which have made English words so vastly differ- ent from their Anglo-Saxon originals. That these changes, partly due to time, partly to Danish influence, were fur- ther accelerated and rendered more complete by the ex- tensive use of Norman words and phrases, there can be no doubt ; but even so, they were not the less the work of the English-speaking people, who shaped their own speech to please themselves, and according to certain national tra- ditions and tendencies of utterance with which the Nor- mans had little or nothing to do. It was, therefore, not the influx of Norman words and phrases which affected the native language in the first in- stance. For more than two centuries after the conquest we find but few French words in native compositions, and it was only in the fourteenth century, when the Nor- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 35 x mans began to make English their own speech, that the excessive admission of foreign words and phrases could have sensibly affected the existing forms of language ; other influences had been at work long before the con- quest, to which this event gave only a further impulse and a more definite direction. Among these influences none was greater than the Danish occupation, which left its traces in every corner of the land, and which, by an in- termingling of Anglian and Scandinavian dialects, greatly added to the general confusion, which finally resulted in the breaking up of almost every grammatical form of speaking and of writing. If, after the Norman conquest, writing well nigh ceased among the native English for want of readers, the people, nevertheless, continued to speak their language just as they did before, and while the ancient style of writing grew more and more out of date, until after three or four generations it became utter- ly lost and obsolete, it was in the spoken language that the transformation of Anglo-Saxon into English took place, by that process of gradual change of which the princi- ple was inherent in the language itself, and which mani- fested itself all at once in the uninflected form in which the language reappears in the compositions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And here we must remark that after all there is no proof of the latter form having been really new, or of re- cent origin, about the time of the conquest. All that we can assert is, that soon after that date it first appears in writing. If it was ever so employed before, no earlier specimens of it have been preserved. It was undoubtedly the form of the language popularly in use at the time when it thus first presents itself in the twelfth century ; but had it not existed as an oral dialect long before ? May it not have so existed in all its various forms from the remotest antiquity, together with the more artificial form which was exclusively, or at least usually, employed in writing ? This is all the more probable, as so we find it in other languages in which, from more ample records, the fact is better proved. Classical Greek and Latin, for instance, such as we find in books, have always been accompanied each by another form of speech of loose texture, and more of an analytical character, which served for the ordinary oral intercourse of the less educated population, and of which we have still some vestige or resemblance left in the modern Romaic and Romance idioms. At all events, the 352 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE rise of what had long- been a merely oral dialect into a lan- guage capable of being employed in literature, and of be- ing thereby gradually so trained and improved as to sup- glant and take the place of the ancient, more highly in- ected, and otherwise more artificial literary language of the country, is well illustrated by what is known to have happened in France, where the Lingua Romana Rustica — the peasant's Latin — after having been for a long time only orally used, came to be written as well as spoken, and, having been first taken into the service of the more popu- lar kinds of literature, ended by becoming the language of all literature, and the only national speech. 1 So in Eng- land there may have been in use for colloquial purposes a dialect of a similar character alongside of the written form known as the Anglo-Saxon language ; and the two forms of language, the regular and the irregular, the learned and the vulgar, may have subsisted together for many centuries, till there came a crisis which, for a time, laid the entire fabric of the old national civilization in the dust, when the rude and hardy character of the one car- ried it through the storm which the more delicate struct- ure of the other could not stand. Thus when, in the twelfth century, the English reap- peared in writing, it was the popular language of the time as spoken in the various parts of the country, and with but few and feeble traces of the elaborate system of in- flections found in the writings of Alfred. Each man who wrote, wrote in the speech of his own district ; and each man followed the spelling which he thought would best express the sound of his own particular dialect and mode of pronunciation. Nor could he be assisted much, in points of style or grammar, by any previous literary works of merit that could serve him as models. Even in the best of Anglo-Saxon writings, we find the greatest license of language, the greatest variety of spelling. All the vowels were interchanged, and, within the limits of their particular class, the consonants very often. " The arrange- ment of the period," says Marsh, " the whole syntax, had been evidently already influenced, and the native in- flections — if, indeed, they ever had been molded into a harmonious system — diminished in number, variety, and distinctness. The tendencies which have resulted in the formation of modern English had been already impressed 1 See page 475. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 353 upon the Anglo-Saxon long before the Norman con- quest." 1 The differences of form which distinguish the Anglo- Saxon idiom from modern English are pointed out by Sharon Turner as follows : 3 " Placing their words out of the natural order of their meaning, and thus delaying unnecessarily their com- prehension, was the habit of the Anglo-Saxon writers. The first beauty of a language is to communicate the thought correctly ; the next, to convey every part of it as rapidly as the mind that hears can comprehend it. But the latter part is prevented, and the former frequently con- fused, in every language in which the words do not follow each other in the natural stream of thought. The Latin language is as defective in this point as the Anglo-Saxon. The Romans, like their Spartan ancestors, disdained the grace of easy comprehension. As the natives of Lacede- mon affected an artificial brevity, the Romans adopted that unnatural dislocation of their words, which consti- tutes their classical corruption ; an arbitrary habit which sometimes may contribute to rhetorical euphony, but which makes the construction difficult, and always re- tards and frequently obscures the intelligibility of the sen- tence. In the Anglo-Saxon, the same practice, but with- out the rhythmical effect, and with no selection for any purpose of strength or beauty, perpetually occurs. Sometimes the comparative adjective is postponed : Thysum swithe gelic. To these very like. At other times the superlative : Menn tha leof eastern. Men the dearest. And often the verb : Tha him lareowas secgan. Then to him teachers say. Syththan he to thysum lyfe com. Since he to his life came. We sceolon urne scyppend lufian. We should our maker love. Tha wolde God hifordon. Then would God them destroy. If two verbs occur, the auxiliary, which ought to have preceded ; is placed last : Tha menn for nytenesse misfaran Then men for ignorance offend ne sceolon. not shall. 1 G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 132. s Sharon Turner, History of England, Part VI, ch. i. 354 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE Sometimes the verb is advanced, and its nominative cases are thrown back : Feollan cyrcan and hus and comon Fell churches and houses, and wilde beran and wulfan. came wild hears and wolves. The auxiliary verb is often separated from its partici- ple by intervening expressions, and the sentence is ended with the participle : Thas cyninges botl wearth mid That king's dwelling was with heofendlicum fyre forbmrned. heavenly fire burned. . Of two connected substantives, the genitive case first occurs, and the governing noun is postponed : Tha bead se bisceop Mamertus Then ordered the Bishop Ma- threora daga fasten. mertus of three days a fasting. These instances are sufficient to show the peculiar and artificial style of the Anglo-Saxon prose, which occasions its humble meaning to linger with a drawling insipidity, making that which is always feeble still feebler, and di- minishing its perspicuity. Another pervading character was the use and the in- flection into cases of the two articles, the and a; also of its pronouns ; and the partial conjugation of its verbs, especially in the imperfect tense. To this we may add its invariable use of inflections for the genitive case, both in the singular and in the plural. If we also recollect its uniform expression of our with by its mid, and the appli- cation of its with to signify against ; its use of my eel for much; swithe for very ; swa swa for so as; se for he, the, and that ; and heo for she ; hem for them; heora for their ; and ure for our ; and that our substantives in ness are usually nysse in Saxon ; and our adverbs ending in ly are termi- nated in lice by our ancestors ; if we keep these few char- acterizing circumstances in memory, though they are not the whole of the peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon, we shall be able to understand some of the leading points of the changes which marked its transition into our present English. The Anglo-Saxon syntax was also singularly anomalous and disorderly. Its prepositions were used as if possessed of the power of altering the cases of the nouns they gov- erned, as occurs in Latin and Greek ; but so irregular and capricious were the principles of this government, that in the same sentence the same preposition throws its con- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 355 nected substantives into four different cases. 1 To the con- fusion of all regular grammar, almost all its prepositions have this inconceivable power. With not less perversity, we find plural adjectives with singular substantives. Some- times the article and the adjective are inflected, and not the substantive ; and sometimes neither the article nor the substantive, but only the adjective. That the substantive should agree with the adjective in either case or number, seems to have been quite a matter of chance ; and whether nouns should be inflected at all, or in what case, was a question which no fixed rule appears to have decided. That amid this confusion of grammar the people could have always correctly understood each other, may be reasonably doubted. The use of anomalies in language may be so uniform as to give the irregularity a definite meaning ; and, although more troublesome to learn, yet, when learned, they are as intelligible as regular conju- gations. But the Saxon anomalies of grammar seem to have been so capricious and so confused, that their mean- ing must often have been rather conjectured than actually understood ; and hence it is, that their poetry is often so unintelligible to us. There is no settled grammar to guar- antee the meaning ; we can not guess so well nor so rapidly as they who, talking every day in the same phrases, were familiar with the differences of meaning depending on in- tonation. Or perhaps when the harper recited they often caught his meaning from his gestures, felt it when they did not understand it, and thought that his obscurity was the result of superior learning. One of the first observable steps in the formation of English out of Saxon was the discontinuance of the Anglo- Saxon inversions. As the earliest compositions in the English language are almost all translations from the French, we are indebted for that improvement to the Nor- mans, whose writers are remarkable for their unaffected, plain, and comprehensible diction. Their words are usual- ly placed as nature and meaning would station them ; and they taught the Anglo-Saxons to untwist their phrases, to dismount from their incumbering stilts, and to think and speak as simply and as perspicuously as they did. As the Anglo-Saxon began to be affected by the Nor- man tongue, many other changes followed. The declen- sions of the definite article, se, sec, that, were wholly laid 1 Mid ealre thinre heortaw and mid eal/«w mode. — Wanley, Catal., p. 2. 356 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE aside ; and its plural nominative, tha, changed into the, be- came universally used for every case, gender, and number. The simplification of a word so generally and incessantly wanted was a great improvement. The disuse of declen- sions in the substantives and adjectives, excepting in the genitive case, and one variation for the plural was another beneficial alteration. The abolition of the terminal cases makes the language less monotonous, more simple, more pliable, and more precise. Language only needs such inflections when, as in the Latin, its words are unnaturally placed ; and, on the other hand, inversion becomes a neces- sary evil when declensions are used, so that a disagreeable monotony may be avoided. The conjugations of the Sax- on verbs, which were never numerous, gradually fell also into disuse. One simple change was retained to mark the past tense ; and this gradually lost all variations of per- son or number, except the second person singular, in which one inflection is still retained. Many verbal changes followed in the other parts of the language. The "mid" disappeared and " with" took, its place, at the same time ceasing to signify "against." Swa became so, and innan diminished to in, or varied into the compound into; tka tha was exchanged for when ; tha for then ; heo for she. The g softened gradually to the y, and the / often to the v. Hit lost its aspirate ; Ich and ic at last became /,- eow, you; gan lessened vatoo go; gif to if; hwa became who ; swilc, such ; and several other altera- tions occurred which need not be detailed here. Many of these changes, however, if we except those which relate to the construction of the sentence, would probably have occurred even if the Norman conquest had never taken place, as similar changes have occurred in the cognate Dutch, Friesian, and Flemish languages, which nave been left comparatively undisturbed by for- eign influences. Many words are still the same, or differ but little, on both sides of the North Sea ; the fishermen of Zeeland hold easy communication with those of Mar- gate, Ramsgate, and North Foreland, and their accent and intonation are identical. None of these people, who in their isolated localities may be supposed to have retained their ancient forms of speech much longer than their kins- men elsewhere, have kept up the old inflections. And so it is with all languages ; the tendency always is to lose the elaborate systems of inflection with which they began. 1 1 See Max Muller, Science of Language, i, 41 ; ii, 185, AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 357 " Men become too idle," says Dr. Freeman, " or too care- less to regard minute distinctions of endings, just as they become too idle or too careless to give every letter its full sound. There is probably no stage of any language in which every grammatical nicety is strictly attended to in ordinary speech. The real wonder is that they were attended to at all without the use of writing. When a language is written, when it becomes the instrument of literary composition, a check is at once put on the process of decay. A standard of correctness is formed which, for literary purposes, may last for ages." But such a standard of language was lacking in England for centu- ries. After the conquest, the native language became more and more corrupt, and, in the face of French, pretty much what Welsh is now in Wales in the face of English. It became a mere patois, 1 a vulgar tongue, the tongue which was the daily speech of the poor and less cultivated classes. French was the language of polite intercourse, and the utter neglect of the native speech hastened still further its corruption. Thus, without any thing to check the natural tendency to disregard the grammatical delica- cies of the written language, old distinctions and inflec- tions became less and less observed ; by the end of the eleventh century few persons remained who could read English ; these may have been taught by men preserving the memory of an older time, but when these died out, all nicety of language was soon entirely forgotten. Thus, during the twelfth century, the process of gram- matical corruption was even more busily at work than the process of adopting foreign words. The same may be said of the thirteenth, though the proportion in which foreign words then crept in, and the tendency to make them needlessly displace English words, were both con- stantly increasing. During all this time the language may be looked upon as going through a process of breaking up, preparatory to its putting on a new shape. This was brought about gradually, and varied much, according to the dialectic differences and aptitudes of the people, as well as to their opportunities and material condition. Thus, in the larger cities of the kingdom, the new lan- guage had already assumed certain forms resembling modern English, while in others, and especially among the country people, it still remained a rude and barren 1 See page 496. 358 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE tongue. In the year 1303, Robert of Brunne said: "I have put in my plain English, for the love of simple men, while others have written and recited with more ele- gance ; for I do not address myself to pride and nobility ; I write only for those who do not comprehend the foreign English." 1 Probably a hundred years later even, his writ- ings were much better understood in many parts of Eng- land than the more refined works of Gower and Chaucer. It is this difference of dialect corresponding to the dif- ferent localities, distinctly referred to by Hygden 2 — who wrote in the first half of the fourteenth century — and of the relative progress made in the new language, that is the cause of our often finding two versions of the same work — one for the north and another for the south. 3 The first book, written in a language that may be called English, was Sir John Maundeville's " Travels," which appeared in 1356. Langland's " Visions of Piers Plowman " appeared shortly after. Wyclif's translation of the Bible is referred to in 1383. Trevisa's version of " Hygden's Polychronicon " came out in 1385, and the "Astrolabe" of Chaucer in 1392. A few public instru- ments were drawn up in English under Richard II, and about the same time it began to be employed in epistolary 1 Als tha y haf wryten and sayd haf y alle in myn Englysshe layd in symple speche, as y couthe. Y mad nognt for no desours, ne for seggers no harpours ; but for the luf of symple men that strange Englysshe can not ken, tha y sayd hit for pryde and nobleye. Robert of Brunne, Prologue to his Chronicle, p. xcvii. ! Also Englysch men, theygh hy hadde fram the bygynnyng thre maner speche, Southeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche (in the myddel of the lond), as hy come of thre maner people of Germania ; notheless, by commyxstion and mellyng, furst with Danes and afterward with Normans, in menye the contray longage ys apeyred, and some vseth strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng and garryng, grisbittyng. . . . Also, of the forseyde Saxon tonge that ys deled a thre, and ys abyde scarslych with feaw vplondysch men, and ys gret wondur ; for men of the est with men of the west, as hit were vndur the same party of heuene, acordeth more in sounyng of speche than men of the north with men of the south ; therfore hyt ys that Mercij, that buth men of Myddel Engelond, as hyt were parteners of the endes, vndurstondeth betre the syde longages, North- eron and Southeron, than Northeron and Southeron vndurstondeth eyther other. — Trevisa's translation of Hygden's Polychronium, 3 In a wrytte thys ilke I fand hymself it wroght I understand ; in sotherin Inglys was it drawin, and turned ic have it til vr awin langage of the northrin lede that can na sotherin Inglys rede. — Cursor Mundi, 20,064. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 359 correspondence of a private nature. The language, how- ever, remained far from assuming a definite character, and its dialects varied so much in the different provinces as to render Chaucer apprehensive of not being generally understood. The end of the fourteenth century, however, is gener- ally considered as the time when the English language was substantially formed. By that time the Normans had been for about three centuries and a half the rulers of the country — a period, be it observed, almost equal to that from the discovery of America to the present day. They could, therefore, no longer be called foreigners, nor was their language any longer a foreign tongue among the English people ; indeed, if the general understanding of an idiom be taken as a test, it was much less foreign than the various dialects that were written and spoken in England before the conquest, every one of which would have been as unintelligible to an Englishman of the fif- teenth century as they are to us at present. French, on the contrary, was familiar to every ear, and understood by all who laid any claim to refined culture. Still, al- though for a long time after, it remained the family lan- guage of the men of Norman blood, though it continued to be the language of the court and the administration, it rapidly lost its importance after the close of the Hundred Years' War, which, terminating all English interests on the Continent, confined them exclusively to the British Isles. Thus, shortly afterward, speeches in Parliament began to be made in English, and occasionally even ministers of the crown addressed the House in the new national lan- guage. In 1485 statutes ceased to be drawn up in French, though in the House of Lords French continued to be used to a much later date. Official letters, wills, and law reports we find written in it up to the end of the sixteenth century ; but as a colloquial language, French remained cultivated among the higher classes only, and all that re- mains of it now, as an official language in England, are some law terms and the few formulae for giving royal assent to bills of Parliament. 360 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE CHAPTER X. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS VOCABULARY. " Had the Plantagenets," observes Macaulay, " as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in uniting all France under their government, it is probable that England would never have had an independent existence. The noble lan- guage of Milton and Burke would have remained a rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed orthography, and would have been contemptuously aban- doned to the boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to eminence except by becoming, in speech and habits, a Frenchman." It was always thus that the loss of territory by con- solidating the English nation, reacted favorably on the growth and improvement of the national language. Henceforth it became the common speech of Englishmen of all ranks, and the use of French no longer marked a national, but merely a social or professional distinction. In the attainment of this result, and in its comparative permanence, the introduction of the printing press, A. D. 1474, had an important share. By its exclusive patronage of the Midland speech, it raised it still higher above the sister dialects, and secured its abiding victory. As books were multiplied, and found their way into every corner of the land, and the art of reading became a more com- mon acquirement, men of all parts of the country had forced upon their attention the book-English, in which alone they were printed. This became, in turn, the model for their own writings, and by and by, if they had any pretention to education, of their own speech. The writ- ten form of the language also tended to a greater uni- formity. The book addressed the mind directly through the eye instead of circuitously through the eye and ear, and thus there was a continual tendency of written words and parts of words to be reduced to a single form, and that the most usual and the most generally known. Great names in literature have always stood as land- marks in the history of a language, and to them we must AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 361 turn to observe the progress and position of the new na- tional speech. It is sometimes convenient to call an age by the name of its great men ; and as Chaucer stands pre- eminent in the fourteenth century, the period during which he lived and wrote is called " the Age of Chaucer." His influence, indeed, on the English language was im- portant and enduring ; he showed what the new language was capable of ; and succeeding poets took him as their model. The fifteenth century, however, was not favor- able to the cultivation of literature ; the people were too much engaged in war, and during a great part of the century in civil war, to be able to devote time to letters. Lydgate, a poet and prose-writer, may represent the lan- guage of this century, about the middle of which he flour- ished. The language of his poetry is evidently imitated from Chaucer, but his prose makes a nearer approach to the modern form of English than that of any preceding writer of the century. Lydgate uses a great number of words which no longer retain their place ; but in what are called the Paxton letters, written about 1459, an d m the works of Fortescue, the great lawyer, a reader of the present day finds scarcely any difficulty. In Scotland, at the close of the fourteenth and during the fifteenth cent- ury, poetry was cultivated to a considerable extent. Chaucer found a worthy follower in Barbour, the author of " The Bruce " ; and Wynton and James I were poets of greater eminence than any of their English contempora- ries. Meanwhile the language kept fluctuating, and as it differed in various districts, so it varied from one genera- tion to another. At the end of the fifteenth century, Cax- ton declared that, taking up an old book, he found the English so rude and broad that he could hardly under- stand it; 1 and in his time the dialectic difference was still so great as to cause people from another shire to be mis- taken for foreigners. Indeed, until the sixteenth century the English language, though perfectly suited to all the purposes of ordinary life and the lighter forms of litera- ture, remained unfit for the treatment of questions such 1 The Pofychronicon, which was the fourth work which Caxton published, bears for title : The Polychronycon, conteyning the Berynges and Dedes of many Times in eight Boies. Imprinted by Wyllyam Caxton, after having somewhat changed the rude and olde Englysshe, that is to wete certayn Wordes which in thyse Dayes be neyther vsed ne vnderstonden. Ended the second Day of Juytt at Westmestre, the xxij yere of the Regne of Kynge Edward the Fourth, and of the Incarnacyon of oure Lord a Thousand four Hundred four Score and Tweyne. 25 362 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE as now everywhere occupied the public mind. Its vo- cabulary was still poor, and its form very much unsettled. Thus far the language of theology, law, politics, and erudition had been Latin; and so exclusively was the study of all these subjects confined to that language, that up to the middle of the sixteenth century scarcely a single word of Latin origin had come into general use except such as had come through the Norman French. I he old practice, however, of borrowing from the latter idiom whatever words were needed to supply existing deficien- cies, and the favor with which the new words of the Re- naissance and the Reformation were received by English scholars and translators, paved the way for the admission of an additional number of French terms, for which there were no equivalents in the existing language. On the other hand, the revival of the study of the classical writ- ers of Greece and Rome, and the translations of their works into the vernacular, led to the introduction of a large number of new words directly derived from these languages, either to express new ideas and objects, or to indicate new distinctions or groupings of old ideas. Often, also, it seemed as if scholars were so pervaded with the form as well as with the spirit of the Old, that it was more natural for them to express themselves in words bor- rowed from the old than in their native tongue, and thus many words of Latin origin were introduced when Eng- lish possessed perfectly good equivalents. Moreover, as the formation of new words from Latin was constantly going on in French as well as in English, 1 it was not al- ways easy, in the absence of a standard dictionary, to dis- tinguish whether a word was already accepted and natu- ralized, or used for the first time ; whether it was borrowed from contemporary French, or had been in the language since the Norman period. French words, whether of early or recent formation, presented themselves all alike as Latin in an altered form, and when used as English they supplied precedents and models whereby other Latin words could be converted into English whenever required, and it is after these models that many Latin words, dur- ing and since the sixteenth century, nave been fashioned into English. While every writer was thus introducing new words, according to his idea of their being needed, it naturally happened that a large number were never ac- 1 See pages 505-509. .AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 363 cepted by contemporaries or posterity. Indeed, a por- tentous list might be made of Latin words thus intro- duced, which never had any existence outside of the works of those who used them. This wholesale importation of Latin words and phrases, which none but the learned could understand, ceased by the middle of the seventeenth century. As in French so in English, Latin words that were necessary and useful were retained ; all others were rejected and forgotten. Still the fondness for new and foreign terms, which has been a characteristic of the English language ever since the Norman period, was by no means checked by the re- action. New words from other sources continued to be introduced, often very needlessly, most of which have dis- appeared ; others again, for which there was a real neces- sity, have become a permanent part of the vocabulary. " Until the end of the fifteenth century," says Marsh, " it was only in the theological and moral departments that Latin had much direct influence upon English, most of the Latin roots introduced into it up to that time having been borrowed from the French ; but as soon as the pro- fane literature of Greece and Rome became known to English scholars through the press, a considerable influx of words drawn directly from the classics took place. The introduction of this element produced a sort of fer- mentation in the English language, a strife between the new and old, and both vocabulary and structure continued in a very unstable state until the end of the sixteenth century, when English became settled in nearly its pres- ent form. In the productions of Caxton's press, and, in- deed, in the literature of the period, down to and in- cluding the time of Lord Berners, whose translation of Froissart, perhaps the best English prose that had yet been written, and certainly the most delightful narrative work in the language, first appeared in 1523, it is scarcely possible to find a single word of Latin origin belonging to the general vocabulary of English whose form does not render it most probable that we received it through the French. A hundred years later, on the contrary, we meet in every printed page words, either taken directly from the Latin, or, what is a very important point, if be- fore existing in our literature, reformed in orthography, so as to suggest their classical origin. 1 1 G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 434. 364 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE With the sixteenth century commences what may be truly called " Modern English." The first prose writer by whom this is exhibited is Sir Thomas More, whose lan- guage and style make a near approach to those of our own day, with this exception, however, that, although one of the most learned men of his time, he uses the simplest and homeliest English words, and is yet wholly free from that excessive use of Latin which disfigures many of his imme- diate successors. In the first half of that century, a great mania for antiquity had suddenly sprung up in France, whence it readily found its way into England. Eras- mus tells us that the learned Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, at first strenuously resisted this movement, and labored to keep the language pure, by recommending the study of Chaucer, and the use of such French words only as he had made classical. 1 Roger Ascham, the tutor of Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth, in a work written for the same purpose, earnestly endeavors to turn his coun- trymen from the practice, which by the middle of the six- teenth century became fashionable, of introducing into their language " the foreign rubbish which did make all thinges darke and hard," and which was growing so abundantly that it threatened to swamp the native basis of the language. Wilson, in his Art of Rhetorique, written about 1550, branded this use of French and Latin terms, so current at the time, and part of his criticism is well worth being remembered even at this day. " Some seke so farre for outlandishe Englishe," he says, " that thei for- gette altogether their mothers' language. He that cometh out of France, will talke Frenche-English, and never blush at the matter. The unlearned or foolishe phantasticall that smelles but of learnyng will so Latyn their tongues 1 Erasmus, who was the first who undertook the teaching of Greek at Ox- ford, found but few friends to support him, and even an open hostility among the clergy. " The priests preached against it as a very recent invention of the arch-enemy ; and confounding, in their misguided zeal, the very foundation of their faith with the object of their resentment, they represented the New Testa- ment itself as an impious and dangerous book, because it was written in that heretic language. Even after the accession of Henry VIII, when Erasmus, who had quitted Oxford in disgust, returned under his especial patronage, with the support of several eminent scholars and powerful persons, his progress was still impeded, and the language opposed. The university was divided into parties, called Greeks and Trojans, the latter being the strongest from being favored by the monks, and the Greeks were driven from the streets with hisses and other expressions of contempt. It was not until Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey • gave their positive and powerful protection that this persecuted language was allowed to be quietly studied in the institutions dedicated to learning." — Con- stable's Miscellany, vol. xx, p. 147. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 36S that the simple can not but wonder at their talke, and thinke surely thei speake by some revelacion. I know them that thinke Rhetorique to stand whollie upon darke i woordes, and he that can catche an ynkehorne terme by * the taile, hym thei coumpt to be a fine Englishman and a good Rhetorician." In spite of all this, Mulcaster said in 1582, " The English tung cannot prove fairer than it is at this daie." He little knew what was to be the literary history of the next thirty years. Improvements made in the art of printing made books more and more accessible to all, and by their means learn- ing became more widely diffused throughout the country. The clergy were no longer the only learned men ; the laity now began to be animated by a spirit of inquiry and a love of knowledge which gave evidence that the germ of modern enlightenment had commenced to be active. The enthusiasm for ancient learning among English scholars reached its height during the second half of the sixteenth century. Ronsard 1 had his followers in England as well as in France, so that even ladies of the court were accus- tomed to amuse themselves with the study of Plato and the Greek poets. Queen Elizabeth herself was an excel- lent Greek scholar. Meanwhile the Reformation gave birth to the theological literature of England. All parties in the church defended their peculiar views, and the writ- ers, being mostly men of great learning, and constantly appealing to works written in the ancient languages, vast numbers of words relating to theological questions were introduced into English directly from the Latin and Greek, almost unconsciously and often very unnecessarily. In the same manner a vast number of French words referring to matters of religion found their way into the language through the translations of Calvin's Institution de la Religion Chrestienne, du Bartas's Divine Sepmaine, and other works of the kind which were all very familiar to English readers. 2 Minor compositions on the subject, small theological and moral dialogues and satirical pamphlets, destined to captivate as well as to instruct the lower classes, also found their translators, and they were all read more 1 See pages 505-508. 8 King James VI translated du Bartas's Uranie ; Joshua Sylvester translated his Divine Sepmaine in 1598 ; portions of his second Sepmaine were translated by Thomas Hudson, William Lisle, and Thomas Winter, all of which were ex- tremely popular in England. So were the writings of Agrippa d'Aubigny, and du Bellay's Roman Sonnets, sixty of which were translated by Spenser, and pub- lished in 1591. See Appendix, page 509. 366 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE eagerly, and perhaps even more extensively, in England than in France itself. Owing to the great interest the whole nation took, at that time, in these matters, the words used by the foreign writers were often copied, and thus found their way into the language, and gradually became current among the people. Some of the leading men among the orthodox clergy, affecting to disdain the use of the vulgar tongue in matters of religious controversy, continued to write in Latin, but as the reply generally came in English, they were all, one after another, forced into the use of the vernacular. The laborious exercise of thought on these topics, and the warfare with pen and tongue which was the result, could not fail to increase the elasticity of the language, and so far tended to improve it as an organ of literature. The Elizabethan Age, as it has been called, is the period at which we must place the completion of the greater part of the English language. A galaxy of poets, historians, and theologians, has made that age famous, and the popu- larity and general diffusion of their immortal works have given a great completeness and polish to the language. Though the vocabulary of English words has since that time been increased by the introduction of many new words used in art and science, yet it remains substantially the same as it was then spoken and written. It has been well said by Johnson that " from the authors who rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translators of the Bible, the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon, the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh, the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney, and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind for want of English words in which they might be expressed." Though the language for all common purposes was now complete, it may be proper to notice the fluctuations which took place afterward, as regards the increasing number of foreign terms introduced by succeeding writ- ers. The struggle of the Commons against the power of the Crown in the middle of the seventeenth century turned the genius of literary men to political discussion. The most famous of those who used their pens in aid of the people and Parliament was John Milton, whose remark- able prose writings foreshadowed the future glory of AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 367 "Paradise Lost." No man in England was better ac- quainted with ancient literature, or admired and copied it more ; hence, though his vocabulary is not particularly Latin, yet his sentences show a number of classical con- structions in their formation. Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne, on the contrary, are examples of a most extraordinary use of words of classical derivation, which they either copied from foreign writers or introduced themselves. No fewer than two thousand words used by them are no longer retained in the language, and many more which they employed are seldom or never used. Both these writers nourished during the Protectorate, and the early part of the reign of Charles II. Their contem- porary Cowley is, in his choice of words, their very op- posite. Cowley and Baxter, about 1680, were the heralds of a new style that was soon to be brought to further per- fection by Dryden, Swift, Addison, and others. With the Restoration, in 1660, came manners and morals from France which greatly affected the national character, and they brought with them new French words and phrases which again in a short time became naturalized in English. Dryden strove against their introduction, and it is only those relating to art, criticism, and fashion, which have retained their place. Addison and his friends aimed at expressing themselves in the language of cultivated so- ciety, and their great merit consists in their correct knowl- edge and reproduction of those genuine idiomatic pecul- iarities of the language which show its early origin, and which had been received into the conversation of intelli- gent and educated men. Swift, though often coarse, is always vigorous in expression, and he presents a greater proportion of good old words and idioms than any writer of his time. He was bitterly opposed to the existing fash- ion of using foreign words in English sentences, and be- rates the clergy for indulging in this deplorable habit. To protect the language from further corruption, he proposes the establishment of an academy in imitation of the AcacU- mie Frangaise} Though it is doubtful whether any such institution for English would be useful or desirable, it is not the less certain that a combination of eminent men of letters, organized on another plan, perhaps, but for a simi- lar purpose, might do much to check and correct the abuses 1 A proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English tongue j in a letter to the Lord High Treasurer. 368 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE referred to, and also to bring about some reform of spell- ing, the system of which is still exceedingly defective. At the close of the seventeenth, and the beginning of the eighteenth century, France was the great military na- tion of Europe, and as the French were accounted masters in the art of war, they were taken as models by other na- tions, England among the number. By this means a con- siderable number of words relating to military affairs has come from the French into the English. Addison, in the " Spectator," gives a very humorous account of the use of French words and military phrases during the war under Marlborough, and remarks " that the present war has so adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our great-grandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper." It must be remembered that, during the whole of the eighteenth century, French was the current language of Europe, and seemed destined to become ere long the language of the world. So com- mon was its use that Gibbon at first designed to write his great " Decline and Fall " in French, and was only dis- suaded by the advice of the sagacious David Hume, who foresaw that English was certain in time to take its place as the language of almost universal intercourse. Such, however, is the language of Gibbon, that, had he written in French, it would, as regards the selection of words, have made but little difference, as will be seen by the fol- lowing extract from his work. " It was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit ; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting them with their own numbers. Without interpreting, in their utmost strictness, the liberal appellations of legions and myriads, we may venture to pronounce that the proportion of slaves, who were valued as property, was more consider- able than that of servants, who can be computed only as an expense. The youths of a promising genius were instructed in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertained by the degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profes- sion, either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were multiplied beyond the conception of modern luxury. It was more for the interest of the mer- chant or manufacturer to purchase, than to hire his work- men ; and in the country, slaves were employed as the cheap- est and most laborious instruments of agriculture. To confirm AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 369 the general observation, and to display the multitude of slaves, we might allege a variety of particular instances. It was discovered on a wry melancholy occasion, that four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome." 1 If from this fragment we take out the articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliaries, that is, those words which are of constant recurrence but mean noth- ing by themselves, we shall find that the substance is al- most exclusively French. In respect to a limited introduction of foreign terms into native compositions, the earlier half of the eighteenth century was far more particular than the latter. Defoe, Addison, Swift, Pope, are names worthy of all honor ; and it were to be wished that no French or Latin terms had been brought in since their day, at least, not without good reason. Johnson has said, " Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." He did, however, not always practice what he preached. His language seems to have been influenced rather by the study of Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne ; for though he himself coined but few new words, most of those he uses will be found in the writings of these authors. Still, so great has been his influence on the Eng- lish language, partly through his Dictionary, that the words made use of by him have been stamped with a kind of authority. Since Johnson's time, writers of great eminence have arisen in all branches of literature, but so varied has been their language, that it is often difficult to decide whether it is the Saxon, French, or Latin which predominates in their compositions. The immense development of the physical sciences during the last half century has called for a corresponding extension of terminology which, in most instances, has been supplied from the Greek ; and although these terms are in the first instance essentially technical, yet with the spread of education and general diffusion of the rudiments and appliances of science, many of them have passed, and are constantly passing, in gen- eral circulation. Social, artistic, and literary contact with other nations, has likewise led to the adoption of numerous words from modern European languages, generally from the French, sometimes from Italian, and but seldom from 1 Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 370 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE the German. Commercial intercourse, extending all over the world, has also introduced many exotic words now in common use. But more interesting and more important perhaps than all these are the dialectic words that from time to time have attained literary recognition — old say- ings, old words, often of Dutch, Danish, or Celtic origin, which have been preserved in some local dialects, and which have thus at last found their way back into the standard language. As to the actual proportion of the various elements which compose the English vocabulary, it is probable that the original English words do not now form more than a third, perhaps even a fourth only, of the total entries in a full English dictionary ; and it may seem strange, there- fore, that the language is still identified by philologers with that of the ninth century, and classified as a member of the Low German division. But this explains itself when we consider that of the total words of a dictionary only a small portion are used by any one individual in speaking or even in writing ; and when further we observe that all the pronouns and determinatives, all the numerals, cardi- nal and ordinal, second only excepted, all the primary particles, all the terminations necessary for the inflection of substantives, the comparison of adjectives and the con- jugation of verbs, as well as almost all words in common use, are of Saxon origin, it is quite evident that whatever be the number of foreign words admitted into English, it is yet the original native speech which furnishes the ground- work of the language. While the English used their own words, they could not forget their own way of using them, and when one by one French words were introduced intc. the sentence, they became English by the very act of ad, mission, and were at once subjected to all the duties and liabilities of English words in the same position. This is exactly what still takes place at the present day. Any French article of permanent use, imported under a French name, makes that name as thoroughly known, and as thor- oughly English, as if it had been in the language for ages. If new words, when adopted, conform themselves to the manner and usage of the adopting language, it makes ab- solutely no difference whether they are transferred from some other language or built up from existing roots. In either case they are new words to begin with ; in either case, also, if they are needed, they will become as thor- oughly native, that is, familiar from childhood to those AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 371 who use them as those that possess the longest native pedi- gree. Whatever, therefore, may have been the direct and eventual results of the Norman conquest upon the recon- struction of the English vocabulary ; whatever the amount or proportion of foreign words that have since been adopted ; however even their presence may have affected the grammatical structure of the language, the language itself is English not the less; and if comparison could further illustrate this, the language, as at present, might be likened to a stately old tree whose huge gnarly roots sink deep into the native soil, and whose massive trunk, thickly covered with foreign grafts, bears fruits and flow- ers in abundance, often foreign in appearance, but with a strong taste and flavor of the native sap which nourishes them and on which they thrive. While thus tracing back the English language to its natural sources, we must refer to a curious fiction, which is apt to mislead the student as regards the name of Anglo- Saxon, which is sometimes used by poets and orators to designate Modern English. Applied to the language of Alfred or JElfric, it may serve to indicate the native dia- lect of the period, and by extension, up to and even during the time of its decomposition ; but to apply it to modern English can only lead to error, as regards the nature of the language during the earlier parts of its history. What little the student has seen of Anglo-Saxon in this volume will, no doubt, suffice to convince him that no amount of familiarity with modern English, including its local dia- lects, or even with the language of Chaucer and writers of his century, would enable one to read the old language of England, as current before the Norman conquest, not only on account of the great number of words that are lost, but also from the altered form of those that have remained ; nor would a knowledge of these words give him the power, since the grammatical system, in accidence as well as syntax, would be entirely strange to him. The use of the term to designate English is all the more incorrect as its very origin is uncertain and disputed, some maintain- ing that it means a union of Angles and Saxons ; others, probably with better foundation, that it meant " English Saxons," or Saxons of England, as distinguished from Saxons of the Continent. Although there is no evidence that either the Angles or the Saxons ever used the term in speaking of themselves, it has been lately much em- ployed, not only to designate collectively the Teutonic 372 ORIGINS 0F_ THE ENGLISH PEOPLE conquerors of Britain, but all the people who speak the English language in England, in America, and every- where else. In the mind of some this aggregation is even regarded as homogeneous, and styled by them the "An- glo-Saxon race." On the same ground we might call the Germans the Prussian race, the Americans the New Eng- land race, or the Celts the Tipperary race. The fact that the word " Saxon " was occasionally used by Latin writers of the time, in cases where we always find " English " in the native tongue, is mainly to be attributed to the tend- ency—one which has had more or less influence on almost all Latin writers then and since — to use expressions which sounded in some way grander or more archaic than those which were in common use. In the same way James Thompson said " Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves," etc. ; he would have called it " Albion " or any- thing else, if another word had suited his lines better. Thus a euphemism may be a misnomer, sounding well enough sometimes in poetry, but not allowed in prose. In reference to this, Sir Francis Palgrave remarks : " I must needs here pause, and substitute henceforward the true and antient word ' English ' for the unhistorical and con- ventional term ' Anglo-Saxon,' an expression conveying a most false idea in our civil history." It is quite certain that, ever since Egbert, the word "Anglo-Saxon" was not used, any more than the word " Saxon," as the ordi- nary name of the nation. An inhabitant of one of the real Saxon settlements might indeed have called himself a Saxon, as opposed to his Anglian neighbors ; he might have been from Essex or Sussex, and be called according- ly an eastern or a southern Saxon ; or an inhabitant of Anglia itself might have been spoken of as belonging to either the north-folk or the south-folk, just as here we speak of Northerners and Southerners ; but even as here we are all Americans, and known as such as a nation, so Angles, Saxons, and whatever smaller tribes or fractions of tribes there may have been among them, were all called collectively Angles, Engles, Englesmen — belonging to the same kin, called by themselves " Angel-cyn " ; and though their dialects may have been ever so various, their com- mon language, as expressed in writing — in a word, their literary language — has come down to us, not as " Anglo- Saxon," nor Anglo-Danish, but as Alfred himself called it, " English." It is only for the purpose of philological dis- tinctness that the name of " Anglo-Saxon " has been and AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 373 can be used with any propriety to designate the language from the arrival of the Saxons till the irruption of the Danes ; that of " Anglo-Danish " to mark the decline of the language from the time of the Danish to the Norman invasion; and that of "Anglo-Norman" to denote the French spoken by the Normans in England. In the same way the names of " Semi-Saxon," " Old English," and " Middle English " have been invented to subdivide the changes from the old native speech into Modern English. And in conformity with this custom we may, with all pro- priety, use these names in speaking of the successive stages of the language. For all other purposes, the term "Anglo-Saxon" is as inappropriate as that of "Anglo- Danish" or "Anglo-Norman" would be to designate " English." By a fiction similar to that which calls English " Anglo- Saxon," the French element of the language is sometimes called " Latin." For those who do not know French, or are unacquainted with the history of that language, it may afford some faint assistance in distinguishing between words of Teutonic and others of Romance origin, but it has certainly the inconvenience of hopelessly mixing up, 1, the Old French words which, blending with the native dialects, form the basis of the English vocabulary ; 2, the French words which, formed by French writers from Latin, were imported in the sixteenth century mainly through translations ; 3, the Latin words which, made to sound like English, were subsequently introduced directly by English scholars ; and 4, the modern French, and a few Spanish and Italian words, which ever since have found their way into the language up to the present day. Of these four classes of words, the latter belong more es- pecially to the sciences, arts, and trades introduced from abroad; to foreign fancies and fashions ; or to peculiar shades of thought, first developed among foreign writers. All these words, however, keep up more or less their foreign sound and appearance, and like the many scien- tific and technical terms that have been fabricated from the Greek, they can hardly be considered as belonging to the general vocabulary of the language, but rather form an artificial appendage to it. Though many words of this class have passed into general circulation, most of them are understood by the initiated only. The words of Nor- man origin, on the contrary, are understood by all, and always used correctly. Springing direct from the living 374 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE and spoken language, and being the fruit of spontaneous and natural growth, they are part and parcel of the peo- ple's language ; and so thoroughly are they blended and assimilated with it, that in most instances none but the special student is conscious of their foreign origin. Vastly different they are in this respect from the foreign words that were introduced subsequently through the writings of the learned, who took them from the books of other learned authors. All these words, absolutely necessary to repre- sent the more delicate shades of thought, and to express the complex relation of the higher mental conceptions, form, no doubt, a most important part of the present vocabulary ; but, although with the general diffusion of knowledge many have passed into the common tongue, their use is still mainly confined to the educated, and to the language of learned speakers and writers. There is thus a vast difference between the two cate- gories of words of foreign origin now found in the lan- guage — the one inherited, the other imported ; the former, mixed with what remained of the native dialects, forming the people's vocabulary, serving the purpose of business and familiar speech, and furnishing the terms of endear- ment, affection, and emotion; the latter composing the language of reasoning, of science, and philosophy, and the higher intellectual processes in general. To call all these words indiscriminately Latin would not assist the student in establishing etymological or rhetorical distinctions. It is true that French and Latin may be looked upon as two successive conditions of the same language, but still be- tween the two there is a marked difference ; and not to notice it would be as great a blunder as, in another order of ideas, not to distinguish between mother and daughter. The Normans spoke French, not Latin ; and it was the French as spoken by them which, blending with the na- tive dialects, has formed that wonderful language which, by the power thus acquired of enriching its vocabulary from all available sources, has found its way into almost every country, and which, having allied itself with every art and science, and been used for every purpose of hu- man action and thought, has now become inferior to none, and superior to almost all, in those excellencies and utili- ties for which languages have been commended and pre- ferred. While thus inquiring into the sources of the English language by means of historical, archaeological, and eth- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 375 nological research, the student can not have failed to dis- cover that, although language is still the first test, among those by which races are distinguished, its application as such is restricted by conditions very different from the dogma, once so hastily pronounced, that it is the one great decisive test. No country more signally than our own presents examples of the'iact, of which proofs abound throughout the world, that the language spoken by a peo- ple is, by itself, no test of race at all ; nor is the fallacy of the principle of " nationalities of race " more clearly dem- onstrated than by the history of the people from whom our own vernacular is borrowed, and whose patriotic and political nationality is founded on fusion rather than on purity of race ; indeed, the latter would perhaps be sought in vain throughout the world. Undoubtedly the history of the formation of a language is essentially the history of the people who speak and of those who have spoken it ; and if this language is our own, a knowledge of both these branches, studied conjointly, will prove all the more valuable as, in case of doubt, it allows an intelligent and methodical inquiry into the na- ture of every word that may suggest itself for use — from what parent stock it came ; what circumstances led to its introduction ; through what changes of form it has passed ; what was its original meaning, and its subsequent devia- tion from that first signification. Such a task, made ha- bitual, will be found not only most instructive, but also exceedingly interesting. For this purpose let the student carefully examine the materials at hand, and in his com- positions select such words and forms as will exactly ex- press his ideas. Let him suit his language to his subject, and employ none but the most usual terms to produce the effect desired. Above all, let him remember that, though English has borrowed a great deal of French, though it has lost a large stock of native English words, though it has adopted many a French idiom, and has been influenced by French in endless indirect ways, it still remains English. On the other hand, let him not imagine that English is still Saxon, and that in order to write English well we must banish from our phrases every word taken from the French and Latin. Such an attempt would show a gross ignorance of the sources of the language, and throw out the whole vocabulary of art, science, philosophy, and modern civilization. Nay, what is more, it would be im- possible even to allude to many of the most primitive ob- 376 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE jects and occurrences in life; for although the original English vocabulary has furnished its ample share of words for the expression of the most familiar ideas, yet such words as pray, pay, money, rent, debt, prison, judge, rich, poor, people, parents, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin, city, village, country, river, lake, rock, valley, mountain, air, fruit, flowers, plants, herbs, carrots, onions, dinner, supper, boil, fry, roast, pork, lard, beef, mutton, plate, place, chair, table, round, square, touch, try, turn, taste, suffer, marry, grief, pain, labor, wages, bottle, boot, coat, vest, jacket, pocket, face, voice, etc., etc., have won their way into the hovel as well as into the manor ; nor can they be adequately expressed by any other terms. While, therefore, the student should not aim at adorn- ing his style by an excessive use of foreign terms, he should be careful also not to fall into the opposite extreme, and impoverish his language by a too exclusive prefer- ence for words derived from the Saxon. He should, indeed, never discard such words without good reason, and if among these he can not find any that will suit his purpose, he should prefer a French or Latin word natu- ralized before the eighteenth century to any later comer. On this subject we may profitably notice the remarks of Dr. Freeman, who, though far from underrating the Nor- man influence in the formation of the English language, or ignoring the importance of words derived from that source, nevertheless protests, as so many have done before him, against the immoderate use of French and Latin terms, to the neglect of those of Saxon origin. On re- printing his " Essays," written many years before, he says : , " In almost every page I have found it easy to put some plain English word, about whose meaning there can be no doubt, instead of those needless French and Latin words which are thought to add dignity to style, but which in truth only add vagueness. I am in no way ashamed to find that I can write purer and clearer English now than I did fourteen and fifteen years back ; and I think it well to mention the fact for the encouragement of younger writers. The common temptation of beginners is to write in what they think a more elevated fashion. It needs some years of practice before a man fully takes in the truth that, for real strength, and, above all, for real clearness, there is nothing: like the old English speech of our fathers." AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 377 CHAPTER XI. SCRAPS FROM ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS ILLUSTRATING EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Preliminary Remarks. In order to understand correctly the specimens of early English presented in this chapter, it must be borne in mind that, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon " Chronicle " — which kept up the ancient idiom of Alfred long after that language had ceased to be vernacular — all English works that since made their appearance were written for the use of people who no longer understood the elder forms of speech, but whose local dialects varied to such an extent as to be unintelligible, in many instances, to persons inhabiting different parts of the country. How- ever, leaving aside all minor differences, and noticing only the leading features of the literary records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we will find that the New Eng- lish of that time was represented by three principal dia- lects, which may be grouped as follows : 1. The Northern dialects, spoken throughout the Low- lands of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and nearly the whole of Yorkshire. Roughly speaking, the Humber and Ouse formed the southern boundary of this area, while the Penine Chain determined its limits to the west. 2. The Midland dialect, spoken in the counties to the west of the Penine Chain, in the East-Anglian counties, and in the whole of the Midland district. The Thames formed the southern boundary of this region. 3. The Southern dialect, spoken in all the counties south of the Thames ; in Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, and portions of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. There is no doubt that the Midland dialect exercised an influence upon the Southern dialect wherever it hap- pened to be geographically connected with it, just as the Northumbrian acted upon the adjacent Midland dialects ; and this enables us to understand that admixture of gram- 26 3 ;8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE matical forms which is to be found in some of the early English manuscripts. No previous knowledge of oldest English, that is, An- glo-Saxon, is required for the perusal of the extracts con- tained in this chapter. The translation of a few pieces will render the student familiar with the earlier forms of English, after which the addition of copious notes will as- sist him in solving the principal difficulties of construc- tion, and explain or illustrate most of the rarer words and forms. A great deal of the supposed difficulty of Early Eng- lish, and much of the curious awe with which many per- sons regard it, as if it were a study much beyond them, and in which they can have little interest, has been the indirect result of the injudicious way in which editors have been accustomed to tamper with their texts. Read- ers are so used to having their extracts from older au- thors modified or modernized, that they find themselves thrown out when actually meeting with a genuine old book, and are discouraged at the outset from attempting to peruse it. 1 In the present volume many pieces have been printed without alteration, and with the exact spell- ing which occurs in the original manuscript, or old black- letter books from which they are taken. The student who masters their contents will therefore make a real advance, and be pleased to find himself able to read with consider- able ease almost every Old English printed book in exist- ence. He will also find that he has acquired much that will assist him in reading early manuscripts. There are only a few difficulties that are likely to trouble him at first. These arise from three principal sources, viz., from the alphabet employed, from the spell- ing, and from the diction or vocabulary of words used. The alphabet and the spelling should receive previous attention ; but a knowledge of the vocabulary will come with time, being acquired imperceptibly, yet with ever- increasing rapidity. A few hints on these subjects will probably be of service. The Alphabet. — The letters are the same as those we use now, with two additions, and with some variations in significance. The additional letters are )> and 3. Both of 1 But for the unfortunate readiness with which editors and publishers have yielded to the popular demand for conformity to the spelling and the vocabu- lary of the day, the knowledge of genuine English would now be both more general and further advanced than it is. — Marsh, Lectures on English. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 379 these are of frequent occurrence in early manuscripts. The former (J>) signifies th. In our modern pronunciation Ave make a distinction between the initial sounds of thine and thin, a distinction which probably did not exist in the earliest times, the th always being "voiced," as in thine ; and it is remarkable that we still preserve this sound in the oldest and commonest words, such as thou, the, that, there, then, and the like. Often, however, we find a dis- tinction made in manuscripts of the fourteenth century, some scribes using \ at the beginning of ]>e, ]>at, and the letters th at the beginning of thin, thikke. In the fifteenth century this distinction was less regarded, and the sym- bol \> gradually fell into disuse. Very soon after this the scribes began to form the character f so indistinctly that no difference was made between it and the letter y. Often, also, the manuscript has "y 1 ," where the y means th, and the a is only indicated by the t being a little above the line. Hence it is very common to find in old printed books the words "y e ," "yV "yis," which are to be read the, that, this, and not ye, yat, yis, as many persons seem to suppose. The character 3 had various powers. At the beginning of a word it was sounded as y, so that ^ard is our mod- ern yard; in the middle of a word it had a guttural sound, still represented in our spelling by^, as litf for light; at the end of a word it either had the same sound, or stood for z. In fact the character for z was written precisely like it, although more sparingly employed ; thus we find marchaunti, for marchauntz, where the z, by the way, must necessarily have been sounded as s. This use of the char- acter is French, and appears chiefly in French words. In early French manuscripts it is very common, and de- notes z only. The characters v and u require particular attention. The latter is freely used to denote both the modern sounds, and the reader must be prepared at any moment to treat it as a consonant. Thus the words haue, leue, diuerse are to be read have, leve, diverse ; where it will be observed that the symbol appears between two vowels. The v is used sparingly, but sometimes denotes the modern u, chiefly at the beginning of a word. The following are nearly all the commoner examples of it : vce or vse (use), vtter (utter), vp (up), vpon (upon); and the prefix vn- (un-). Occasionally even w is used for u. Hence the words swe, remwe, are for sue, remue ; and, in one instance, we find the curious form dywlgat=dyuulgat=dyvulgat=d\- 380 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE vulged. In some examples of Lowland Scotch w is used for both u and v ; so that gawe means gave, and hows is hous (house). A little practice soon renders the eye' fa- miliar with these variations. The letter/ is very rare. It is generally denoted by a capital // as in Tape, Ieoperdie, Iourney, iovjape, jeopardy, journey. Sometimes if is written ior y, as in wif$t=wyit= wyght— wight. This symbol is very common in modern Dutch, as in the words mijn (mine), and wijn (wine), which are pronounced mine and wine, respectively. The combi- nation quh is common in Scotch, and answers to the mod- ern English wh and the Anglo-Saxon hw ; as in quhy for why. The reader should also observe that proper names more frequently begin with a small letter than with a capi- tal ; as, pryant for Priam. The letters a, i, and r, are fre- quently written as capitals at the beginning of words in ancient manuscripts. Marks of punctuation are very rare in these manuscripts ; and in old printed books we fre- quently find only the mark / for a comma, with occasional full stops and colons. Spelling. — It is a common error to look upon the spell- ing of Old English as utterly lawless, and unworthy of notice. Because it is nol: uniform, the conclusion is at once rushed to that it can not be of much service. No mistake could well be worse. It is frequently far better than our modern spelling, and helps to show how badly we spell now, in spite of the attempt at uniformity intro- duced by printers for the sake of convenience. Old Eng- lish spelling was conducted on an intelligible principle, whereas our modern spelling exhibits no principle at all, but merely illustrates the inconvenience of separating symbols from sounds. The intelligible principle of Old English spelling is, that it was intended to be phonetic. Bound by no particular laws, each scribe did the best he could to represent the sounds which he heard, and the notion of putting in letters that were not sounded was (except in the case of final e) almost unknown. The very variations are of value, because they help to render more clear in each case what the sound was which the scribes were attempting to represent. But to bear in mind that the spelling was phonetic is to hold the clue to it. Scribes differed in their modes of spelling for several reasons. Most of them were guided by the pronunciation of the dialect of their place of residence, and dialects were then AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 381 numerous. Some were more ignorant than others, whence the exceptional badness of the spelling. Many were in- fluenced by what they themselves had previously read, so that changes of spelling took place more slowly than changes in pronunciation, and were often a little behind it. The most marked instance of this is in the case of e final, which was retained in spelling after it had ceased to be pronounced, so that the spelling of serche, for in- stance, indicates that the word was formerly pronounced serche, a dissylable. Unfortunately, one result of this was that a silent e was often ignorantly added, as in the word kynge, which is often rightly spelt kyng on the same p«ige. It is impossible to enlarge upon this here, for want of space ; but experience shows that the spelling very sel- dom causes any real difficulty, and that the words which are so disguised by it as not to be intelligible at first sight are very few indeed. Those who do not care to investi- gate the spelling, have only to read right on and aloud, when the difficulty will gradually disappear. Owing to the great changes, however, that have taken place in the pronunciation of Modern English, it may not always be easy for the reader to form any clear ideas how Early Eng- lish sounded when spoken, unless he will take some pains to examine the matter for himself, first putting aside all preconceived notions evolved out of his inevitable igno- rance. There is reason to believe that very considerable changes have taken place in English pronunciation since the fourteenth century, and that the vowels were at that time pronounced much more like those heard in conti- nental languages than is the case at present. Hence the best general rule that can be given for approximating to the sounds of Early English vowels, is to give to a, e, i, o, u their present continental Values ; that is, to pronounce them as in Dutch or Italian, carefully avoiding being misled by the peculiar sounds which occur in familiar modern English. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. "It is deeply to be regretted," says Thorpe, "that an historic monument so important as this " Chronicle " should afford us no information with regard to its several writers, or to the mode in which it gradually grew into the form in which we now possess it." Equally devoid are we of all indirect or collateral evidence tending to cast a glimmering of light on these points. Conjecture, therefore, and that only founded on probability, is all we can have recourse to, in an attempt to account for the phenomenon. One point, however, seems in- disputable, viz., that the several manuscripts, whether West Saxon or Mercian, are derived from a common original ; whence the question naturally arises, how 382 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE and by whom was such original issued to the several monasteries, which, from their rank, or the reputation of one or other of their inmates, for learning or superior penmanship, were deemed qualified for the proposed task of multi- plying copies ; and where it received such additional matter as, on account of local interest or other circumstances, might seem desirable to those whose province it was to supervise the literary department of the brotherhood. As contributors to the composition of the " Saxon Chronicle," the names of King Alfred, and of Archbishops Phlegemund and Dunstan have been men- tioned. This, too, is pure conjecture ; though with respect, at least, to Alfred and Phlegemund, a conjecture by no means void of probability ; nor shall we greatly err, perhaps, in assigning to their influence and authority the earlier or original portion of the earliest manuscript, ending with the year 891, and which, from a comparison of the form of its letters with those of other manu- scripts of the same period, may be safely assigned to the end of the ninth cent- ury, and with a semblance of probability, as the prototype of the other copies. In favor, too, of Alfred's participation in the composition of the " Chronicle," may be noticed the greater fullness of narrative that prevails, from the year 853, or soon after Alfred's birth ; also, that the account of acts of that prince is, in all the manuscripts, so strikingly similar ; while, in other cases, they frequently exhibit great deviations from each other. The testimony also supplied us by the old French chronicle of Geoffroi Gaimar, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century, is of some authority, as tending to corroborate the supposition that to King Alfred we are indebted for a " Saxon Chronicle," and, down to his time, probably in its present form. According to the same chronicler, that prince had a copy of a " Chronicle " at Winchester fastened by a chain, so that all who wished might read, but that it might not be taken from the spot ; 1 a custom of which traces still exist in Eng- land, or at least have existed, within the memory of the present generation. A further corroboration of the existence of the " Chronicle " in its present form, in the days of King Alfred, is the circumstance that his friend Asser, bishop of Sherborne, translates and incorporates much of its matter in his Latin life of his royal patron from the years 849 to 887. The " Saxon Chronicle " comprises the period from the invasion of Britain by Julius Cffisar to the accession of Henry II, in A. D. 11 54 ; and is, conjointly with the " Ecclesiastical History" of Bede, the principal source whence our early chroniclers have derived their matter. While regarding Alfred as the probable originator of the " Saxon Chronicle," it must, at the same time, be evident that in England there already existed written memorials of earlier times, whence he, or rather perhaps his coadjutors, derived materials ; and to such Bede alludes in the words: "A principio voluminis hujus usque ad tempus quo gens Anglo- rum fidem Christi percipit, ex priorum maxime scriptis, hinc inde collectis, ea qua: promeremus didicimus." He also speaks of " monimenta literarum " ; also Malmesbury : " Sunt sane quaedam vetustatis indicia, chronico more et patrio sermone, per annos Domini ordinati." Thus, from the beginning of the "Chronicle" to the death of Bede (A.D. 734), we are able, in some measure, to form a judgment as to the sources whence much of its matter is derived ; but from that date until the time of Alfred (or about a hundred and fifty years), we know not from what materials the narra- tive was compiled. Tradition, which in those days must have been in much greater request than it is now, no doubt contributed its share ; some marginal notes, also, on the volumes of monastic libraries, may have afforded informa- tion, as it appears was the case on the Continent. 1 Li reis Elfred 1'out en demaine ; fermer i fist une chaine. ki lire i volt bien i guardast ; mais de son liu nel' remnast. Geoffroi Gaimar, ii, 2316, seqq. IU E- < ft. "Oi -EM o e U -£>l B v- O 1 £ te. be AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 383 Such a continuous chain of occurrences as that exhibited in the " Anglo- Saxon Chronicle " would, it is reasonable to suppose, display a gradation of changes in the Anglo-Saxon tongue during the two centuries from the time of Alfred to the death of Harold ; such is not, however, the case, as the language is the same, throughout, with regard both to its vocabularyer his wif 3 his sune waeron bebyried set Fauresfeld • pjet minstre hi makeden. pa fe king was ded fca was J>e eorl beionde sae • 3 ne durste nan man don ofer bute god ■ for J>e micel eie of him pa he to Engleland com • fa was he under- fangen mid micel wurtscipe • "] to king bletcsed in Lundene • on fe Sunnendaei beforen midwinter daei • 3 . micel curt, pat ilce dasi fat Mart, abbot of Burch sculde fider faren • pa sseclede he • ~} ward ded mi Nofi, Iafl. •] te munekes innen dseis cusen ofer of heom saslf • Willelm de Walteuile is gehaten • god clerc 3 god man • 3 wasl luued of fe k. /j of alle gode men • and o en byrie fabbot hehlice - ~\ sone fe cosan abbot ferde • 3 te muneces Oxenford to f e king iaf him fat abbotrice • ~) he ferde ~j wass f . . . . abbot aer he ham come • 3 f e . . . underfangen mid micel wurtscipe . . at Burch mid procession • 3 sua he was alsua at Rameseie ■ "] at Torn ~] at Spall. • ~\ at . . . . beres • ~\ abbot ~} haued begunnon. Xrist h * 1 In this copy the dots indicate the decayed and illegible parts of the MS. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 385 TRANSLATION. A. D. MCLIV. In this year King Stephen died, and was buried where his wife and son were buried at Faversham. the monastery which they had founded. When the king was dead, the count (Henry of Angou) was beyond the sea, but no man dared do other than good for the great awe of him. When he came to England, he was received with great worship, and consecrated as king in London on the Sunday before Midwinter Day, and there he held a great court. The same day that Martin, Abbot of Peterborough, should have gone thither, he fell sick and died on the 4th of the Nones of January (Jan. 2d); and the monks, within a day, chose for themselves another, called William de Wattevile, a good scholar and good man, and well beloved by the king and by all good men, and they buried the abbot sumptuously in the church. And soon the abbot-elect, and all the monks with him, went to Oxford to the king, and he gave him the abbey ; and he went soon to Lin- coln, and there he was consecrated abbot ere he came home. Since then he was received at Peterborough with great worship and in great procession ; and so he was at Ramsey, at Thorney, at ... , and at Spallding, and at S. 1 ... ; and he is now ab- bot, and has fairly begun. Christ grant him a good ending. The Lord's Prayer. anglo-saxon from eadfrith, about the year 700. Fader uren fu ar]> in heofnum, Sie gehalgud noma fin. To cymef ric fin ; Sie wills fin suoels in heofne & in eortho, Hlaf usenne ofer wistlic sel us to daeg ; & forgef us scylda usna suoe uoe forgefon scyldgum usum ; & ne inlaed usik in costunge Uh gefrig usich from yfle. Durham Book, MS. Cotton, Brit. Mus. ANGLO-SAXON FROM ALFRED, A. D. 875. Faeder ure, fu fe eart on heofenum Si fin nama gehalgod To becume thin rice. Geweorf e fin willa on eorf an, swa swa on heofenum Ume daeghwamlican hlaf syle us to daeg And forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgifaf urum gyltendum. And ne gelsede f u us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfle Soflice. 386 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE DANISH-SAXON, A. D. 90O. Uren Fader fie arf in heofnas, Sie gehalgud fin noma ; To cymeth fin rye ; Sie thin willa sue is in heofnas, and in eortho; Uren hlaf ofer wittlic sel us to dag ; And forgef us scylda urna, sue we forgefan scyldgum urum ; And no inlad usih in custnung ; Ah gefrig usih from yfie. Camden remains, S. 30. OLD ENGLISH TOWARD THE YEAR Il6o. Ure Fasder fu f e on heofene eart, Syo fin name gehaleged. To cume fin rice ; Geworde fin wille on heofene and on eorf e. Syle us to daig urne daighwamliche hlaf, And forgyf us ure geltes, swa we forgyfaf aelcen fare fe with us agyttef. And ne lsed thu us on costnunge, Ac alys fram yfele. Wanley, S. 76, and Chamberlayne, S. 59. Old English Homily. The following homily is one of a series of discourses for the Christian year, preached before A. D. 1200. The dialect is that of the South of England, in which many Dutch elements now make their first appearance in the written language, a sure sign that they had long been current in the spoken language. The name of the author is not known : HIC DICENDUM EST DE PROPHETA. \M\issus est ieremias in puteum et stetit ibi usque ad os. Qui cum aliquandiu ibi stetisset- debilitatum est corpus eius. 6° tandem dimissis funibus subtractus est. Et cum eorum duriciam. quia debilis erat sustinere non posset, allati sunt panni de domo regia et circum- positi sunt funibus ne \e\orum duricia lederetur. Leofemen we uinde'S in halie boc. \et ieremie fe prophete stod in ane putte. and \et in f e uenne up to his muSe and fa he hefede f er ane hwile istonde. fa bi-cozrc his licome swiSe feble. and me nom rapes and caste in to him for to dra^en hine ut of fisse putte. Ah his licome wes se swiSe feble '• \et he ne mihte noht if olie f e herdnesse of fe rapes, fa sende me claftes ut of f es kinges huse for to bi-winden fe rapes. \et his licome f e feble wes ne sceolde noht wursien. Leofemen f eos ilke weord f e ic habbe her iseid habbcS muchele bi-tacnu«ge and god ha beoS to heren and muchele betere to et-halden. Is hit god for to hiheren godes weordes and heom athalden '■ }e fuliwis. for ure lauerd godalmihtin sei5 in fan halie AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 387 godspelle. Beati qui audiunt uerbum &° custodiunt Mud. ^Edie and blessede beon alle peo pe ihereS godes weordes and heom athaldeS. Nu }e habbeS iherd wulc hit is for to iheren godes weordes and heom ethalden. Nu we sculen eow sceawen hwilc hit is heow for to heren and nawiht for to ethalden. for seint gregori seift. Melius est uiam ueritatis non agnoscere ■ quam post agnitam retroire. Betre hit is fet mon ne iknawe noht pe wei to godalmihtin pe he hine icnawe and seodSe hine for-ho^ie ; and on o$er stude he seiS. Qui obturat aures suas ne audiat legem dei- oratio eius erit execrabilis. pe mon pe tuneS his eren in halie chirche to^eines godes la$e and nule noht iheren pe weordes pe of him beoS. his beoden beoS aweriede and unwurSe gode. Puteus est peccati profunditas. quia quam diu stas in luto ■ tarn diu iaces in mortali peccato. pes put bitacneS deopnesse of sunne. for alse longe alse we liggeS in heued sunnen ■ al pa hwile we sto[n]deS in the putte. and ]>et in pe uenne up to pe mufce alse peos men doS pe liggeS inne eubruche and ine glutenerie and ine manatias. and ine prude, and ine oSer fule sunnen. and \et beoS riche men al- remest pe habbeS pes muchele prude in pis worlde. pe habbeS feire huses. and feire hames. feire wifes. and feire children, feire hors and feire clapes. heauekes and hundes. castles and tunes, her- uppon heo pencheS muchele mare pen uppo« godalmihtin pe al pis heom haueS isend pa pe liggeS iwne swilc sunne. and ne pencheS noht for to arisen '• heo delueS deihwamliche heore put deoppre and deoppre. vnde propheta. Non claudit super te puteus os suum nisi clauseris os tuum. pe pr»ph*/e seiS. yet pe put ne tunetS noht lihtliche his mut5 ouer us bute we tunen ure muS. ah $if we tuneS ure mu$ ■ percne do we alse pe mon pe delueiS ene put feower da^es ofter fiue and penne he hauetS hine alra le#gest idoluen i penne ualleS he per-inne. \et him brekeS pe sweore. ]>et. is \et he ualleS in to helle pine per neuer eft ne cumeS of bote. Ah leofemen godalmihtin haueft isceawed us wel muchele grace, penne he haueS geuen us to beon muS freo. \et we ma3e« mid ure muSe bringen us ut of pisse putte ■ pe bitacneS peo deopnesse of sunne. and \et purh preo herde weies pe pus beo$ ihaten. Cordis coniri- cione. Oris confessions. Open's satisfactions purS heorte bireu- sunge. purh mutSes openunge. purh dede wel endinge. Cordis contritione moritur peccatum. oris confessions defertur ad tumulum. operis satisfactione tumulatur in perpetuum. pe[nne] we beo$ sari in ure heorte ]>et we isuneged habbeft penne slage we ure sunne • pene we to sunbote cumetS. penne de we bi ure sunne al swa me deaS bi pe deade. for efterpan \et pe mon biS dead me leiS pene licome in pere pruh. Al swa pu leist pine sunne in pare pruh '■ hwenne pu scrift underuongest of pe sunnen pe pu idon hauest to- geines godes wille. penne pu hauest pine sunnen ibet '. eft*r pines scriftes wissunge. penne buriest pu pine surcnen and bringest heom ut of pine on-walde. Per ieremiam notatur quilibet peccator qui in suo peccato moram facit. Bi ieremie pe prophete we a^en to un- 388 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE derstoaden ulcne mon sunfulle. pet lift \n heuie sunne and purh softe scrz'ft his sunbendes nule slakien. funiculi amaritudines peni- tencie significant, pe rapes pe weren icast to him '• bitacneft pe herdnesse of scrifte. for nis nan of us se strong pe hefde idon pre hef[ed] sunnen pet his licome nere swifte feble er he hefde idre^en pet scr/f t pe per to bilimpeft. panni circumpositi funibus ■ ecclesie sacramenta significant quibus penitencie duricia mitigatur. pas kinges hus bitacneft hali chirch[e. pa] claftes pet weren isende ut of p[es kinges huse] for to binden pe rapes mid '• bitacnet pe halie ureisuns pe me singeft in halie chirche. and pe halie sacrame#s pe me sacreft in alesnesse of alia sunfulle. Leofemen nu $e habbeft iherd of pis putte pe bitacnircge pe ic habbe embe ispeken. and pe bitacninga of pe prophete. and pet pe rapes bitacneft. and hwat pa claftes bi- tacneft pe pe rapes weren mide biwu«den. Ihereft nufte whulche pinges wunieft in pisse putte. per wunieft fower cunnes wurmes inne. pet fordoft nufte al peos midelerd. per wunieft in-ne faje neddren. and beoreft atter under heore tunge. Blake tadden and habbeft atter uppon heore heorte. jeluwe froggen. and crabben. Crabbe is an manere of fissce in pere sea. pis fis is of swulc cunde. pet. euer se he mare strengfteft him to sw[i]mminde mid pe watere ■ se he mare swiw?meft abac, and pe aide crabbe seide to pe ?u#ge. hwi ne swi/#mest pu forftward in pere sea alse ofter fisses doft. and heo seide. Leofe moder swim pu foren me and tech me hu ic seal swi^zmen forftward and [heo] bi-gon to swiwzmen forftward mid pe streme. and swam hire per-ajen. pas faje neddre bitacneft pis fa$e folc pe wuneft \n pisse weorlde. pe speket alse feire bi- foren heore euewcrz'stene alse heo heom walde in to heore bosme puten. and swa sone se hi beoft iturnd awey fro*ra heom '• heom to-twiccheft and to-drajeft mid ufele weordes. Hii eciam sunt doc- tores 6° falsi christians . pos men pe pus to-dra^eft heore euencr«s- tene bi-hinden heo habbeft pe nome of crcstene ah pah heo beoft cn'stes unwines and beoft monslajen for heo sla$eft heore a^ene saule. and bringeft heom in to pare eche pine of helle. pos blaca tadden pet habbeft pet atter uppon heore heorte. bi-tacneft pes riche men pe habbeft pes mucheles weorldes ehte and na ma^en noht itimien par-of to eten ne to drinken ne na god don per-of for pe luue of godalmihtin pe haueft hit heom al geuen. ah HggetS per- uppon alse pe tadde deft in pere eorfte pet neure ne mei itimien to eten hire fulle '■ swa heo is afered leste peo eorfte hire trukie. peos ilke ehte pe peos pus ouerliggeft heom turned to swart atter for heo failed per-purh in to per stronge pine pet na mon ne mei tellen. peos jeolewe clapes. [bitacneft po pet feireft heom seoluen.] for pe jeolewe claft is pes deofles helster. peos wi#zmen pe pus liuieft beoft pes deofles musestoch iclepede. for penne pe mon wule tilden his musestoch he bindeft uppon pa swike chese and bret hine for pon pet he scolde swote smelle. and purh pe sweote smel of pe chese '• he bicherreft monie mus to pe stoke. Alswa doft monie of pas wi#zmen heo smurieft heom mid blanchet pet is pes AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 389 deofles sape and clapeS heom mid jeoluwe clape \et is pes deofles helster and seodSan heo lokieft in pe scawere. pet is pes deofles hindene. pus heo do*5 for to feiren heom seoluen. and to dra3en lechurs to ham. ah heo fuleS heom soluen per-mide. Nu leofe- men for godes luf e witeS eow wits pes deofles musestoch and witeS eow pet je ne beo noht pe foa$e neddre. ne pe blake tadde. ne pe ^olewe frogge. pe feder. and pe sune. and pe halie gast. iscilde us per-wiS. and wiS alle sunnen a buten e«de. per omnia secula secu- lorum. Amen. TRANSLATION. \M ~\issus est ieremias in puteum et steiit ibi usque ad os. Qui cum aliquandiu ibi stetisset- debilitatum est corpus eius. 6- tandem dimissis funibus subtractus est. Et cum eorum duriciam. quia debilis erat sustinere non posset, allati sunt panni de domo regia et circum- positi sunt funibus ne \e\orum duricia lederetur} Beloved Brethren : We find in holy writ that Jeremiah the prophet stood in a pit with mud up to his mouth, and that, having stood there awhile, his body became very feeble ; and men took ropes and cast them to him to draw him out of this pit. But his body was so feeble, that in order he might not suffer from the hardness of the ropes, they sent cloths from the king's house to wind around the ropes so that his body, which had grown weak, should receive no further injury. Dear brethren, the words I have here said have an im- portant meaning, and good they are to hear, and much better to remember. That it is good to hear the words of God and to re- member them, ye know full well, for our Lord God almighty says in the holy gospel. Beati qui audiunt uerbum & custodiunt Mud. Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep I 6 Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison : and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire : so Jeremiah sunk in the mire. 7 ^[ Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon ; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin ; 8 Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, 9 My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon ; and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is : for there is no more bread in the city. 10 Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. II So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. 12 And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah. Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. 13 So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dun- geon : and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. — Jeremiah, xxxviii. 39° ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE it (Luke xi, 28). Now you have heard what it is to hear God's words, and to observe them. Now we will show you what it is to hear them and not to observe them, for Saint Gregory hath said, Melius est uiam uerilatis non agnoscere' quam post agnitam retroire} Better it is for man not to know the way of God Almighty than to know it, and then to disregard it ; and elsewhere he says, Qui obturat aures suas ne audiat legem dei- oratio eius erit execrabilis. The man who shuts his ears in holy church against God's laws, and will not hear his words, his prayers are accursed, and dis- pleasing to God. Puteus est peccati profunditas. quia quam diu stas in luto- tam diu iaces in mortali peccato. This pit signifies " depth of sin,'" for as long as we lie in cardinal sins, we stand all the while in the pit with mud up to our mouth, like those men do that live in adultery, gluttony, perjury, pride, and other foul sins. And they are the rich men, most of all, that have so much pride in this world ; those that have fair houses and fair homes, fair wives and fair children, fair horses and fair clothes, hawks and hounds, castles and large estates, of which they think a great deal more than of God Almighty who has sent them all this, while they lie in such like sins, and think not how therefrom to arise. They daily dig their pit deeper and deeper, vnde propheta. Non elaudit super te puteus os suum nisi clauseris os tuum? The prophet says that the pit does not shut its mouth on us unless we shut ours ; and if we shut our mouth then do we like those men who keep digging at one pit for four or five days, and having dug at it as long as they can, fall into it and break their neck, that is, they fall into the pains of hell, out of which there is no deliverance. But, dear brethren, God Almighty has shown us indeed much grace, inasmuch as he has given us free speech that we may, with our mouth, bring ourselves out of this pit which signifies " depth of sin," and do it by three hard ways, called Cordis contricione. Oris confessione. Open's satisfactione. That is, through contrition of the heart, through opening our mouth, and the performance of good works. Cordis contritione moritur peccatum. oris confessione defertur ad tumulum. operis satisfactione tumulatur in perpetuum. When we are sorry in our own heart that we have sinned, then we destroy our sins. When we come to confession, we do with our sins as we do with the dead ; for after a man is dead we lay his body in the tomb. Even so you lay your sins in their tomb. When you receive absolution of the sins you have committed against God's commandments, then you have your sins pardoned. After your absolution, you bury your sins, and bring yourselves out of their controlling power. Per ieremiam notatur quilibet pec- 1 The quotations here and below are not from the Bible. They probably belong to the Latin original (here attributed to St. Gregory) from which the Homily is more or less closely translated. Compare 2 Peter ii, 21. 1 Compare Ps. lxix, 15 (or lxviii, 16 in the Vulgate): " neque urgeat super me puteus os suum." The words quoted are probably a gloss upon this verse. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 39* cator qui in suo peccato moram facit. From the prophet Jeremiah we further learn that every man is sinful who lies in heavy sin, and will not slacken its hold by honest confession, ftmiculi ama- ritudines penitencie significant. The ropes that were thrown to him signify the severity of confession, for no one of us is so solid that he has not committed three capital sins which made his body very weak before he has received the absolution thereof, panni circum- positi funibus ■ ecclesie sacramenta significant quibus penitencie duricia mitigatur. The king's house denotes the holy church, and the clothes that were sent from this king's house to wind the ropes with denote the holy orisons that men sung in the holy church, and the holy sacraments that hallow men for the forgiveness of all sinners. Dear brethren, now you have heard the signification which I have given to you of this pit, and the meaning of the prophet, and what was meant by the ropes, and what by the cloths in which they were wound. Now hear what sort of things there were in this pit. There dwelt in it four kinds of reptiles that now destroy all this middle earth. In it dwell spotted adders that bear poison under their tongue ; black toads that have poison in their heart ; yellow frogs and crabs. Crabs are a kind of sea-fish, and this fish is of such a nature that the more it tries to swim forward with the water the more it swims backward ; and the old crab said to the young one why don't you swim forward in the sea as other fishes do, and it said : Dear mother, you swim before me, and teach me how I shall swim forward ; and she began to swim for- ward with the stream and then against it. The spotted adder denotes the spotted people that dwell in this world, and speak as fairly before their fellow Christians as if they would clasp them to their bosoms, and as soon as their backs are turned, twitch and pull them to pieces with evil words. Hii eciam sunt doctores &* falsi christiani. The men that thus beslander their fellow Chris- tians, have the name of Christians, although they are Christ's ene- mies and manslayers, for they slay their own soul and drag it into the everlasting torments of hell. The black toads that have the poison in their heart denote those rich men that have so much of worldly goods, and are unable to spare anything of their eating and drinking to do good therewith for the love of God Almighty, who has given it all to them ; but lay thereon as the toad does on the earth, that he may never fail to eat his fill, so afraid he is lest the earth may be wanting to him. This very wealth that thus weighs upon them turns to black poison, for through it they fall into those awful pains which no man ever could give us an ac- count of. Those yellow clothes denote them that adorn their person ; for the yellow cloth is the devil's noose. 1 Women thus at- 1 Some words seem to have been omitted in the original after the word "clapes." The meaning seems to be as follows : These yellow clothes (betoken women who go gaudily attired to render themselves objects of attraction), for the yellow cloth is the devil's halter. 392 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE tired may be called the devil's mousetrap, for then the men will come to the trap set for them with treacherous cheese and roast baits so that it shall smell sweet, and through the sweet smell of the cheese, they entice many a mouse to the trap. In the same way many of these women besmear themselves with blanchet, 1 which is the devil's soap, as they clothe themselves in yellow clothing, which is the devil's dress, and then look at themselves in the mirror, which is the devil's snare. Thus they do, to make themselves look fine, and to draw bad men to their homes, but in doing so they ruin their character. Now, dear brethren, for the love of God, shun the devil's mousetrap, and beware of being the spotted adder or the black toad or the yellow frog — from all which and from all sins, may the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost protect us without end, per omnia secula seculorum. Amen. The reader may well be astonished to find so much Latin in a sermon preached by a native preacher to a na- tive audience. But this was the custom of the age, and borrowed from the Norman clergy, many of whom, unable to speak English, often delivered their entire sermon in Latin. A passage from the Croyland History states that Gislebert, or Gilbert, one of the founders of the Univer- sity of Cambridge, used to employ Latin as well as French on such occasions. So Giraldus Cambrensis tells us that, in a progress which he made through Wales in 1186, to assist Archbishop Baldwin in preaching a new crusade for the delivery of the Holy Land, he was always most suc- cessful when he appealed to the people in a Latin sermon ; he asserts, indeed, that they did not understand a word of it, although it never failed to melt them into tears, and to make them come in crowds to take the cross. No doubt they were acted upon chiefly through their ears and their imaginations, and for the most part only supposed that they comprehended what they were listening to ; but it is probable that their self-deception was assisted by their catching a word or phrase here and there, the meaning of which they really understood. The Latin tongue must in those days have been heard in common life on a thou- sand occasions, from which it has now passed away. It was the language of all the learned professions, of law and physic as well as of divinity, in all their grades. It was in Latin that the teachers at the universities (many of whom, as well as of the ecclesiastics, were foreigners) de- 1 Blanchet, a kind of wheaten powder used by ladies as a cosmetic. " With blaunchette and other flour, To make him gwyther (whiter) of colour." — Robert of Brunne. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 393 livered their prelections in all the sciences, and that all the disputations and other exercises among the students were carried on. It was the same at all the monastic schools and other seminaries of learning. The number of persons by whom these various institutions were attended was very great ; they were of all ages from boyhood to advanced manhood; and poor scholars must have been found in every village, mingling with every class of the people, in some one or other of the avocations which they followed in the intervals of their attendance at the univer- sities, or after they had finished their education, from parish priests down to wandering beggars. La^amon's Brut. About a. d. 1205. The " Brut " is a versified chronicle of the legendary history of Britain. It begins with the destruction of Troy and the flight of ^Eneas, from whom came Brut, or Brutus, who laid the foundation of the British monarchy, and goes down to the reign of Athelstan. The author of this Chronicle is Lajamon, or Laweman, a priest residing at Emely (now called Areley), on the Severn, near Redstone in Worcestershire. His authorities, as he himself tells us, were three : " The English book that St. Bede made " (that is, Bede's Ecclesiastical History) ; " a Latin work by St. Albin and Austin," of whose historical writings nothing is known ; and a " book that a Frence clerk hight Wace made." Wace's Brut is in Norman-French. It contains 15,300 lines, which La3a- mon has expanded into 32,250. " The Englishman's additions are," says Mr. Marsh, " the finest parts of the work, almost the only parts, in fact, which can be held to possess any poetical merit." The language of La3amon belongs to that transition period in which the groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phraseology and grammar still existed, although gradually yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. We find in it, as in the later portion of the Saxon Chronicle, marked indications of a ten- dency to adopt those terminations and sounds which characterize a language in a state of change, and which are apparent also in some other cognate Conti- nental dialects. As showing the progress made in the course of two centuries in departing from the ancient grammatical forms, as found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, may be mentioned the use of a as an article ; the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminations a and an into e and en, as well as the disregard of in- flexions and genders ; the masculine forms given to neuter nouns in the plural ; the neglect of the feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and con- fusion between the definite and indefinite declensions ; the introduction of the preposition to before infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs and participles instead of strong ; the constant occurrence of en for on in the plurals of verbs, and frequent elision of the final e ; together with the uncertainty in the rule for the government of prepositions. La3amon preserves the old unrhymed alliterative versification, falling oc- casionally into the use of rhyme, which is, of course, due to Norman-French influence. There are two manuscripts of La3amon's Brut, the one written early in the thirteenth century, the other about half a century later. The earlier version is 27 394 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE in the Southern dialect, while the later has many Midland peculiarities. The following specimen is taken from near the end of this voluminous work, where the elder text only is preserved : A BRITISH VIEW OF ATHELSTAN's REIGN. pa tiden comen sone, to CadwaSlader kinge into Brutaine, per far he wunede mid Alaine kinge, pe wes of his cunne. Me dude him to understonde of al pisse londe ; hu ASelstan her com litSen, ut of Sex londen ; and hu he al Angle lond, sette on his agere hond ; and hu he sette moting, & hu he sette husting ; and hu he sette sciren, and makede f i& of deoren ; & hu he sette halimot, & hu he sette hundred and fa nomen of fan tunen, on Sexisce runen : and Sexis he gan kennen, fa nomen of pan monnen : and al me him talde, pa tiden of pisse londe. Wa wes Cadwaladere, pat he wes on liue. TRANSLATION. The tidings came soon to Cadwalader king into Britanny, where he was dwelling with Alan the king, who was of his kin. Men did him to understand all about this land ; how Athelstan had here embarked, coming out of Saxon parts ; and how he all England set on his own hand ; and how he called meetings, and organized hustings ; AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 395 and how he settled shires, and made law for game ; and how he appointed synods and how he set hundreds and the names of the towns in Saxon runes ; and in Saxish he was going to know the names of [British] men : and so they told him all the tidings of this land. Wo was to Cadwalader, that he was alive. Ormulum. The Ormulum consists of an imperfect series of Homilies, in alternate verses of eight and seven syllables, or in iambic verse of fifteen syllables, with a metri- cal point in the MS. after the eighth. It is wanting in alliteration and rhyme, and was probably written in imitation of some mediaeval Latin poems with which the writer was acquainted. The author was Orm, or Ormin, a canon regular of the Order of St. Augustine, and he called the poem after his own name, as he himself tells us in the opening : "piss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, Forrpi patt Orrm itt wrohhte. 1 ' Orm was a purist in orthography, and for the right pronunciation of his vowels he adopts a method of his own, and directs his readers to observe that the consonant is always doubled after a short vowel, and there only. . In his poem we find for the first time the word English in its mature form. La3amon has the forms englise, englis, anglis, anglisce ; but Orm has Enngliss, and still more frequently the fully-developed form Ennglissh. The author is lavish of con- sonants. Had his orthography been generally adopted, we would have had in English not only the mm and nn with which the German is studded, but many other double consonants which we do not now possess. How great a study Orm had made of this subject we are not left to gather from observation of his spelling, for he has emphatically called attention to it in the opening of his rule. HOW TO SPELL. And whase wilenn shall piss boc efft operr sipe writtenn himm bidde ice pat he't write rihht swa summ piss boc him teachepp and tatt he loke well patt he an bocstaff write twiggess eggwhaer poet itt uppo piss boc iss writen o patt wise loke well patt he't write swa, for he ne magg nohht elless on Ennglissh writenn rihht te word, patt wite he well to sope. 396 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE TRANSLATION. And whoso shall purpose to make another copy of this book, I beg him to write it exactly as this book directeth ; and that he look well that he write a lettre twice wherever upon this book it is written in that wise. Let him look carefully that he write it so, for else he can not write it correctly in English, that know he well for certain. The date of the Ormulum is not quite fixed. By most writers it is ascribed to a later date than La3amon's Brut. From the absence of Norman-French words, it seems to be much earlier. The simplicity of its language, almost as uninflected as Chaucer's, is due to its locality, as it was probably written in the neighborhood of Lincoln, where the East-Midland dialect was spoken, with a tolerably strong infusion of the Danish element. The following extract exhibits the peculiarities of the author's spelling : CHARACTER OF A GOOD MONK. Forr himm birrp beon full clene matin, and all wipputenn ahhte, Buttan patt mann himm findenn shall unnorne mete and wasde. And tar iss all patt eorplig ping patt minnstremann birrp aghenn Wipputenn cnif and shaspe and camb and nedle, giff he't geornepp. And all piss shall mann findenn himm and wel himm birrp itt gemenn ; For birrp himm nowwperr don pffiroff, ne gifenn itt ne sellenn. And himm birrp sefre standenn inn to lofenn Godd and wurrpen, And agg himm birrp beon fressh paerto bi daggess and by nihhtess ; And tat iss harrd and Strang and tor and hefig lif to ledenn, And forpi birrp wel clawwstremann onnfangenn mikell mede, Att hiss Drihhtin Allwaaldennd Godd, forr whamm he mikell swinnkepp. And all hiss herrte and all hiss lusst birrp agg beon towarrd heoffne, And himm birrp geornenn agg patt an hiss Drihhtin wel to cwemenn, Wipp daggsang and wipp uhhtennsang wipp messess and wipp beness, &c. TRANSLATION. For he ought to be a very pure man and altogether without property, AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 397 Except that he shall be found in simple meat and clothes. And that is all the earthly thing that minster-man should own, Except a knife and sheath and comb and needle, if he want it. And all this shall they find for him, and it is his duty to take care of it, For he may neither do with it, neither give it nor sell. And he must ever stand in (vigorously) to praise and worship God, And aye must he be fresh thereto by daytime and by nights ; And that's a hard and stiff and rough and heavy life to lead, And therefore well may cloister'd man receive a mickle meed At the hand of his Lord Allwielding God, for whom he mickle slaveth. And all his heart and his desire ought aye be toward heaven ; And he should yearn for that alone, his Master well to serve With day-time chant and chant at prime, with masses and with prayers, &c. " The poems of Layamon and Orm may be regarded as appertaining to the old Saxon literature. Layamon and Orm both cling to the old in different ways ; Layamon in his poetic form, Orm in his diction. Both also bear traces, in dif- ferent ways, of the earlier processes of that great change which the French was now working in the English language. The long story of the Brut is told in lines which affect the ancient style ; but the style is chaotic, and abounds in ac- cidental decorations, like a thing constructed out of ruins. In the Ormulum the regularity is perfect, but it is the regularity of the new style of versification, learnt from foreign teachers. The iambic measure sits admirably on the ancient diction ; for Orm, new as he is in his metre, is old in his grammar and vocabu- lary. The works differ as the men differed ; the one, a secular priest, has the country taste for an irregular poetry with alliteration and every other reverbera- tory charm ; the other, a true monk, carries his regularity into everything — ar- rangement, metre, orthography. He is an English-speaking Dane, but educated in a monastery that has already been ruled by a succession of French abbots." — Earle. The Ancren Riwle. There is also to be mentioned, together with the Brut of Layamon and the Ormulum, a work of considerable extent in prose which has been assigned to the same interesting period in the history of the language, the Ancren Riwle, that is, the Anchorites', or rather Anchoresses', Rule, being a treatise on the duties of the monastic life, written evidently by an ecclesiastic, and probably one in a position of eminence and authority, for the direction of three ladies to 398 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE whom it is addressed, and who, with their domestic servants or lay sisters, ap- pear to have formed the entire community of a religious house situated at Tarente (otherwise called Tarrant-Kaines, Kaineston, or Kingston) in Dorsetshire. In another part of this volume we have noticed that early English, when after a century and a half it reappeared in writing, exhibited a vast number of Dutch and Scandinavian words in familiar use, showing that they had long been current in the language. The few French words that gradually crept into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and such others as are found in Layamon's Brut, in which their number does not exceed one hundred and seventy, and in the Or- mulum, in which they are still less numerous, would lead us to infer that, if French words had become at all current in the spoken language, they were but little used in writing at the beginning of the thirteenth century. This, how- ever, depended entirely upon the locality, and the readers to whom it was ad- dressed. The Ancren Riwle, for instance, which belongs to the same age as the works of Layamon and Orm, but which was written for the special guidance of some pious nuns in Dorsetshire, and therefore in a dialect with which they were familiar, shows quite a large infusion of French words in addition to the many words of Dutch then current in the language, and which, being written in almost every instance the same or nearly so in early English as they are now in modern Dutch, indicate a great similarity of pronunciation, writing in those days being far more phonetic than it is at present. Without referring to the many words, especially verbs, which Dutch and the original Anglo-Saxon had in common, and which in early English assume the Dutch mode of orthography, we notice here the following : ANCREN RIWLE. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. binden binden to bind bitter bitter bitter breken breken to break buten buiten but, except caf kaf chaf cristendom Christendom Christendom cwellen kwellen to torment (to kill) delen deelen to divide delven delven to delve drinken drinken to drink ei; eiren ei ; eieren egg; eggs elc elk each engel engel angel grim grim severe habben hebben to have huren huren to hire idel ydel vain kakelen kakelen to cackle kannuk kanunnik canon keif kalf calf kerven kerven to cut, carve kneden kneden to knead kussen kussen to kiss laten laten to let leggen leggen to lay lenen leenen to lend leren leeren to learn, to teach AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 399 ANCREN RIWLE. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. lief lief dear (I would as lief) lof lof praise licham lichaam body lyf bf body (as in life-guard) lust lust longing desire lusten lusten to like meid meid maid men men some one menen meenen to mean merke merk mark milde mild mild missen missen to miss mooder moeder mother mot mot, moei must nagle nagel nail nimen nemen to take openien openen to open puffen puffen to blow ruwe ruw rough samen zamen together sherp sherp sharp schriven schryven to write ; to confess schrift schrift writing; confession seggen zeggen to say senden zenden to send setten zetten to put singen zingen to sing sitten zitten to sit smak smaak taste smaken smaken to taste smeren smeren to grease smiten smyten to throw ; smite speowen spuwen to spit spreden spreiden to spread stark sterk strong suster zuster sister tellen tellen to count treden treden to tread tun tuin farm ; town vallen vallen to fall varen varen to go; fare vel vel skin veol, veole veel j veele much; many vetten vetten to fatten vinden vinden to find vlesch vleesch flesh volk volk folk 4 oo ORIGINS OF THE ANCREN RIWLE. DUTCH. vorsaken verzaken vorstoppen verstoppen vorwerpen verwerpen vot voel waden waden wasschen wasschen wel wel weoreld wereld werpen werpen winnen winnen THE ENGLISH PEOPLE MODERN ENGLISH. to forsake to stop up to reject foot to wade to wash well world to throw to win Not less numerous are the French words that here make their appearance: ANCREN RIWLE. FRENCH. MODERN ENGLISH. acwiten acquitter to release andetted endette" endebted asaumple autorite exemple autorite" example authority best bite beast blamen Mamer to blame chast chaste chaste chastete chastien chastete" chdtier chastity to chastise chastiement chdiiment chastisement chaungement chere changement chere change cheer; countenance cherite counsail chariti conseil charity counsel crien crier to cry crune couronne crown crunien couronner to crown cwitaunce dame debonerte quittance dame from de"bonnaire payment lady kindness depeinten destruen dettes ddpeindre dhruire dettes to depict to destroy debts dettur de"biteur debtor duble double double entente entente meaning; intention feste fete feast fol fol foolish grace gref jugement kerchen grdce grief jugement old French cachier grace grief judgment to catch AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 401 ANCREN RIWLE. FRENCH. MODERN ENGLISH. large large large; liberal lescun lecon lesson. lettres lettres letters maister maitre master meistrie maitrise mastery- mercer mercier merchant merci merci mercy messager messager messenger mesure mesure measure miracle miracle miracle neoces noces wedding noble noble noble noise noise noise; quarrel ordre ordre religious order paien payer to pay parais paradis paradise parlur parloir parlor parten partir to depart passen passer to pass; surpass passiun passion suffering; passion patriark patriarche patriarch peintunge peinture painting person personne person preisen old French preiser to praise prechen pricker to preach preoven prouver to prove pris prix price; praise prophete prophete prophet purgatorie purgatoire purgatory raunsun rancon ransom reisun raison reason religiun religion religion religius religieux monk ; nun remedte remede remedy riwle regie rule saluz salut salvation seint saint saint semblaunt semblant appearance serven servir to serve sot sot stupid spuse epouse spouse; bride striven old French estriver to strive sukurs secours help temptaciun tentation temptation testament testament testament tresor tre"sor treasure turnement tournoi tourney 402 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE A few sentences from that part of the book which treats of domestic mat- ters will afford a sufficient specimen of this curious work. THE NUNS ARE TO KEEP NO BEAST BUT A CAT. Je, mine leoue sustren, ne schulen habben no best, bute kat one. Ancre pet haueS eihte p uncheS bet husewif, ase Marthe was, fen ancre '■ ne none wise ne mei heo beon Marie, mid griSfulnesse of heorte. Vor peonne mot heo penchen of pe kues foddre, and of heorde-monne huire, oluhnen pene heiward, warien hwon me punt hire, & ^elden, pauh, pe hermes. Wat Crist, pis is lodlich ping hwon me makeiS mone in tune of ancre eihte. pauh, jif eni mot nede habben ku, loke pet heo none monne ne eilie, ne ne hermie • ne pet hire pouht ne beo nout peron i-uestned. Ancre ne ouh nout to habben no ping pet drawe utward hire heorte. None cheffare ne driue }e. Ancre pet is cheapild, heo cheapeS hire soule pe chepmon of helle. Ne wite 3e nout in oure huse of ofter monnes pinges, ne eihte, ne cloSes • ne nout ne underuo je pe chirche uestimenz, ne pene caliz, bute -jif strenctSe hit makie, otier muchel eie ■ vor of swuche witunge is i-kumen muchel vuel ofte- siSen. WiSinnen ower woanes ne lete }e nenne mon slepen. Jif muchel neode mid alle makeS breken ower hus, pe hwule pet hit euer is i-broken, loke pet }e habben perinne mid ou one wummon of clene Hue deies & nihtes. TRANSLATION. Ye shall not possess any beast, my dear sisters, except only a cat. An anchoress that hath cattle appears as Martha was, a bet- ter housewife than anchoress ; nor can she in any wise be Mary with peacefulness of heart. For then she must think of the cow's fodder, and of the herdsman's hire, flatter the heyward, defend herself when her cattle is locked up in the pound, and moreover pay the damage. Christ knoweth, it is an odious thing when peo- ple in the town complain of anchoresses' cattle. If, however, any one must needs have a cow, let her take care that she neither annoy nor harm any one, and that her own thoughts be not fixed thereon. An anchoress ought not to have any thing that draweth her heart outward. Carry ye on no traffic. An anchoresse that is a buyer and seller selleth her soul to the chapman of hell. Do not take charge of other men's property in your house, nor of their cattle, nor their clothes, neither receive under your care the church vestments, nor the chalice, unless force compel you, or great fear, for oftentimes much harm has come from such care- taking. Let no men sleep within your walls. If, however, great necessity should cause your house to be used, see that as long as it is used, ye have therein with you a woman of unspotted life day and night. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 403 English Version of Genesis and Exodus. Nothing is known of the author of this interesting version which was writ- ten about the year 1250, and comprises 2,536 verses. The dialect is believed to be the East-Midland of South Suffolk. The following lines refer to the selling of Joseph : & Se chapmen skiuden here fare, in to Egipte ledden Sat ware ; wfS Putifar fce kinges stiward, he maden swiSe bigetel forward ; so michel fe Sor is hem told ; he hauen him bogt, he hauen sold. translation. The chapmen hastened their departure, into Egypt led that chattel ; with Potiphar the king's steward, they made very profitable bargain ; so much money there is them told ; these have him bought, and those have sold. The author thus concludes his poem : God schilde hise sowle fro helle bale, t5e made it Bus on engel tale ! and he Sat tSise lettres wrot, God him helpe weli mot, and berge is sowle fro sorge & grot of helle pine, cold & hot ! and alle men, f5e it heren wilen, God leue hem m his blisse spilen among engeles & seli men, wiSuten ende in reste ben, and luue & pais us bi-twen, and god so graunte, amen, amen ! translation. God shield his soul from the tortures of hell, that shaped it thus in English narrative ! and he that these letters wrote may God help him effectually, and preserve his soul from sorrow and tears, and of the pains of hell, cold and hot. 1 and all men who are willing to hear, 1 Cold & hot, the two extreme punishments in hell. Those in eternal per- dition had to endure alternately icy coldness and fiery heat. — See Measure for Measure, iii, I. 122. 404 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE may God grant them in His bliss to play among the angels and the blessed, and without end be in rest, with us between love and peace and so may God grant. Amen ! The Owl and the Nightingale. This facetious poem is attributed to Nicholas de Guildford, who is men. tioned in the poem itself as living at Portesham in Dorsetshire. The precise date of the piece is a matter of dispute, some ascribing it to the reign of Henry III, and others to that of Edward I ; but it is certainly not later than the time of Henry III. The poem is written in the dialect of the South of England, but is free from any of those broad provincialisms which characterize any particular county. The subject is a bitter altercation between the owl and the nightingale, such as might be supposed to arise out of the neighborhood of two creatures not only unlike in their tastes and habits, but unequally endowed with gifts and accom- plishments. The following picture of the owl's attitude as she listens to the nightingale's song, will afford some taste of the humor as well as of the diction of this poem, which is complete in 1,794 lines : pos word a3af pe nijtingale, and after pare longe tale, he songe so lude and so scharpe, ri}e so me grulde schille harpe. pes hule luste pider ward, and hold hire ejen oper ward, and sat to suolle and i bolje, also ho hadde on frogge i suol3e. TRANSLATION. These words returned the nightingale, and after that there long tale, he sang so loud and so sharp, as if one trilled a shilly harp. This owl she listened thitherward, and held her eyen otherward ; and sat all swollen and out-blown as if she had swallowed a frog. The Story of Havelok the Dane. The Lay of Havelok the Dane, an Anglo-Danish story, which contains the legend of the origin of the English town of Grimsby is in its present form a translation from a French romance entitled " Le Lai de Aveloc," written in the first half of the twelfth century, and probably founded upon an Anglo-Saxon original. Of the English translator, who wrote in an East-Midland dialect, we know nothing. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 405 The following extract, showing how Grim became the founder of Grimsby is taken from The Ancient English Romance of Havelokthe Dane," which con- tains 748 verses, and was written before the year 1300 : In Humber Grim bigan to lende, in Lindeseye, rif at the norf ende, fer sat is ship up on the sond, but Grim it drou up to the lond ; and fere he made a lite cote, to him and to hise fiote. Bigan he fere for to erf e a litel hus to maken of erf e ; and for fat Grim fat place aute, fe stede of Grim the name laute, so fat Grimesbi callef alle that fer-offe speken alle, and so shulen men callen it ay, | bituene f is and domesday. TRANSLATION. In Humber Grim began to land, in Lindsey, right at the north end ; there sate his ship up on the sand, and Grim it drew up to the land ; and there he made a little hut, for himself and for his crew. In order to dwell there, he began to make of earth a little house ; and forasmuch as Grim owned that house-place, the homestead caught from Grim its name, so that all who speak of it call it Grimsby; and so shall they call it always between this and Doomsday. " As this poem is associated with Lincolnshire, we might expect to find many Danish words in it. But the number of those that can be clearly distinguished as such, is small. Unless it be the verb to call, there is no example in the quo- tation above. It can hardly be doubted that the Danish population which oc- cupied so much of the Anglian districts must have considerably modified our language. Their influence would probably have been greater, but for the cruel harrying of the North by William the Conqueror. The affinity of the Danish with the Anglian would make it easy for the languages to blend, and the same cause renders it difficult for us to distinguish the Danish contributions." — Earle. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle. This versified Chronicle, a narrative of British and English affairs from the time of Brutus to the end of the reign of Henry III, was written about the year 1300, and affords a good specimen of English at that early period in the shires bordering on North Wales. All that is known of the author is that he was a monk of the abbey of Gloucester. His work in the earlier part of it may be considered a free translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin History, but is altogether a very rude and lifeless composition. " This rhyming chronicle," says Warton, " is totally destitute of art or imagination. The author has clothed the fables of Monmouth in rhyme, which have often a more poetical air in Mon- 4 o6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE mouth's prose.'' Tyrwhitt refers to Robert of Gloucester as a proof of the fact that the English language at that time had already acquired a strong tincture of French. The author is the first English chronicler who stops to explain how it came that French, as well as English, was spoken in England ; and in doing so, he uses for the first time the word " Saxon," in that unhistorical sense which has led to so much error and confusion. He complains that there is no land that holdeth not to its kindly speech save England only ; and notices that the native speech of England was cut up into an endless variety of dialects, while the strange speech, which had come in with the Normans, was uniform and spoken after one fashion only. 1 His Chronicle commences as follows : Engelond ys a wel god lond, ich wene of eche lond best, Yset in pe ende of pe world, as al in pe West. pe see gop hym al a boute, he stont as an yle. Here fon heo durre pe lasse doute, but hit be porw gyle Of folc of }>e selue lond, as me hap yseye wyle. From Soup, to Norp he is long eighte hondred myle ; And foure hondred myle brod from Est to West to wende, Amydde po lond as yt be, and noght as by pe on ende. Plente me may in Engelond of all gods yse, Bute folc yt forgulte oper yeres pe worse be. For Engelond ys ful ynow of fruyt and of tren, Of wodes and of parkes, pat joye yt ys to sen ; Of foules and of bestes, of wylde and tame al so ; Of salt fysch and eche fresch, and fayre ryueres per to ; Of welles swete and colde ynow, of lesen and of mede ; Of seluer or and of gold, of tyn and of lede ; Of stel, of yrn, and of bras ; of god corn gret won ; Of whyte and of wolle god, betere ne may be non. TRANSLATION. England is a very good land, I ween of every land (the) best ; set in the end of the world, as in the utter west. The sea goeth it all about ; it standeth as an isle. Their foes they need the less fear, except it be through guile of folk of the same land, as has been seen sometime. From south to north it is eight hundred mile long ; and four hundred mile broad to go from east to west, that is, through the middle of the country and not as by the one end. Plenty of all goods men may in England see, unless the people are in fault or the years are bad. For England is full enough of fruit and of trees ; of woods and of parks, that joy it is to see ; of fowls and of beasts, wild and tame alike ; of salt fish and eke fresh, and fair rivers thereto ; of wells sweet and cold enow, of pastures and of meads ; of silver ore and of gold, of tin and of lead; of steel, of iron, and of brass; of good corn great store ; of wheat and of good wool, better may be none. 1 See page 253. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 407 Robert Manning, also called Robert of Brunne. This author, born at Brunne or Bourne in Lincolnshire within a few miles of Rutland, has been called the patriarch of the New English. In 1303 he be- gan to compile the Handlyng Synne, a work which, more than any former one, foreshadowed the road that English literature was to tread from that time for- ward. Like most other lays of King Edward I's time, it was a translation from a French poem, Manuel des Pechiez, and consists chiefly of a series of tales which may be considered as the most ancient specimens of the New Language. The English poem differs from the others that have gone before it in its diction ; for it contains a most scanty proportion of these Teutonic words that were soon to drop out of speech, and a most copious proportion of words and phrases bor- rowed from the French. Indeed, there are so many foreign words in his poem that we should set the writer fifty years later than his true date, had he not him- self written it down : " A pousynd and pre hundrede and pre In pat tyme turnede y pys On Englysshe out of Frankys." In this book we catch our first glimpse of many a word and idiom that was destined to live forever, and as the writer informs us that it was for the unedu- cated that he wrote this Handlyng Synne, it shows how the different tides of speech flowing from Southern, western, and northern shires alike met in the neighborhood of Rutland, and how all helped to shape the New English. Rob- ert of Brunne had his own mother-tongue to start with — the Anglo-Danish dia- lect mixed with Norman French ; and how much has been the influence of that mixture, as spoken in the neighborhood of Rutland, upon the modern English, may be inferred from the remark of Mr. Latham, that " the laboring men of Huntingdon and Northampton speak what is usually called better English be- cause their vernacular dialect is most akin to that of the standard writers." It will be noticed that the author commonly writes y instead of i, a custom which lasted for two hundred years after. .... Nopyng is to man so dere, 3 As womanys love yn gode manere. A gode woman ys mannys blyss, When hyr love ryght and stedfast ys. per ys no solace undyr hevene, 4 Of al pat a man may nevene 6 pat shuld a man so moche glew 6 As a gode woman pat lovep trew. Ne derer ys none yn Goddy's hurde 7 pan a chaste woman wip lovely wurde. 8 3, dear. 4, heaven. 5, name. 6, delight. 7, family. 8, words. Richard Hampole. A hermit of the order of St. Augustine who wrote toward the year 1350, and contributed much to the growth and popularity of English poetry at that time. His poem, The Prickeof Conscience, of which the following is an extract, possesses a special interest from its being expressly stated to be written for those who could understand English only : " To lewed men of Yngelonde pat konnep nopynge but Inglys unperstonde.' - 4 o8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE He thus describes heaven : .... per is lyf wipoute ony dep and per is youpe wipoute ony elde ; * and per is alle manere wephe to welde ; 2 and per is reste wipoute ony travaille, and per is pees witpoute ony stryfe and per is alle manere lykynge of lyf, and per is bryght somer 3 ever to se 4 and per is never wynter in pat countre, and per is more worshipe and honour, pan ever hadde kynge other 6 emperour. And per is grete melodee of Aungeles songe, and per is preysyng hem amonge. And per is alle manere frendshipe pat may be, and per is evere perfect love and charite. And per is wisdom wipoute folye 6 and per is honeste wipoute vilenye; 7 and pese a man may joyes of hevene call. And yutte 8 the most sovereyn joye of alle, is pe syght of Goddes bryght face in wham restep alle manere grace. I, age. 2, wield. 3, summer. 4, see. 5, or. 6, folly. 7, villainy. 8, yet. The following lines from the prologue to his " Speculum vita: " or " Mirrour of lyf," written about the year 1350, have a historical importance from their positively stating that, at that period, English was generally understood. In Inglys tounge y schal yow telle, }if* ye so long wip me wyl duelle, ne 3 Latyn wil y speke ne 4 waste bot 6 Inglys pat men uses maste, 6 for pat ys youre kynde 7 langage, pat ye hafe here most of usage ; pat can ech man unperstonde pat is born in Inglonde. For pat langage ys most schewed, 8 als wel mowe' lerep 10 as lewed. Latyn, als y trowe " canne ls nane bot po 13 pat hap hit 14 of schole tane; 15 som can Frankes and Latyn pat hanes 16 used courte and duellt" pereyn; and som canne o Latyn aparty pat canne Frankes bot febely and som unperstondep Inglys pat noper 18 canne Latyn ne Frankys. Bot lered and lewed, aide and younge alle unperstondep Inglysche tounge. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 409 parefore y halde it maste syker 19 fon 80 to shew )>at langage fat ilk" a man konne, and for all lewed men namely fat can no maner of clergy ** to kenne fanne what ys maste nede ; for clerkes canne bafe 83 se and rede in divers bokes of Holy writt how fey schul lyve, yf fay loke hit. parefore y wylle me holly ** halde to fat langage fat Inglys ys calde. 25 MSS. Bodl. 218, p. 217, <*P Halliwell. I, if. 2, dwell. 3, neither. 4, nor. 5, but. 6, most. 7, natural. 8, used. 9, among. 10, learned, n, believe. 12, knows. 13, those. 14.it. 15, taken. 16, have. 17, dwelled. 18, neither. 19, certain. 20, then. 21, every. 22, knowledge. 23, both. 24, wholly. 25, called. Laurence Minot. A. D. 1352. Laurence Minot lived and wrote about the middle of the fourteenth century. He composed eleven poems in celebration of the following battles and exploits of King Edward III : The Battle of Halidon Hill (1333) ; the taking of Ber- wick ; two poems on Edward's expedition to Brabant (1339) ; the Sea-Fight of Swine at the mouth of the West Scheldt (1340) ; the Siege of Tournay (1340) ; the Landing of Edward at La Hogue (1346) ; the Siege of Calais (1346) ; the Battle of Neville's Cross (1346) ; the Sea-Fight with the Spaniards off Winchel- sea (1350) ; and the Capture of Guisnes (1352). These poems, all in the Northumbrian dialect, are remarkable, if not for any poetical qualities of a high order, yet for a precision and neatness, as well as a force of expression, previously unexampled in English verse. There is a true martial tone and spirit too in them, which reminds us of the best old English heroic ballads, while it is better sustained, and accompanied with more refine- ment of style, than it usually is in the popular anonymous compositions of the time. As a sample we transcribe the one on Edward's expedition to Brabant, omitting the prologue which is in a different measure : Edward, oure cuwzly king, In Braband has his woning, 1 With mani cumly knight ; And in fat land, trewly to tell, Ordanis he still forto dwell To time 2 he think to fight. Now God, fat es of mightes maste, 3 Grant him grace of fe Haly Gaste, His heritage to win ! And Mari moder, of mercy fre, Saue oure king and his menjd* Fro sorow and schame and syn ! 28 4 io ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE pus in Braband has he bene, Whare he bifore was seldom sene, Forto prone paire iapes ; 6 Now no langer wil he spare, Bot vnto Fraunce fast will he fare, To confort him with grapes. Furp he ferd into France, God saue him fro mischance And all his cuwpany ! pe nobill due of Braband With him went into fat land, Redy to lif or dy. Pan pe riche fioure-de-lice 6 Wan pare ful litill prise, Fast he fled for ferde ; pe right aire of pat cuntr^ Es cumen, 7 with all his knightes fre, To schac him by pe berd. Sir Philip pe Valayse, 8 Wit his men in po dayes, To batale had he thoght ; 9 He bad his men pam puruay With-owten lenger delay, Bot he ne held it noght. He broght folk ful grete wone, 10 Ay seuyn oganis 11 one, pat ful wele wapnid were ; Bot sone whe[n] he herd ascry 18 pat king Edward was nere parby, pan durst he noght cum nere. In pat morni[n]g fell a myst, And when oure I[n]gliss men it wist, It changed all paire chere ; Oure king vnto God made his bone, 13 And God sent him gude confort sone, pe weder wex ful clere. Oure king and his men held pe felde Stalwortly, with spere and schelde, And thoght to win his right, With lordes, and with knightes kene And oper doghty men bydene, 14 pat war ful frek" to fight. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 411 When sir Philip of France herd tell pat king Edward in feld walld 16 dwell, pan gayned him no gle ; 17 He traisted of no better bote, 18 Bot both on hors and on fote He hasted him to fie. It semid he was ferd for strokes, When he did fell his grete okes Obout 19 his pauilyoune; Abated was fan all his pride, For langer fare durst he noght bide, His bost was broght all doune. pe king of Berne 80 had cares colde, pat was ful hardy and bolde A stede to vmstride, 21 pe king als 38 of Nauerne, 23 War f aire feld ** in f e ferene, paire heuiddes 28 forto hide. And leues 86 wele, it es no lye, pe felde hat 87 Flema^grye 23 pat king Edward was in, With princes fat war stif ande bolde, And dukes fat war doghty tolde 29 In batayle to bigin. pe princes, fat war riche on raw, 30 Gert nakers strike 31 and truwzpes blaw, And made mirth at f aire might ; Both alblast ** and many a bow War redy railed 33 opon a row, And ful frek forto fight. Gladly f ai gaf mete and drink, So fat fai suld fe better swink, 34 pe wight 35 men fat far ware. Sir Philip of Fraunce fled for dout, And hied him hame with all his rout; Coward, God giff him care ! For fare fan had fe lely flowre Lorn all halely 36 his honowre, pat sogat fled 37 for ferd ; Bot oure king Edward come ful still, 38 When fat he trowed no harm him till, 39 And keped him in f e berde. 40 1, dwelling. 2, fill the time. 3, most of the might. 4, followers. 5, jeers. 6, fleur-de-lis. 7, come. 8, Philip VI, de Valois, King of France. 9, informed 412 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE his men in those days that he had a design to fight. 10, number. II, against. 12, report. 13, prayer, request. 14, besides. 15, were full eager. 16, would (was dwelling). 17, then no glee, or joy, was given him. 18, he trusted to no better expedient. 19, about. 20, Bohemia. 21, bestride. 22, also. 23, Na- varre. 24, were fairly frightened. 25, heads. 26, believe. 27, was called. 28, the village of La Flamengrie. 29, reckoned. 30, richly clad in a row. 31. caused timbals to be struck. 32, arblast, or crossbow. 33, placed. 34, should the better work. 35, stout. 36, lost wholly. 37, got put to flight. 38, came back quietly at his ease. 39, when he perceived there was no harm intended him. 40, and caught him by the beard. William Langland. It has undoubtedly been noticed that Minot's verses are thickly sprinkled with what is called alliteration, or the repetition of words having the same com- mencing letter, either immediately after one another, or with the intervention only of one or two other words, generally unemphatic or of subordinate impor- tance. Alliteration, which we have found there combined with rhyme, was in an earlier stage of English poetry employed as the substitute for that recurrence of like beginnings serving the same purpose, which at a later period was accom- plished by like endings, that is, by rhyme. To the English of the period before the conquest, until its very latest stages, rhyme was unknown, and down to the tenth century English verse appears to have known no other ornament except that of alliteration. Hence, naturally, even after the practice of rhyme had been borrowed from the Norman writers, the native poetry retained for a time more or less of its original habit. Thus, in Layamon we find alliterative and rhyming couplets intermixed ; in other cases, as in Minot, we have the rhyme only bespangled with alliteration. At this date, in fact, the difficulty probably would have been to avoid alliteration in writing verse ; all the old customary phraseologies of poetry had been molded upon that principle ; and indeed al- literative expression has in every age, and in many other languages as well as English, had a charm for the popular ear, so that it has always largely prevailed in proverbs and other such traditional forms of words ; nor is it by any means altogether discarded as an occasional embellishment of composition whether in verse or in prose. But there is one poetical work of the fourteenth century, of considerable extent, and in some respects of remarkable merit, in which the verse is without rhyme, and the system of alliteration is almost as regular as what we find in the poetry of the times before the conquest. This is the famous vision of Piers the Ploughman, or, as the subject is expressed at full length in the Latin title, Visio Willielmi de Petro Ploughman, that is, " The Vision of William concerning Piers or Peter the Ploughman." According to tradition, the author of this poem, William Langland, Long- land, or Langley, was a native of Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. He must have been born about the year 1332, and have died about 1400. He is supposed to have been educated near the Malvern Hills (Worcestershire), where he com- posed the first version of his poem shortly after the time of the great plague which ravaged England, A. D. 1361-1362. About the year 1377 he was living in London, where he wrote his second version of the poem, extending it to three times its former length. Subsequently he returned to the West of England, and again re-wrote his poem, with various additions and alterations, between 1380 and 1390. The work is distributed into twenty sections, or passus, as he calls them. Each passus forms a separate vision, so that the work in reality is not so much one poem as a succession of poems. The general subject may be said to be the same with that of Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," the exposition of the impediments and temptations which beset the crusade of this our mortal life ; and the method, too, like Bunyan's, is AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 413 the allegorical ; but the spirit of the poetry is not so much picturesque, or even descriptive, as satirical. Vices and abuses of all sorts come in for their share of the exposure and invective ; but the main attack throughout is directed against the corruptions of the church, and the hypocrisy and worldliness, the ignorance, indolence, and sensuality, of the ecclesiastical orders. To this favorite theme the author constantly returns with new affection and sharper zest from any less high matter which he may occasionally take up. Hence it has been commonly assumed that he must have himself belonged to the ecclesiastical profession, that he was probably a priest or monk. And his " Vision " has been regarded not only as mainly a religious poem, but as almost a puritanical and Protestant work, although produced nearly two centuries before either Protestantism or Puritan- ism was ever heard of. There is nothing, however, of anti-Catholicism, properly so called, in Langland, either doctrinal or constitutional ; and even the anti- clerical spirit of his poetry is not more decided than what is found in the writ- ings of Chaucer, and the other popular literature of the time. The following extract is from the original poem, the dialect of which is Southern with Midland peculiarities : {From the earliest version of " The Vision of William concerning Piers the Ploughman.'*} Prologus. In A somer sesun • whon softe 1 was pe sonne, I schop me in-to a schroud • A scheep as I were ; 8 In Habite of an Hermite 3 vn-holy of werkes, 4 Wende I wydene 6 in pis world ■ wondres to here. Bote in a Mayes Morwnynge • on Maluerne hulles 6 Me bi-fel a ferly • A Feyrie, me pouhte ; 7 I was weori of wandringe 8 ■ and wente me to reste Vndur a brod 9 banke • bi a Bourne syde, 10 And as I lay and leonede " • and lokede on he watres, I slumberde in A slepyng • hit sownede so murie. 18 penne gon I Meeten • A Meruelous sweuene, 13 pat I was in A Wildernesse ■ wuste I neuer where, And as I beo-heold in-to J>e Est • an-hei} to pe sonne, 14 I sauh a Tour on A Toft 15 • tritely I-maket ; 16 A Deop Dale bi-neope • A dungun per-Inne, With deop dich and derk " • and dredful of siht. 18 A Feir feld 19 ful of folk • fond I per bi-twene, Of alle maner of men • pe mene and pe riche, Worchinge and wondringe • as pe world askep. Suame putte« hem 20 to pe plou} • & pleiden hem ful seldene, 81 In Eringe and in Sowynge 22 • swonken ful harde, 23 pat monie of peos wasturs • In Glotonye distruen. 24 And su»zme puttew hem to pruide • apparayldew hem p^-after, In Cuntinauwce 25 of clopiwge • queinteliche de-Gyset ; 26 To preyere and to penaunce • putten heom monye, 27 For loue of vr lord ■ liueden ful harde, 29 In Hope for to haue • Heuene-riche blisse ; S9 As Ancres and Hermytes • pat holdep hem in heore Celles, 30 Coueyte not in Cuntre • to carien a-boute, 31 For non likerous lyflode 32 • heore licam to plese. 33 414 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE And suwme chosen Chaffare 34 ■ to cheeuen ]>e bettre, 35 As hit seme]> to vre siht • ]>at suche men scholden ; And suwme Murfhes to maken • as Munstrals cunne, 36 And gete gold wif here gle 37 • giltles, I trowe 38 Bote Iapers and Iangelers 39 • Iudas Children, Founden hem Fantasyes • and fooles hem maaden, And habbep wit at heor wille • to worchen 3if hem luste. 40 pat Poul prechef of hem 41 • I dar not preouen heere ; Qui loquitur turpiloquium ■ Hee is Luciferes hyne. 42 Bidders ** and Beggers ■ faste a-boute eoden, 44 Til heor Bagges & heore Balies • vreren bratful I-crowmet; 45 Feynederc hew 46 for heore foode • fou^ten atte ale; 47 In Glotonye, God wot • gon heo to Bedde, And ryseth vp wif ribaudye 48 • pis Roberdes knaues; 49 Sleep and Sleujpe 50 • suwef hem euere. 61 Pilgranes and Palmers • Plihten hem to-ged«-es 68 For to seche seint Ieme 53 • and seintes at Roome ; Wenten forf> in heore wey M • v/itA mony wyse tales, And hedden leue to ly?en 66 • al heore lyf aftir. Ermytes on an hep 6 • wi}> hokide staues, 57 Wenten to Walsyngham ■ & here wenchis aftir ; 68 Grete lobres & longe 69 • fat loJ> weore to swynke, Clofeden hem in Copes • to beo knowen for brejwen ; 60 And su#zme schopen hem 61 to hermytes • heore ese to haue. 63 I Font \ere Freres 63 • all f>e Foure Ordres, 64 Prechinge f>e peple ■ for proiyt of heore wombes, 65 Glosynge j>e Gospel 68 • as hem good like]', 67 For Couetyse of Copes 68 ■ Construe)) hit ille; 69 For monye of f>is Maistres 70 • mowe» clof>e# hem at lyking, 71 For Moneye & heore Marchau;zdie 72 ■ meetera ofte toged^re. Seffe charite hap be chapmon 73 and cheef to schriuerc 74 lordes, Mony ferlyes han bi-falle 75 • in a fewe ^eres. But holychirche bi-ginne • holde bet to-gedere, pe moste Mischeef on molde 76 • mountef> vp faste. ])er prat him-self mihte • a-soylen hem alle 79 Of Falsnesse of Fastinge • and of vouwes I-broken. 80 pe lewede Men likede him wel • and leeuep his speche, 81 And comen vp knelynge • and cusseden 82 his Bulle; He bonchede hem -with his Breuet 83 • & blered heore ei^en, 84 And rauhte -with his Ragemon 86 • Ringes and Broches. I, mild, warm. 2, I put myself into (rough) clothing, as if I were a shep- herd. 3, The shepherd's dress resembled a hermit's. 4, the epithet unholy seems to express the author's opinion of hermits — of those who roamed about instead of staying in their cells. 5, I went forth in the world. 6, Malvern Hills. 7, There befell to me a wonder, of fairy origin it seemed to me. 8, worn out with wandering. 9, broad. 10, by the side of a stream. II, leaned. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 415 12, it sounded so pleasant. 13, then did I dream a marvelous dream. 14, and as I looked eastward, on high, toward the sun. 15, I saw a tower on elevated ground ; this tower is the abode of truth ; the dungeon in the valley is the abode ofsatan. 16, handsomely built. 17, dark. 18, to behold. 19, the Fairfield is the world. 20, put them. 21, played very seldom. 22, ploughing and sowing. 23, worked very hard to earn. 24, what money these wasters with gluttony destroy. 25, countenance. 26, curiously disguised. 27, many put themselves ; are engaged in. 28, lived very strictly. 29, the bliss of the kingdom of heaven. 30, that keep in their cells. 31, to wander about. 32, dainty living. 33, to please their body. 34, chap fare ; whence the English word cheap ; traffic, peddling. 35, so as better to achieve their end. 36, and some are skilled to make merriment as minstrels. 37, and get gold with their glee. 38, guiltless, I believe. 39, but jesters and jugglers. 40, found out fancies for themselves and made fools of themselves, and yet have they wit at their command to work if it pleased them. 41, that Paul preacheth of them. 42, the text of Paul alluded to is, " Qui non laborat non manducet" (2 Thess. iii, 10) ; but the poet dares not quote it, because every speaker of evil against another is a servant of Lucifer. 43, petitioners. 44, went. 45, with their bags and their bellies crammed full. 46, played the hypocrite. 47, atte alle = often ale = at \en ale, at the ale ; over their cups ; ale, an ale-house, as in Launce's speech in Two Gentlemen of Ve- rona, ii, 5, " go to the ale with a Christian." 48, rise with ribaldry, 49, pis, these. The Robert's men, or Roberdesmen, were lawless vagabonds. In the Statutes of 5 Edward III, t. xiv, a class of malefactors, guilty of robbery and murder, are called Roberdesmen. 50, sloth. 51, pursue them always. 52, gather them together. 53, Seint Ieme, St. James of Compostella in Gallicia. Pilgrim- ages to Rome and Compostella were then much in vogue. In England, the most famous place of pilgrimage was Walsingham in Norfolk. 54, they went forth on their way. 55, and had leave to lie. 56, in a crowd. 57, with hooked staffs. 58, followed by their sweethearts. 59, great big lubbers that were loath to work. 60, clothed in capes to be known as friars. 61, and some made them- selves hermits. 62, so as to have their ease. 63, I found there friars. 64, the four orders of friars were the Franciscans, Augustines, Dominicans, and Car- melites. See note I page 425. 65, their bellies. 66, commenting on the GospeL 67, just as they liked. 68, covetousness of rich clothing. 69, con- strued it their own way. 70, many of these gentlemen. 71, may dress as they like. 72, money and their merchandise often go together. 73, chapmon, ped- lar. The friars, instead of exercising charity, went about selling indulgences. See Chaucer's description of the Frere in his Prologue. 74, confess. 75, many wonders have happened. 76, on earth. 77, there preached a pardoner. See Chaucer's Prologue. 78, brought forth a bull. Bulls were so called from the seals attached, the round official seal of stamped lead attached to the document being called bulla from its roundness. 79, might absolve them all. 80, broken vows. 81, lewd men believed him, and liked his words. 82, kissed. 83, he banged them with his brevet — that is, thrust it in their faces. 84, bleared, blinded their eyes — that is, cajoled them. 85, Ragemon, catalogue, list. The full expression is Ragman Roll. The Ragman Roll was a document with many seals ; here used of the papal bull. Sir John Maundeville. This author, says Hakluyt, " borne in the Towne of S. Albans, was so well given to the study of learning from his childhood, that he seemed to plant a good part of his felicitie in the same ; for he supposed that the honour of his birth would nothing availe him, except he could render the same more honour- able by his knowledge. Having therefore well grounded himselfe in Religion, by reading the Scriptures, he applied his Studies to the Art of Physicke, a Pro- fession worthy a noble Wit ; but amongst other things, he was ravished with a 416 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE mightie desire to see the greater parts of the World,' such as Asia and Africa. Having therefore provided all things necessary for his journey, he departed from his Countrey in the Yeere of Christ 1322 ; and returned home after the space* of 34 Yeeres, and was then knowen to a very fewe. Still he was the chief Traveller of his time, having been 33 degrees, 16 minutes, Southern Latitude, and 62 de- grees, 10 minutes, Northern. He mentions one, that travail'd round the Globe, which he had heard of when he was young : this probably inspired him with an early Passion for Travell. He was of a Family that came into England with the Conqueror, and was a Man of Substance. He was a conscientious good man, as appears from several instances in his Book, particularly where he says that the Sultan of Egypt would have married him to a great Prince's Daughter, if he would have chang'd his Religion, and that he refus'd. Being arrived again in England, and having seene the wickednes of that Age, he gave out this Speech : ' In our time, said he, it may be spoken more truly then of olde, that Vertue is gone, the Church is under foote, the Clergie is in errour, the Devill raigneth, and Simonie beareth the sway.' &c. He died at Leege, in the Yeere 1371, the 17 day of November, being there buried in the Abbie of the Order of the Galielmites. On his tombstone are found these Words in French : Vos ki paseis sor mi, pour V amour Deix, p rotes par mi ; that is ' Ye that pas over me, for the love of God, pray for me.' " The first copy of his Voiage and Travaile, addressed to King Edward III, bore the following inscription, partly in French, partly in Latin : " A tres noble Prince Monsieur Edward de Wyndesore, roy de Engleterre et de Fraunce, pat Monsieur John de Maundeville autour suisdit. Principi excellentissime , pre cunctis mortalibus precipue venerando, domino Fdwardo, divina procidentia Fran* corum et Anglorum regi serenissimo. Hibernice domino, Aquitania duci, mare ac ejus insulis occidentalibus dominanti, enfamie et ernatui, universorumque arma gerentium tutori, ac probitatis et strenuitalis exemplo ; principi quoque invicto, mirabilis Alexandri Sequaci, ac universo orbi tremendo ; cum reverentia, non qua decet, cum ad talem et tantam reverentiam minus sujfficientes extiterint, sed qua parvitas et possibilitas mitlentis et offerentis se extendunt, contenta tradantur." His work rapidly became popular, and so great was the demand for it that of no book, with the exception of the Scriptures, can more manuscripts be found of the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. The mar- velous stories in which the work abounds will not be a matter of surprise when we consider the enthusiasm of the writer, and the general ignorance of the times he lived in. He was ambitious of saying all he could of the places he treats of, and therefore has taken monsters out of Pliny, miracles out of legends, and strange stories out of old romances, so that what we now look upon as gross absurdity, is in fact to be credited to other authors, at that time accounted true. Moreover, when he tells the most improbable stories, he generally prefaces them with, " thei seyn," or " men seyn, but I have not sene it," and in one place he even owns that his book is made partly from hearsay and partly from his own knowledge. But while the subject of his work, as well as the great popularity it obtained, may give us an insight into the historical and geographical notions of the age, its main interest, for our present purpose, lies in the language itself, which, neither emanating from a monastic establishment nor addressed to any particu- lar class of readers, but eminently suited to the subject, is the best specimen we possess of the familiar style of English prose five hundred years ago. " Jec schulle undirstonde," says the author in the prologue of his work, " that I have put this boke out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it a^en out of Frensche into Englyssche, that every man of my nacioun may undirstonde it." The following passage on Paradise is very singular, and a good specimen of the author's style : Of Paradys ne can not I speken 1 propurly : for I was not there. It is fer bejonde ; 2 and that forthinkethe me : 3 and also I was not AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 4 i 7 worthi. But as I have herd seye 4 of wyse men bepnde, I schalle telle 30U with gode Wille. Paradys terrestre, as wyse men seyn, is the higheste place of Erthe, that is in alle the World ; and it is so highe, that it touchethe nyghe to the cercle of the Mone, 6 there as the Mone makethe hire torn. 6 For sche 7 is so highe, that the Flode of Noe 8 ne myght not come to hire, 9 that wolde have cov- ered alle the Erthe of the World 10 alle aboute, and aboven and benethen, 11 saf 12 Paradys only allone. And this Paradys is en- closed alle aboute with a Walle ; and men wyte 13 not wherof it is. For the Walles ben 14 covered alle over with Mosse; as it semethe. 15 And it semethe not that the Walle is ston of Nature. 16 And that Walle strecchethe fro 17 the Southe to the Northe ; and it hathe not bat on entree, 18 that is closed with Fyre brennynge ; 19 so that no man, that is mortalle ne dar not entren. 20 And in the moste highe place of Paradys evene in the myddel place, 81 is a Welle that castethe out 82 the 4 Flodes, that rennen 23 be 24 dy verse Londes : of the whiche, the first is clept 26 Phison or Ganges, that is alle on ; 26 and it rennethe thorghe out Ynde 27 or Emlak : in the whiche Ryvere ben manye preciouse Stones, and mochel of Lignu Aloes, and mochel gravelle of Gold. And that other Ryvere is clept Nelus or Gyson, that gothe be 29 Ethiope, and aftre be 30 Egypt. And that other is clept Tigris, that rennethe be Assirye 31 and be Armenye the grete. 32 And that other is clept Eufrate, that rennethe also be Medee u and be Armonye 35 and be Persye. 38 And men there be3onde seyn that alle the swete Watres of the World aboven and benethen taken hire begynnynge 37 of the Welle of Paradys ; and out of that Welle, alle Watres comen and gon. 38 The firste Ryvere is clept Phison that is to seyne in hire langage, Assemblee ; for manye othere Ryveres meten hem there, and gon in to that Ryvere. 39 And sum 40 men clepen it Ganges ; for a Kyng thar was in Ynde, that highte Gangeres, and that it runne thorghe " out his Lond. And that Water is in sum place clere, 42 and in sum place trouble ; in sum place hoot, 43 and in sum place cole. 44 The seconde Ryvere is clept Nelus or Gy- son : for it is alle weye 4B trouble, and Gyson, in the langage of Ethiope is to seye trouble, and in the langage of Egypt also. The thridde 46 Ryvere that is clept Tigris is as moche for to seye 47 as faste rennynge; 48 for he rennethe more faste than any of the tother. 49 And also there is a Best B0 that is cleped Tigris, that is faste rennynge. The fourthe Ryvere is clept Eufrates, that is to seyne, 51 wel berynge ; 62 for there growen manye Godes vpon that Ryvere, as Cornes, 53 Frutes, and other Godes y nowe plentee. 64 And jee 65 schulle undirstonde, that no man that is mortelle, ne may not approchen to that Paradys. For be Londe no man may go for wylde bestes, that ben in the Desertes, and for the highe Mountaynes and gret 56 huge Roches, that no man may passe by, for the derke " places that ben there, and that manye : And be the Ryveres may no man go ; for the Water rennethe so rudely 4 I 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE and so scharply, because that it comethe doun S8 so outrageously from the highe places aboven that it rennethe in so grete Wawes 69 so that no Schipp may not rowe ne seyle 60 a^enes 61 it : and the Watre rorethe 63 so and makethe so huge noyse, and so gret tem- pest, that no man may here other 63 in the Schipp, thoughe he cryede with alle craft that he cowde, 64 in the hyeste voys that he myghte. Manye grete Lordes hav assayed with gret wille manye tymes for to passen be tho Ryveres toward Paradys, with fulle grete Companyes, but thei myghte not speden in hire Veage; 65 and manye dyeden 66 for werynesse of rowynge ajenst tho stronge Wawes ; and manye of hem becamen blynde ; and manye deve, 87 for the noyse of the Water : and Same weren perisseht and loste with inne the Wawes : so that no mortelle man may approche to that place, with outen 68 specyalle grace of God; so that of that place I can seye jou no more. And therfor I schalle holde me stille, and retornen 69 to that that I have sene. 70 I, I can not speak. 2, beyond. 3, I repented. 4, heard say. 5, that it nearly touches the circle of the moon. 6, as the moon turns. 7, it. 8, the flood of Noah. 9, could not reach it. 10, but covered all the rest of the world, n, above and below. 12, safe. 13, know. 14, are. 15, appears. 16, natural stone. 17, from. 18, it has but one entrance. 19, burning fire. 20, enter. 21, in the middle. 22, out of which issue. 23, run. 24, through. 25, called. 26, which is all one. 27, through India. 28, much lignum aloes. 29, goes through. 30, afterward through. 31, Assyria. 32, Armenia the greater, 33, Euphrates. 34, Media. 35, Armenia. 36, Persia. 37, taken their origin. 38, come and go. 39, meet and join it there. 40, some. 41, through. 42, clear. 43, hot. 44, cool. 45, always. 46, third. 47, as much as to say. 48, swift running. 49, any other. 50, beast. 51, to say. 52, well-bearing. 53, corn. 54, in plenty. 55, ye. 56, great. 57, dark. 58, comes down. 59, waves. 60, row nor sail. 61, against. 62, roars. 63, people can not hear each other. 64, though he might shout as loud as he could. 65, their journey. 66, died. 67, deaf. 68, without. 69, return. 70, seen. John de Trevisa. In the first half of the fourteenth century Ralph Hygden, a monk of St. Werburgh's in Chester, wrote in Latin a universal history, from the creation up to his time, which in 1357 he published under the title of Polychronicon. A translation of this work, which was long the standard of history and geography in England, was completed in 1387 by John de Trevisa, a native of Cornwall, residing in Gloucestershire as chaplain to Thomas Lord Berkeley. The follow- ing passage from this work, relating to the corruption of the original vernacular through Norman influence, has been often quoted, and is especially interesting from the additional comments of the translator, in which it is positively stated that after the great pestilence of 1349 the new language began to be taught in preference to French, of which change he points out the advantage and the dis- advantage : DE INCOLARUM LINGUIS. As hyt ys yknowe houj meny maner people buf 1 in }>is ylond, \er buf also of so meny people longages & tonges ; nofeles Walsch- AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 4l g men & Scottes, pat buj> nojt 2 ymelled 3 wip o]>er nacions, holdep wel ny? 4 here furste longage & speche, bote^ef 5 Scottes, pat were som tyme confederat & wonede" 5 wip pe Pictes, drawe somwhat after here speche. Bote pe Flemmynges, pat wone]» in pe west syde of Wales, habbep yleft 1 here strange speche & spekep Saxon- lych ynow. 8 Also Englysch men, pey^ 9 hy hadde fram pe bygyn- nyngpre 10 maner speche, Soupe myddel of pe lond), as hy 11 come of pre maner people of Ge burp-tonge 20 ys by- cause of twey 21 pinges : — on ys, for chyldern in scole, a3enes 22 pe vsage and manere of al 6\>er nacions, bup compelled for to leue here 23 oune longage, & for to construe here lessons & here pinges a Freynsch, & habbej', supthe 24 pe Normans come furst in-to Engelond. Also, gentil men children bu]> ytau^t 25 for to speke Freynsch fram tyme pat a bu]> yrokked in here cradel, & connep 26 speke & playe wip a child hys brouch ; and oplondysch men wol lykne ha»z-sylf to gentil men, & fondep 27 wip gret bysynes for to speke Freynsch, for to be more ytold 28 of. Pys manere was moche y-vsed to-fore pe furste moreyn, 89 & ys septhe somdel 30 ychaunged. For Iohan Cornwal, a maysrer of gramme, chayngede pe lore 31 in gram«--scole, & construccion of Freynsch in-to Englysch ; & Richard Pencrych lurnedepat manere techyng of hym, & o\er men of Pencrych ; so pat now, pe $er of oure Lord a pousond pre hondred foure score & fyue, of pe sec- unde kyng Richard alter pe conquest nyne, in al pe grami?r-scoles of Engelond childern leuep 32 Frensch & construep & lurnep an Englysch, and habbep Iper-by avauntage in on syde & desavaun- tage yn anolper ; here avauntage ys, pat a lurnep here gramer yn lasse tyme pan childern wer ywoned 33 to do — disavauntage ys, pat now childern of gramer-scole connep no more Frensch pan can here lift heele, 34 & pat ys harm for ham, & a scholle passe pe se 35 & trauayle in strange londes, & in meny caas also. Also gentil men habbep now moche yleft for to teche here childern Frensch. Hyt semep a gret wondar hou} Englysch, pat ys pe burp-tonge of Englysch men & here oune longage & tonge, ys so dyuers of. soun 36 in pis ylond ; & pe longage of Normandy ys cowzlyng 37 of a-nopifr lond, & hap on maner soun among al men pat spekep hyt ary^t 38 in Engelond. Nopeles ]>er ys as meny dyuers man.fr Frensch yn pe rem 39 of Fraunce as ys dyuers manere Englysch in pe rem of Engelond. I, are. 2, not. 3, mixed. 4, nigh. 5, except that. 6, dwelled. 7, left off. 8, quite ; enough. 9, through. 10, three. II, they. 12, nevertheless. 13, mingling. 14, impaired. 15, babbling. 16, chattering. 17, growling, snarling like a dog. 18, rough talking. 19, gnashing, grinding of teeth. 20, na- tive tongue. 21, two. 22, against. 23, their. 24, since. 25, taught. 26, can. 420 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 27, strive. 28, thought. 29, plague. 30, somewhat. 31, method of instruc- tion. 32, leave off. 33, accustomed. 34, than can their left heel. 35, if he should cross the sea. 36, sound. 37, stranger. 38, aright ; correctly. John Wyclif. Ever since the Hermits of Hampole, there had been a great stirring of the English mind ; many works on religion had been put forth in various parts of England, and even the universities commenced lending their sanction to the speech of the common folk. In 1384, William of Nassington laid a translation into English rhymes before the learned men of Cambridge, which was pro- nounced correct and grounded on the best authority. Oxford had been roused by the preaching of Wyclif, and she was glowing with a fiery heat unknown to her since the days of the earlier Franciscans. The questions in debate had the healthiest effect upon the English tongue, and brought out a talent in our au- thor himself, which he was far from possessing in his earlier attempts at writing. About the year 1383 he published his translation of the Bible, made in the com- mon dialect of the native, and there the unrivaled combination of pure simplici- ty, dignity, and feeling in the original compel his old English, as they seem to do in every other language into which it is translated, to be clear, interesting, and energetic. In reading Wyclif s version of the Bible, we are struck by various peculiarities of speech in which he differs from his contemporaries, and which have left their impress upon the religious dialect of England. The following translation of the " Prodigal Son " shows the merit of his style, which compares favorably with the best of that time, and reads with peculiar interest in his venerable diction : THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. St. Luke, Ch. xv, verses 11-32. Summan had two sones, & the monger seyde to his fadir / fadir 3yue to me J>e porcioune of substaunce (or catel) fat bifallij* me / and he departide to hem substaunce / and not aftir manye dayes alle fingisgederide to gedir, and fe monger sone wente fer on pil- grymage into afer cuntre & fere wastide his substaunce (or goodis) in lyuyng leccherOusly / and aftir fat he had endide alle f ingis, a stronge hunger is made in fat cuntre • & he bigan for to haue nede / and he wente and cleuede to one of f e burgeysis of fat cuntre, and he sente hym into his toune ■ fat he schulde feede hoggis / and he coueytide for to fulfille his wombe of the coddis fat f e hoggis eten, and no man }aue to hym / sof ely he turnede a^en into hym self, and seyde / how manye hiride men in my fadir hous abounden in looues, and I forsof e perische heere in hunger / I schal risen vp & go to my fadir, and I schal seye to hym / fadir I haue synnede into heuene & bifore fee, and nowe I am not worfi for to be clepide fi sone • make me as one of fin hiride men / and he risynge came to his fadir / sofely whanne he was }it fer, and his fadir si}e hym ■ & is styrede by mercy, and he rennynge to • felde vpon his necke, and kisside hym / and fe sone seyde to hym / fadir I haue synnede into heuene and bifore AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 421 pee, and nowe I am not worpi for to be clepide pi sone / forsope pe fadir seyde to his seruauntis / soone brynge $ee forpe pe firste stool & clopide hym • & }yue jee a rynge on his hande, & schoon into feet / and brynge 3ee to • a calue made fatte, and slee 3ee & ete we & glade we in plenteuouse etynge ■ for pis my sone is deade & ha}> lyuede ajen, he perischide & is founde / and alle men bi- gunnen for to ete gladely / forsope his elder sone was in )>e feelde / and whanne he came & ney^ede to the hous, he herde a symphonye & carole (or croude) / and he clepide one of the seruauntis, and axide what pes pingis weren / and he seyde to hym pi broper is comen • and pi fadir slewe a fattide calue • for he receyuede hym saaf / forsope he was wrope, and wolde not entre / perfore his fadir gon oute bigan to preye hym / & he answerynge to his fadir seyde / lo so manye $eeris I serue to pee • and I neuer passide ouer (or brake) pi commaundment, & pou neuer haste $ouen to me a kide pat I schulde wip my frendes be fulfillide / but aftir pat pis pi sone pat hap deuouride his substaunce wip hooris came, pou hast slayne to hym a fattide calue / and he seyde to hym / sone pou art euer- more wip me, and alle my pingis ben pin / forsope it bihouede for to ete plenteuousely & to ioye, for pis pi broper was deade & lyuede a$en /he perischide & is founden. AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE SAME PASSAGE. 1 1 A certain man had two sons : 12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all to- gether, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. 14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land ; and he began to be in want. 15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that coun- try ; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat : and no man gave unto him. 17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hired servants. 20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against 422 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet : 23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry : 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. 25 Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28 And he was angry, and would not go in : therefore came his father out, and entreated him. 29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy command- ment ; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends : 30 But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and is found. Peres the Ploughman's Crede. This poem, consisting of 850 lines, was written in alliterative verse by a disciple of Wyclif, whose name has not been ascertained. The title and form of it are both imitated from William Langland's more famous poem, known as " The Vision of William concerning Piers the Ploughman." Though these two poems, the " Crede " and the " Vision " are, in fact, by different authors, and ex- press different sentiments on some points, they are continually being confounded with each other. There is every reason to believe that the anonymous author of the " Crede " was also author of " The Ploughman's Tale," a satirical poem which has often been wrongly ascribed to Chaucer. The dialect is of a Midland character, and less full of unusual words than most of the poems in the same metre. The poem may have been written in the neighborhood of London, about A. D. 1394. DESCRIPTION OF A DOMINICAN CONVENT. panne foujt y to frayne ]>e first • of ]>is foure ordirs, 1 And presede 2 to ]>e prechoures 3 • to proven here wille. 4 Ich hijede 6 to her house • to herken of more ; AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 423 And whan y cam to pat court • y gaped 6 aboute. Swich a bild bold, 7 y-buld • opon erpe hei$te 8 Say i noujt in certeine 9 • sippe 10 a longe tyme. Y ^emede u vpon pat house • & ^erne " peron loked, Whouj pe pileres weren y-peynt ls • and pulched ful clene, 14 And queynteli i-corven 15 • wi]> curiouse knottes, 16 Wip wyndowes well y-wrou^t • wide vp o-lofte. 17 And panne y entrid in • and even-forp 18 went, And all was walled pat wone 19 • pou} it wid were, Wip posternes in pryuytie 20 • to pasen when hem liste ; 21 Orche^ardes and erberes 22 • euesed well clene, 23 & a curious cros • craftly entayled, 24 Wip tabernacles y-ti^t 26 • to toten all abouten. 26 pe pris of a plouj-lond • of penyes so rounde To aparaile pat pyler • were pure lytel. 27 panne y munte me forp w • pe mynstre to knowen, And a-waytede a woon 39 • wonderlie well y-beld, Wip arches on eueriche half • & belliche y-corven, 30 Wip crochetes on corners wip knottes 31 of golde, Wyde wyndowes y-wrou3t • y-written full pikke, 32 Schynen wip schapen scheldes 33 • to schewen aboute, Wip merkes of marchauntes u ■ y-medled bytwene, Mo pan twenty and two • twyes y-no&mbred. per is none heraud pat hap • half swich 3. rolle, R.i# as a rageman M • hap rekned hem newe. Tombes opon tabernacles ■ tyld opon lofte, 36 Housed in hirnes w • harde set a-bouten, Of armede alabaustre • clad for pe nones, 38 [Made vpon marbel • in many maner wyse, Knyght« in her conisanto 39 • clad for pe nones,] All it seemed seyntes : y-sacred opon erpe ; And louely ladies y-wrou3t • leyen by her sydes In many gay garments • pat weren gold-beten. 40 pou} pe tax of ten jer ■ were trewly y-gadered,* 1 Nolde it nou^t maken pat hous ** ■ half, as y trowe. panne kam I to \>at cloister - & gaped abouten Whou^ it was pilered and peynt • & portred well clene, 43 All y-hyled wip leed 4 * - lowe to pe stones, And y-paued wip peynt til 15 • iche poynte after oper; Wip kundites *• of clene tyn • closed all aboute, Wip lauoures of latun 47 • louelyche y-greithed. 48 I trowe pe gaynage of pe ground ■ in a gret schire Nolde aparaile pat place • 00 poynt til other ende. 49 panne was pe chaptire-hous wroujt • as a greet chirche, Coruen and couered ■ and queyntliche entayled ; eo Wip semlich selure 51 • y-set on lofte ; As a Parlement-hous • y-peynted aboute. panne ferd y into fraytour 68 • and fond p^re an oper, 424 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE An halle for an hey} kinge • an housholde to holden, Wip brode bordes aboute • y-benched wel clene, Wip windowes of glas • wroujt as a Chirche. panne walkede y f errer 63 • & went all abouten, And sei? M halles full hy$e 55 ■ & houses full noble, Chambers wip chymneyes • & Chapells gaie ; And kychens for an hy^e kinge • in castells to holden, And her dortour y-di^te • wip dores ful stronge ; 56 Fermery " and fraitur • with f ele mo B8 houses, And all strong ston wall • sterne opon heipe, Wij> gaie garites M & grete • & iche hole y-glased ; & ojwe houses y-nowe • to herberwe pe queene. 60 & }et pise bilderes wilne beggen 61 • a bagg-ful of wheate Of a pure pore man ■ pat maie onepe ss paie Half his rente in a $er • and half ben behynde ! panne turned y a$en ■ whan y hadde all y-toted, And fond in a freitour ■ a frere on a benche, A greet cherl & a grym e3 • growen as a tonne, 64 Wi}> a face as fat • as a full bledder, Blowen bretfull of brep ■ & as a bagge honged On bopen his chekes, & his chyn • wip a chol lollede, As greet as a gos eye ■ growen all of grece ; pat all wagged his fleche • as a quyk myre. 66 His cope pat biclypped him 66 • wel clene was it folden, Of double worstede y-dy$t 67 • doun to J>e hele ; 6S His kyrtel of clene whijt • clenlyche y-sewed ; Hyt was good y-now of ground • greyn for to beren. 68 I haylsede pat herdeman 70 • & hendliche 71 y saide, ' Gode syre, for godes loue • canstou me graipe tellen 72 To any worpely wij$t 73 ■ pat wissen me coupe 74 Whou y schulde conne 75 my crede • Crist for to folowe, P • bichopes wel manye, Seyntes on sundry stedes 95 • fat suffreden harde ; & we ben proued fe prijs • of popes at Rome, 96 & of gretest degre • as godspelles telle]).' ' A ! syre,' quaf y f anne • ' f ou seyst a gret wonder, Sifen crist seyd hym-self • to all his disciples. " W&'ch of pu fat is most • most schal he werche, 97 & who is goer byforne • first schal he seruen." & seyde, "he sawe satan • sytten full heyje 98 & ful lowe ben y-leyd ; m ■ in lyknes he tolde, 100 pat in pouernesse of spyrit • is spedfullest hele, 102 And hertes of heynesse • harmef f e soule. And fwfore, frere, fare well ■ here fynde y but pride ; Y preise noujt fi preching • but as a pure myte.' 1, the four orders here referred to are: (1) The Minorites, Franciscans! or Gray Friars, called in France Cordeliers. Called Franciscans from their founder, St. Francis of Assisi ; Minorites (in Italian Fratri Minori, in French Frires Mineurs), as being, as he said, the humblest of the religious foundations ; Gray Friars, from the color of their habit ; and Cor- deliers, from the hempen cord with which they were girded. For further details, see Monumenta Franciscana, which tells us that they were fond of physical studies, made much use of Aristotle, preached pithy sermons, exalted the Virgin, encouraged marriages, and were the most popular of the orders, but at last de- generated into a compound of the pedlar or huckster with the mountebank or quack doctor. They arrived in England in A. D. 1224. Friar Bacon was a Franciscan. (2) The Dominicans, Black Friars, Friars Preachers, or Jacobins. Founded by St. Dominick, of Castile ; order confirmed by Pope Honorius in A. D. 1216 ; arrived in England about 1221. Habit, a white woolen gown, with white gir- dle ; over this, a white scapular ; over these, a black cloak with a hood, whence their name. They were noted for their fondness for preaching, their great knowledge of scholastic theology, their excessive pride, and the splendor of their buildings. The Black Monks were the Benedictines. (3) The Augustine or Austin Friars, so named from St. Augustine of Hippo. They were clothed in black, with a leathern girdle. They were first congregated into one body by Pope Alexander IV, under one Lanfranc, in 1256. They are distinct from the Augustine Canons. (4) The Carmelites, or White Friars, whose dress was white, over a dark- brown tunic. They pretended that their order was of the highest antiquity and derived from Helias, i. e., the prophet Elijah ; that a succession of anchorites had lived in Mount Carmel from his time till the thirteenth century ; and that the Virgin was the special protectress of their order. Hence they were some- times called " Mary's men." As the priority of the foundation of these orders is discussed in the poem, it will be well to notice that the dates of their first institution are, Augustines, 1150; Carmelites, 1160; Dominicans, 1206; Franciscans, 1209. 2, pressed forward ; hurried. 3, The Preachers, that is, the Dominican friars. 4, to test their good will. 5, hastened. 6, stared. 7, such a stately building. 8, erected on high ground. 9, for sure I never saw. io, since. II, I gazed. 12, closely ; diligently. 13, how the pillars were painted. 14, neatly polished. 15, carved. 16, round bunches of leaves ; referring to the capitals of 29 426 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE the pillars. 17, well shaped, wide and high. 18, straightway ; directly onward. 19, dwelling. 20, private back-doors. 21, to go out when they pleased. 22, orchards and vegetable gardens. 23, neatly bordered. 24, cut ; carved ; sculpt- ured. 25, solidly-built cells. 26, to spy everything around. A tote-hill is a hill to spy from, now shortened to Tothill. 27, the price of a large farm would not raise such another building. 28, then I went forth. 29, and beheld a dwell- ing. 30, with arches on every side, beautifully sculptured. 31, projecting leaves, flowers, etc., such as are used in Gothic architecture to decorate the angles of spires, canopies, etc. 32, inscribed with many texts or names. 33, coats of arms of benefactors painted on the glass windows. 34, Merkes of marchauntes, " their symbols, cyphers, or badges, drawn or painted in the windows. . . . Mixed with the arms of their founders and benefactors stand also the maris of tradesmen and merchants, who had no arms, but used their marks in a shield like arms. Instances of this sort are very common." 35, alluding to the Rag- man Rolls, originally " a collection of those deeds by which the nobility and gentry of Scotland were tyrannically constrained to subscribe allegiance to Ed- ward I of England, in 1296, and which were more particularly recorded in four large rolls of parchment, consisting of thirty-five pieces, bound together, and kept in the Tower of London." — Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. See also Hal- liwell's Dictionary, where it is explained that several kinds of written rolls, espe- cially those to which many seals were attached, were known by the name of Ragman or Ragman-roll. In the Prologue to Piers the Ploughman, p. 414, the name is given to a papal bull. The modern rigmarole is a curious corruption of this term. 36, Tyld opon lofte, set up on high. It means that the tombs were raised some three or four feet above the ground. 37, housed in hirnes, in- closed in corners or niches. 38, for the occasion. 39, surcoats of arms. 40, adorned with beaten gold. 41, if the tax of ten years were honestly collected. 42, it would not build that house. 43, neatly decorated. 44, all covered with lead. 45, paved with painted tiles. 46, conduits. 47, lavoirs of latoun, a mixed metal much resembling brass. 48, graveled. 49, I trow the produce of the land in a great shire would not furnish that place from one end to the other. 50, the chapter-house was magnificently constructed in the style of church architecture, finely vaulted, and richly carved. 51, beautifully decorated ceiling. 52, I went into the refectory. 53, farther. 54, saw. 55, very high. 56, a dormitory closed with heavy doors. 57, infirmary. 58, many more. 59, garrets. 60, houses enough to lodge a queen. 61, will beg. 62, with difficulty. 63, a stout, grim-looking fellow. 64, shaped like a barrel. 65, with a face as fat as a full bladder that is blown quite full of breath ; and it hung like a bag on both his cheeks, and his chin lolled (or flapped) about with a jowl (or double chin) that was as great as a goose's egg, grown all of fat ; so that all his flesh wagged about like a quick mire (quagmire). 66, enveloped him. 67, made of double worsted. 68, down to his heels. 69, The kirtle was the under-garment, which was worn white by the Black Fnars. The outer black garment is here called the cope, and was made, very comfortably, of double worsted, reaching down to his heels. The kirtle was of clean white, cleanly sewed, and was good enough in its ground or texture to admit of its being dyed in grain, i. c, of a fast color. 70. I saluted that pastor. 71, politely. 72, can you direct me. 73, worthy person. 74, that could teach me. 75, know. 76, that truly be- lieved. 77, and lived accordingly. 78, follows. 79, I would surely trust. 80, an Augustine friar. 81, the other day. 82, urged me strongly. 83, plighted me his troth. 84, evil-less ; without stain. 85, founded first. 86, said he. 87, fur garment. 88, tattered rags. 89, harlots and thieves. 90, it is merely a pardoner's trick, rest and try it. 91, though you come again. 92, will not. 93i pretence. 94, an allusion to the reputation of the Dominicans for scholastic learning. 95, places. 96, " Three popes, John XXI, Innocent V, and Bene- dict XI, were all taken from the order of Black Friars, between A. D. 1276- 1303." 97, work ; labor. 98, he saw satan sit very high. 99, laid very low. 100, by way of parable. 101, poverty. 102, most helpful salvation. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 427 Thomas Wymbilton. In 138S we have another indication of the style of the metropolis in the sermons preached at St. Paul's Cross by " maister Thomas Wymbilton." They prove that the old dialects were then out of use in large towns, and that the present English was substantially formed. Being addressed to a London audi- ence, they may be presumed, by making allowance for the more solemn style of the pulpit, to come very near the usual diction of those for whom they were in- tended. At all events they show the increased cultivation which the old Eng- lish was receiving. The following extract is quite interesting for the naive manner in which it establishes the relationship between the nobility, the clergy, and the people : For right as $ee x seen, 2 fat in tiliyng 3 of f e material vyne f er ben * diverse labouris ; for summe 8 kutte awey the voide braunchis ; summe maken forkis and railis to bere up the vynes ; and summe diggen awey f e olde eerfe from f e roote and leven 6 fere fatter. 7 And alle f ese officers 8 ben so necessary to f e vyne, fat }if ony of -them faile, it shal harme gretly or destroye f e vyne. But 9 }>e vyne be kut, it shal wexe wilde. But 3if she be railed, she shal be over- goo 10 wi)> nettes and weedis. But )>e roote be f attid wif dunge, she for feebilnesse shulde wexe bareyne. Rightsoo in f e chirche been needful f ese fire officers, preesf od, knyghf od, and laboureris. To prestis it fallep to kutte awey f e voide braunches of synnes, wip f e swerd u of her 12 tunge. To knyghtis it fallef to lette no wrongis and peftis to be doo ; 13 and to mayntene Goddis lawe and hem u fat ben teachers f er of, and also to kepe fe londe fro enemyes of oof ere londes. And to laboureris it fallef to travaile 15 bodily, and wif her soor swet gete out of f e eerf e f e bodily luflode, 16 for hem and for oof ere parties. And fese statis ben also needful to fe chirche fat noon may wel be wif outen oof ere. For $if preshod lackide, f e peepil for defaute of knowyng Goddis lawe schulden wexe wilde on vices and dye goostli. And -jif knyghthod lackide to rule f e peepil bi lawe and hardnesse, feves and enemyes schulden so encrease fat no man schulde lyve in pees. And ^if f e laboureris weren not, bof preestis and knyghtis mosten" ben acremen 18 and herdis, 19 and ellis 80 fey schulden for defaute of bodily sustenaunce dye. I, you. 2, see. 3, cutting. 4, are. 5, some. 6, leave. 7, manure. 8, operations. 9, unless. 10, overgrown. II, sword. 12, their. 13, done. 14, them. 15, work. 16, livelihood. 17, must. 18, peasants. 19, herdsmen. 20, else. English and Latin Lines Mixed. The following mixture of English and Latin rhymes is similar to what we have seen in chapter viii in English and French of the same period : " Joyne all now in thys feste ffor Verbum caro factum est. 428 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE " Jhesus almyghty king of blys assumpsit carnem Virginis. He was ev' and ev'more ys consors p'rni lumis. " All holy churche of hym mak mynd intravit ventris thalamum j ffrom heven to erthe to save mankynd pater misit filium. " To Mary came a messanger, fferens sal'm homini j and she answered w' myld chere, ecce ancilla Domini. " The myght of the holy goste palacium intrans uteri j of all thyng mekenesse is most in conspectu Altissimi. " When he was borne that made all thyng pastor creator oium ; angellis then began to syng vent redemptor gentium. " Thre kynges come the xii day stelld nitente previd ; to seke the kyng they toke the way bajulantes munera. " A sterre furth ledde the kynges all inquirentes Dominum j lygging in an ox stall inverter unt puerum. " For he was kyng of kyngis ay primus rex auru optultt ; ffor he was God and Lord verray secundus rex thus protulit, " ffor he was man ; the thyrd kyng incensum pulcrum tradidit : He us all to hys blys brynge qui mori cruce voluit." MS. Harleian, No. 275. John Gower. We now approach the men who first gave English poetry permanent beauty and form. The authors hitherto noticed were but the heralds who an- nounced the possibility of better things, and excited the taste for their attain- ment. Gower and Chaucer were contemporaries, and notice each other in their AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 429 works with affectionate commendation. But Gower was born before Chaucer, and also survived him (he died in 1402). The poem which has ranked him among the fathers of English poetry is his " Confessio Amantis," though it has been more criticized than read. It seems to have been judged from its title, and by the form in which it has been arranged, rather than by its actual con- tents. But it must be borne in mind that he lived at the period in which the refined spirit of chivalric gallantry had attained its highest polish. Love was, in the estimation of the age, the perfection of human excellence and the worthi- est object of human life. Gower felt with his age, but tried to incorporate into that feeling every virtue and knowledge, and to free it from every vice. It is certain that the apostrophe of Chaucer, " O moral Gower," breathes a volume of praise which language can scarcely exalt, and which few poets have deserved. Gower was highly popular in his own days, and celebrated long afterward, till the widely diffused cultivation of English literature diminished his intrinsic value, and multiplied his rivals. The following lines are extracted from the work referred to above : What thynge she byt 1 me don, 2 I do, and where she byt me gon, 3 I go, and whan hir list 4 to clepe, 6 1 come. I serve, I bowe, I loke, I lowte, 6 myn ere foloweth hir aboute ; what so she wolle,' so woll I, whan she woll sit, I knele by, and whan she stont, 8 than woll I stonde, and whan she taketh hir werke 8 on honde 10 of weving n or of embroudrie, than can I not but muse 13 and prie upon hir fingers longe and smale. . . . Ctc. Gower's Con/ess., iv, p. 103. I, prays. 2, to do. 3, to go. 4, pleasure. 5, to call. 6, loiter. 7, will. 8, stands. 9, work. 10, hand. II, weaving. 12, gaze. Jeffrey Chaucer. The most illustrious ornament of the reign of Edward III, and his suc- cessor Richard II, was Jeffrey Chaucer, a poet with whom the history of Eng- lish poetry is by many supposed to have commenced, and who has been pro- nounced to be the first English versifier who wrote poetically. The precise date of his birth is unknown, but, from circumstances alluded to in his works, may be placed at 1340. His knowledge, as well as his natural gaiety of disposition, soon recommended him to the patronage of a magnificent monarch, and ren- dered him a very popular and acceptable character at his brilliant court. In the mean time he added to his accomplishments by frequent tours into France and Italy, which he sometimes visited with the advantages of a public character. Hitherto the English poets had been persons of a private and circumscribed edu- cation, and the art of versifying, like every other kind of composition, had been confined to recluse scholars, but Chaucer was a man of the world, and from this circumstance we are to account in a great measure for the many new embellish- ments which he conferred upon the language and poetry. Familiarity with a variety of things and objects, opportunities of acquiring the fashionable and courtly modes of speech, connections with the great at home, and a personal ac- 430 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE quaintance with the illustrious poets of foreign countries, opened his mind and furnished him with new lights. He was held in the highest estimation by his contemporaries. John the Chaplain calls him " Flour of rhetoryk." Occleve laments him as a dear master and father, and styles him " the honour of English tongue ; floure of eloquence ; mirrour of fructuous entendement ; universal fader of science." Lydgate, speaking of him says, " my master," and calls him " chiefe poet of Britaine, the loadsterre of our language, the notable Rhetore," etc. His writings are very numerous, but his most famous and best known work is the " Canterbury Tales," which is dated about 1390, though it was never finished. These tales are twenty-four in number, with short introductions to each, called prologues, in addition to which there is a General Prologue in which the nar- rators of the tales are severally described, often in a style almost unmatched for its brilliancy and truthfulness. Chaucer was a native of London, and his dialect is the East Midland of the second half of the fourteenth century mixed with some Kentish and East Saxon elements. At that time the language had absorbed a vast number of French words and phrases, and retained many Dutch forms which constantly appear in the works of this author, and seem to have been current especially in the South- east of the Island. Such are : MODERN ENGLISH. to eat and drink to devour to carve to starve to know to measure to gather to give to take to lend to count to account to write ; to confess to learn to deal to let to lay- to say- to mean to steal to grease to pour out to smite to work to throw to avenge to go to do to haul white black OLD ENGLISH. DUTCH. eten and drynken eten en drinken freten vreten kerven kerven sterven sterven weten weten meten meten gaderen gaderen geven geven nemen nemen lenen leenen tellen tellen rekenen rekenen shryven schryven leren leeren delen deelen laten laten leggen leggen seggen zeggen menen meenen stelen stelen smeren smeren schenken schenken smyten smyten werken werken werpen werpen wreken wreken gaan, gan gaan doon doen halen halen wit wit swart zwart AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 431 OLD ENGLISH. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. hals hals neck bek bek beak crul krul curl vel vel skin men men some one sone zoon son doghter dochter daughter fader, vader vader father leeve mooder lieve moeder dear mother alderliefst allerliefst dearest of all alderbest allerbest best of all overal overal everywhere wereld wereld world woning woning dwelling staat staat state prelaat prelaat prelate engel engel angel ei, eieren ei, eieren e gg> e ggs hyt, hit het it fyn fyn fine wyn wyn wine prys prys price wys wys wise wyf wyf wife lyf lyf life styf styf stiff rym rym rhyme Latyn Latyn Latin grys grys gray Parys Parys Paris reysen reisen to travel dryven dryven to drive ryden ryden to ride spore spoor spur somer zomer summer drogte droogte draught thonder donder thunder dronken dronken drunk yong Jong young hondred honderd hundred and a vast number of other familiar words which Dutch and English have in common, and in which the author invariably follows the Dutch mode of spelling which seems to indicate a very similar mode of pronunciation still existing in both England and Holland. In words of French origin the terminal ier, ihe he always writes er, ere with the stress on er, as carpenter, tavemer, tapicer, bacheler, manere, mestere, etc. The terminal French eur and Latin or he makes our, as errour, honour, empero-ur; and on, om, oun and oum, as pardoun, capoun, heroun, poysoun, prysoun, persoun. 432 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE champioun, eltccioun, opynyoun, mencioun, nouvibre, etc. In the same way he writes aun for an and aum for am, as Fraunce, Romaunce, aqueyntaunce, chaunge, marchaunt, repentaunt, chaumbre, etc. See pages 339-342. The following extracts from the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales are good specimens of the author's style, his language and his wit : Ther was also a nonne, a Prioresse, that of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy ; hire gretteste ooth ne was but by Seint Loy ; and she was cleped 1 madame Eglentyne. Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne, entuned in hir nose ful semely. And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, 3 after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, for Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe. At mete wel ytaught was she with alle : she leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe ; wel koude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, that no drope ne fille upon hire brest. In curteisie was set ful muche hir lest : 3 hire overlippe wyped she so clene that in hir coppe was no ferthyng 4 sene of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte ; ful semely after hir mete she raughte ; 6 and sikerly she was of greet desport, and ful plesaunt, and amyable of port ; and peyned hire to countrefete 6 cheere of court, and been estatlich 7 of manere, and to ben holden digne of reuerence. But for to speken of hire conscience, she was so charitable and so pitous, she wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde. Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde with rosted flessh, and milk, and wastel 8 breed ; but soore she wepte, if oon of hem were deed, or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte ; and al was conscience and tendre herte. Ful semely hir wympel 9 pynched was ; hire nose tretys, hir yen greye as glas ; hir mouth ful smal, and therto softe and reed. But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed ; it was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe, for hardily she was nat undergrowe. Ful fetys was hir cloke, as I was war. Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar a peire of bedes, gauded " al with grene ; and theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene, 18 AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 433 on which ther was first write a crowned a, and after, Amor vincit omnia. Another nonne with hire hadde she, that was hire chapeleyne, and preestes thre. I, called. 2, neatly, elegantly. 3, lust, pleasure. 4, speck. 5, retched, belched. 6, imitate. 7, stately. 8, fine bread. 9, white neckcloth. 10, well shaped. 11, adorned. 12, bright, beautiful. A Frankeleyn 1 was in his compaignye ; whit 2 was his heed as is a dayes-ye ; 3 of his complexioun he was sangwyn. Wei loved he by the morwe a sop in wyn ; to lyven in delit was evere his wone, for he was Epicurus owene sone, that heeld opinioun that pleyn delit was verrayly felicitee parfit. An housholdere, and that a greet was he ; seint Julian 4 was he in his contree. His breed, his ale was alweys after oon ; a bettre envyned 6 man was nowher noon ; withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, of fissh and flessh, and that so plentevous, it snewed in his hous of mete and drynke. Of alle deyntees that men koude thynke, after the sondry sesouns of the yeer he chaunged him his mete and his soper. Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in muwe, and many a breem, and many a luce 6 in stuwe. Wo was his coke, but if his sauce were poynaunt, 7 and sharp, and redy al his geere. His table dormaunt in his halle alway stood redy covered al the longe day. At sessiouns ther was he lord and sire ; ful ofte-tyme he was knyght of the shire. An anlaas, 8 and a gipser 9 al of silk Heeng at his girdel, whit as morne milk. A shirreve 10 hadde he been and a countour ; n Was nowher such a worthy vavasour. 12 1 Fortescue, De Legibus Anglite, t. 29, describes " a franklein " as pater familias — magnis dilatus possession-tins. And his translator continues : " The country is so filled and replenished with landed menne, that therein so small a thorpe can not be found wherein dwelleth not a knight or an esquire, or such a householder as is there commonly called a ' franklein,' enriched with great pos- sessions, and also other freeholders and many yeomen, able for their livelyhood to make a jury in form aforementioned." 2, white. 3, daisy. 4, St. Julian was the patron of hospitality. 5, stored, provided with wine. 6, pike. 7> strong- flavored, piquant. 8, dagger. 9, pouch. 10, sheriff. II, controller, auditor. 12, squire, country gentleman. 434 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE In addition to the many words which modern English, Dutch, and Anglo- Saxon have in common, there are some, now obsolete or much altered in form, that are met with here and there in ancient English manuscripts, where we find them variously modified according to the phonetic notions of authors and copy- ists, but in general assuming an orthography resembling the Dutch more than the Anglo-Saxon. As from the meter and the rhyming syllables of Early English poetry it appears that both sound and accent were very much the same in Eng- lish and in Dutch, a knowledge of the pronunciation of vowels in the latter tongue will greatly assist us in understanding the forms which mark the transi- tion from Anglo-Saxon to Modern English. A glance at the following table will be sufficient to show that the difference between corresponding words is far more a difference of spelling than of utterance : DUTCH HAS THE VALUE OF THE ENGLISH a, articulated by a following consonant, a in man a, not so articulated, and aa, a " father e, in the prefixes be and ge, and final e, e " battery e, articulated by a following consonant, e " met e, not so articulated, and ee, a " cable *', articulated by a following consonant, i " pin ie, articulated or not, ee " bee ei, articulated or not, ie " lie o, articulated by a following consonant, o " lot o, not so articulated, and oo, o " more oe, articulated or not, oo " room ou, articulated or not, ou " house u, articulated by a following consonant, u " us u, not so articulated = French u. ui has no equivalent in English. y, articulated or not, i " like This will be further illustrated by the following glossary ; and by pronounc- ing the Dutch words as indicated, we shall probably very nearly give the true sound to the corresponding Anglo-Saxon words as they were pronounced in the days of Alfred : ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH, secer akker tilled land addre ader vein adel adel nobility ban been bone bat boot boat bedstede bedstede bedstead besom bezem broom betera ; betst beter ; best better ; best bil byl ax blaec Meek bleak blaed Mad leaf blom bloem bloom br6c broek breeches canne kan can cetel ketel kettle AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 435 ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH, cicen kieken chicken cin kin chin cneo knie knee crume kruim crumb Cli koe cow cus kus kiss deed daad deed dseg dag day- deop diep deep deor dier animal dohtor dochter daughter dom doem doom dol dol dull don doen to do dwses dwaas foolish dwerg dwerg dwarf earm arm arm et5el edel noble erst eerst first esol ezel ass fine vink finch flaesc vleesch flesh flod vloed flood folc volk folk fdt voet foot gast gast guest geat gat hole ; opening gebed gebed prayer gebod gebod commandment gebrec gebrek want gebiir ■< buur boer neighbor boor; peasant genog genoeg enough gesam gezaam together geweald geweld violence geolu geel yellow glses glas glass god goed good grund grond ground gra?s gras grass grene; groen groen green har haar hair hagol hagel hail hileg heilig holy heeliand heiland savior hamor hamer hammer hana haan cock 436 ORIGINS 1 OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. hsen hen hen hsefene haven haven heals hah neck heard hard hard h&a hiel heel hit het it hii hoe how- hund hond hound hunig honig honey hus , huis house langsum langzaam slow lie lyk dead body lif lyf living body lim lym glue list list ruse Ids luis louse nuis muis mouse nsegel nagel nail niwe nieuw new nu nu now ofer over over pol poel pool pund pond pound regn regen rain regal regel rule ric ryk rich rum ruim room sadol zadel saddle sal zaal hall sc61u school school scyld schuld debt seolfor zilver silver step slaap sleep smaec smaak taste snel snel quick sorg zorg care spik spek bacon spraec spraak speech stan steen stone ste6r stier steer stol stoel stool swser zwaar heavy sweart zwart black ; swarthy tsefel tafel table tarn tarn tame tan teen toe tre6w trouw faith AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 437 ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. trog trog trough wac ■week weak waepen wapen weapon wang wang cheek weder weder weather weoruld wereld world wic wyk distrit wid wyd wide wif wyf wife win wyn wine wraec wraak vengeance wul IL'Ol wool wund wond wound wundor wonder wonder yfel euvel evil Noticing in the verbs the constant change of an to en in the final syllable, we shall find in the roots a similar difference of spelling : ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. beorgan bergen to put in a safe place berstan bersten to burst biddan bidden to pray bloesan blazen to blow brecan breken to break breowan brouwen to brew briican bruiken to use; endure; brook biigan buigen- to bend cennan kennen to be able clifian kleven to cleave cnedan kneden to knead crawan kraijen to crow cwecan kweeken to cultivate cwellan kwellen to torment ; to kill cyssan kussen to kiss dragan dragen to carry drifan dryven to urge on drincan drinken to drink etan eten to eat fretan vreien to devour gan gaan to go geapean gapen to yawn genesan genezen to cure hangian hangen to hang hatian haten to hate heawan houwen to hew helpan helpen to help 438 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. MODERN ENGLISH. hladan laden to load hwostan hoesten to cough leornian leeren to learn macian maken to make mgengan mengen to mix melcan melken to milk neman neemen to take pluccian ridan plukken ryden to pluck to ride scafan schaven to plane sceran scheren to shave ; shear sceppan sciftan scheppen schiften to create ; shape to shift scufan schuiven to shove sriidan snyden to cut spreotan spruiten to sprout stempan steorfan slampen sterven to stamp to die streccan strekken to stretch swefan zweven to hover swelgan wacan zwelgen waken to swallow to watch weccan wekken to wake up wegan witan wegen weten to weigh to know and many others. Some of these words disappeared in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, usually replaced by French equivalents, or else gradually assuming their present English form. There are, however, a certain number of words which exist only in Dutch and Modern English, no trace of them being found in Anglo-Saxon writings, except in rare instances, and then only as com- pounds and derivatives. From this circumstance, as well as from the fact that all these words are of a familiar nature, it is to be inferred that most of them formed also part of the ancient spoken language. The most common are : ENGLISH. DUTCH. ENGLISH. DUTCH. ballast ballast clammy klam bank bank cony konyn boom boom cramp kramp boodle boedel creek kreek brake brake cripple kreupel brand-new brand-nieuw curl krul brink brink dam dam bruin bruin damp damp bull bul dapper dapper bundle bundel drift drift buoy- boei earnest ernst busy besig fore-arm voorarm cable kabel forebode voorbode AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 439 ENGLISH. DUTCH. ENGLISH. DUTCH. forefather .voorvader mole mol forefinger voorvinger navel navel foreground voorgrond nut neut forehand voorhand pap pap foreland voorland plank plank foreman voorman plough ploeg foretooth voortand poodle poedel foundling vondeling puss poes gang gang quackdoctor kwakzalver glib glibberig reef reef groove groeve rover roover handy handig sake zaak handsome handzaam since sinds holla; hollo holla sketch schets hoop hoep skipper schipper hop hop sleigh ; sled sleej slede hump homp slot slot hut hut smack smak keel kid snaffle snavel kit kit snare snaar knapsack knapzak snout snoet knob knop snuff snuif knuckle kneukel sod zode log log sop sop lot lot span span luck luk spar spar lukewarm leukwarm split split maid meid spool spoel mangle mangel sprout spruit mat mat stoker stoker mate maal tattoo taptoe meager mager trigger trekker middle middel yacht yacht Among the verbs which Dutch and English have in common, and of which there is no record in Anglo-Saxon writings, we find the following : ENGLISH. DUTCH. ENGLISH. DUTCH. to babble babbelen to crinkle krinkelen to blink blinken to dabble dabbelen to beseech besoeken to drill drillen to brabble brabbelen to foresee voorzien to brawl brallen to fumble fommelen to bubble bobbelen to gobble gobbelen to cackle kakelen to growl grollen to clap klappen to guess gissen to crimp krimpen to hack hakken 440 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE to haggle to hanker to haul to hobble to knap to laugh to loiter to loll to loof to lull to mingle to mope to nibble to nip to ogle to pick to plunder hakkelen hunkeren halen hobbelen knappen lachen leuteren lollen loeven lullen mengelen moppen knibbelen knypen oogelen pikken plunderen ENGLISH. to puff to rattle to ravel to rumble to scrape to scrub to slabber to smart to snap to spatter to sprinkle to stammer to stipple to stop to tap to tattle to twine puffen ratelen rafelen rommelen schrapen schrobben slobberen smarten snappen spatten sprenkelen stameren stippelen stoppen tappen tateren twynen A long list might thus be made out of English, Dutch, and Anglo-Saxon words that offer but little difference in spelling, still less in sound, and none at all in meaning. The little we have shown, however, will be sufficient to enable our readers to form their own opinion as regards the common origin of the peo- ple among whom these words were current ; for although identity of speech is not a test of identity of race when taken by itself, it is the strongest test of all when it confirms the evidences drawn from history. These, it is true, are in- complete as regards the details of Early English settlements ; but inasmuch as there is no evidence either of any subsequent immigration from Holland large enough to account for the numerous Dutch terms found in Early English writ- ings, we may safely conclude that most of these words and forms of expression have existed in the spoken language of the English people fully as long as those used in writing which we call Anglo-Saxon. The vitality of the former was due to their popular nature, which not only carried them through the long period of national depression which followed the Norman conquest, but even preserved them, without any change of meaning, up to the present day, in both England and Holland; which fact, more strongly than any other, confirms and corrobo- rates the more slender evidences of history concerning the origin and continental homes of the first Teutonic settlers in Britain. John Barbour. John Barbour was born, according to some, in 1316 ; according to others, as late as 1330. He is described as being Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357- He died about the year 1395. His great work, entitled " The Bruce," was partly written in 1375, as he himself tells us. It extends to more than 13,000 lines, and describes the life and adventures of Robert Bruce, King of Scots, and his companions. In Barbour's day, the language of Teutonic Scotland was distinguished from that of the South of England (which was fast acquiring ascendancy over that of the northern counties as the literary dialect) by little more than the reten- tion, perhaps, of a good many vocables which had become obsolete among the English, and a generally broader enunciation of the vowel sounds. Hence, Barbour never supposes that he is writing in any other language than English any AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 441 more than Chaucer does, and by this name not only he, but his successors, Dun- bar and even Lyndsay, always designate their native tongue. Down to the latter part of the sixteenth century, by the term Scotch was generally understood what is now called the Gaelic, or the Erse or Ersh, that is, Irish, the speech of the Celts or Highlanders. Divested of the peculiar spelling of the old manuscripts, the language of Barbour is quite as intelligible at the present day to an English reader as that of Chaucer ; the obsolete words and forms are not more numer- ous in the one writer than in the other, though some that are used by Barbour may not be found in Chaucer, in the same way as many of Chaucer's are not in Barbour ; the chief general distinction being the greater breadth given to the vowel sounds in the dialect of the Scottish poet. The old termination of the present participle in and is also more frequently used than in Chaucer, to whom, however, it is not unknown, any more than its modern substitute ing is to Bar- bour. The most remarkable peculiarity of the more recent form of the Scottish dialect that is not found in Barbour is the abstraction of the final / from syllables ending in that consonant preceded by a vowel or diphthong : thus he never has a', fa\ fu' or fou', po-ui, how, for all, fall, full, poll, hole, etc. The subsequent introduction of this habit into the speech of the Scotch is perhaps to be attrib- uted to their imitation of the liquefaction of the / in similar circumstances by the French, from whom they have also borrowed a considerable number of their modern vocables, never used in England, and to whose accentuation, both of individual words and of sentences, theirs has much general resemblance, throw- ing, as it does, the emphasis, contrary to the tendency of the English language, upon one of the latter syllables, and also running into the rising in many cases where the English use the falling intonation. Barbour's work, though called by himself a " romaunt," is, and has always been, regarded as an authentic historical monument ; it has no doubt some in- cidents or embellishments which may be set down as fabulous, but these are in general very easily distinguished from the main texture of the narrative, which agrees substantially with the most trustworthy accounts drawn from other sources, and has been received and quoted as good evidence by all subsequent writers and investigators of Scottish history. The following passage, which occurs near the commencement of his poem, is » fair exemplification of the characteristics of his poetry. It describes the oppressions endured by the Scots during the oc- cupation of their country by the English King, Edward I, after his deposition ofBaliol: And gif that ony man them by Had ony thing that wes worthy, As horse, or hund, or other thing, That war pleasand to their liking ! With right or wrang it wald have they. And gif ony wald them withsay, They suld swa do, that they suld tine 1 Other 2 land or life, or live in pine. For they dempt 3 them efter their will, Takand na kepe 4 to right na skill. 6 Ah ! what they dempt them felonry ! 8 For gud knightes that war worthy, For little enchesoun 7 or then 8 nane They hangit be the neckbane. Als * that folk, that ever was free, And in freedom wont for to be, Through their great mischance and folly, Wor treated then sa wickedly, 30 442 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE That their faes 10 their judges ware : What wretchedness may man have mair? 11 Ah ! Freedom is a noble thing ! Freedom mays 18 man to have liking; 13 Freedom all solace to man gives : He lives at ease that freely lives ! A noble heart may have nane ease, Ne elles nought that may him please Giff freedom failye : for free liking Is yarnit 14 ower 16 all other thing. Nay he that aye has livit free May nought knaw well the property, 16 The anger, na the wretched doom, That is couplit" to foul thirldoom. 18 But gif he had assayit it, Then all perquer 19 he suld it wit ; And suld think freedom mair to prise Than all the gold in warld that is. I, lose. 2, either. 3, doomed, judged. 4, taking no heed, paying no re- gard. 5, reason. 6, Ah ! how cruelly they judged them ! 7, cause. 8, both the sense and the metre seem to require that this then (in orig. thd) should be transferred to the next line ; " they hangit then." 9, also, thus. 10, foes. 11, more. 12, makes. 13, pleasure. 14, yearned for, desired. 15, over, above. 16, the quality, the peculiar state or condition? 17, coupled, attached. 18, thraldom. 19, exactly. Thomas Occleve or Hoccleve. Another poet who has not had his just share of celebrity is Occleve, whose compositions greatly assisted the growth, and diffused the popularity of the in- fant English poetry. He knew Chaucer personally, and calls himself Chaucer's disciple. He wrote his principal poems in the reign of Henry IV ; they are generally placed at 1420. In the following lines he complains that the labors of an author are generally much undervalued : Many men, fadir, wenen x that writyng No travaile 8 is. They holde it but a game. A writer mote 3 thre thinges to hym knitte, 4 And in tho 6 may be no disseveraunce. Mynde, eye, and hond. 6 None may from other flitte,' But in him mote be joynte continuaunce. The mynde all hole, without variaunce, On eye and hond awaite 8 mote alway. And they two eke. 9 On hym it is no nay. 10 These artificers see I, day by day, In the hottest of all her besynesse, Talken 11 and syng and make game and play, And forth her labour passeth with gladnesse. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. But we labouren in travaillous 18 stilnesse. ITT- _i 13 __ J _i .11 1 443 But we labouren in travaillous 18 stilnesse. We stoupe 13 and stare upon the shepeskyn, 14 And kepe most our songe and oure wordes in. I, think. 2, labor. 3, must. 4, unite. 5, those. 6, hand. 7, fly. 8, watch. 9, also. 10, not to be denied. 11, talk. 12, laborious. 13, stoop. 14, sheepskin. John Lydgate. John Lydgate, a monk of Bury, was born in the village of Lydgate, near Newmarket, about A. D. 1373, and died about A. D. 1460 ; but these dates are uncertain. He was ordained subdeacon in the Benedictine Monastery of Bury St. Edmunds in 1389, deacon in 1393, and priest in 1397. He is remarkable for the great ease, fluency, and extent of his writings, a catalogue of which would take up a considerable space. He composed verses with such facility that we can not expect to find his poetry of a very lofty character ; still, he is generally pleasing, though too much addicted to prolixity. Some of his best poems are his minor ones, of which the following deserves to be cited from its connection with the manners of the age. It is the poet's description of his own youth : Voyde of reason ; gyven to wilfulnes, Frowarde to vertue ; of Christ gave letell hede. Loth to lerne ; lovede no vertuous besynes, Save play or myrth. Straunge to spell or rede ; Folowynge all appetitis longyng to childhede ; Lyghtlye tournynge ; wild and selde sadde ; Wepynge for nought, and anone after gladde. For lytel werth to stryve with my felawe, As my passyons dyd my brydell lede ; Of the yarde stode I sometyme in awe; To be scoured that was all my drede. Lothe towarde scole ; lost my time indede ; Lyke a yonge colt that ranne withoute brydell, Made my frendes gyve goode to spende in ydell. I had in custom to come to scole late ; Not for to lerne but for a countenaunce. With my fellawes redy to debate ; To jangle 1 and jape 2 was set all my pleasaunce. Wherof rebuked this was my chevisaunce, 3 To forge a lesynge 4 and therupon to muse. Whan I trespassed, myself to excuse. For my better dyd no reverence, Of my soveraynes gave no force at all, Wei obstynate by inobedience ; Ranne into gardeyns, appels there I stale, To gather frutes spared hedge nor wall ; To plucke grapes on other mennys vynes, Was more redy than for to saye mattynes. 444 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE My lust was alway to scorne folke and gape, Shrewede tournes ever amonge to use To scoff e and move 6 lyke a wanton ape, When I dyd evyll, other I dyd abuse. Redyer cheristones 6 for to tell Than go to churche or here the sacrynge bell. Lothe to ryse, lother to bed at eve ; With unwashe hondes redy to dyner, My paternoster, my crede or my beleve, Last at the looke. Lo this was my maner, Warred 7 with ecke 8 wynde as doth a rede spere. 9 Snobbed of my frendes such thatches 10 to amende, Made deffe eare, list not to them attende. My port, my pase, my fate alway unstable ; My looke, myn eyen unsure and vagabounde, In all my werkes sodeynly chaungeable. To all goode themes 11 contrary was I founde. Now oversad, now mornyng, now jocounde. Wilful, recheles, madd, startyng as a hare ; To folowe my luste, for no thynge wolde I spare. I, to babble. 2, to jest. 3, agreement. 4, lie. 5, to mock. 6, nonsense. 7, turning. 8, each. 9, sapling. 10, roguery. 11, qualities, x, unwilling. Extract from the Maister of Oxford's Catechism, writ- ten toward the Middle of the Fifteenth Century. Questions bitwene the Maister of Oxinford and hys Scoler. The Clerkys Question. Say me where was God whan he made heven and erthe ? The Maister's Answer. I saye, in the ferther ende of the wynde. C. Tell me what worde God first spake ? M. Be thowe made light, and light was made. C. Whate is God ? M. He is God, that all thynge made, and all thynge hath in hys power. C. In howe many dayes made God all thyngis ? M. In six dayes. The first daye he made light ; the second daye he made all thynge that helden heven ; the thirde daye he made water and erthe ; the fourth daye he made the firmament of heven ; the V th daye he made sterrys j 1 the vj" 1 daye he made almaner* bestis, fowlis, and the see, and Adam, the firste man. C. Wherof was Adam made ? AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 445 M. Of viij thyngis : The first of erthe, the second of water, the iij d9 of fyre, the iiij" 1 of wynde, the v 4 of clowdys, the yp dewe wherby he sweteth, the vij" 1 of flowres, wherof Adam hath his ien, 3 the viij th is salte wherof Adam hath salt teres. 4 C. Wherof was founde the name of Adam ? M. Of fowre sterrys, this been the namys : ^rcax, Z>ux, A\o%- tolym, and ./l/bmfumbres. C. Of what state was Adam whan he was made ? M. A man of xxx wynter of age. C. And of what length was Adam ? M. Of iiij score 6 and vj enchys. C. How longe lyved Adam in this worlde ? M. ix, c, and xxx' 7 wynter, and afterwarde in hell tyll the passion of our lord God. C. How longe was Adam in Paradys ? M. vij yere, and at vij yeres ende he trespased ayenst God for the apple that he hete on a Fridaye, and an anjell drove him owte. C. Howe many children had Adam and Eve ? M. xxx men children and xxx wymen children. C. Whate citie is there the son goth to reste ? M. A citie that is called Sarica. C. Whate be the best erbes that God loved ? M. The rose and the lilie. C. Whate fowle loved God best ? M. The dove, for God sent his spiret from heven in likenes of a dove. C. Whiche is the best water that ever was ? M. From Jurdan, for God was baptysed thereyn. C. Wher be the anjelles 6 that God put owte' of heven and bycam 8 devilles ? M. Som into hell, and som reyned in the skey, and som in the erth, and som in waters and in wodys. 9 C. Of whate thynge be men moste ferde? 10 M. Men be moste ferde of deth. C. Who cleped 11 first God? M. The devyll. C. Whiche is the heviest thynge bering? M. Syn is the heviest. C. Whiche be the iiij thyngis that never was ful nor never shalbe ? M. The first is erth, the second is fyre, the thirde is hell, the fourth is a covitous man. C. Howe many maner of birdis been there, and howe many of fisshes ? M. liiij of fowles, and xxxvj of fisshes. C. Whate hight the iiij waters that renneth through para- dys? 18 446 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE M. The one hight 13 Fyson, the oder 14 Egeon, the iij d8 hight Tygrys, and the iiij* Effraton. Thise been milke, hony, oyll, and wyne. C. Wherefor is the son 16 rede 16 at even? M. For he gothe toward hell. C. Howe many langagis been there? M. lxij, and so many discipules had God withowte hys ap- postoles. MS. Lansdowne, No. 762. 1, stars. 2, every kind of. 3, eyes. 4, tears. 5, twenty yards. 6, angels. 7, out. 8, became. 9, woods. 10, afraid. 11, called. 12, run. 13, is called. 14, other. 15, sun. 16, red. A Bill of Dinner Fare for a Feast at Oxford in Octo- ber, 1452. Primus Cursus. A sutteltee. 1 The bore hed 2 and the bulle. Brawne 3 and mustarde. Frumenty* with venysoun. Fesaunt in brase. 6 Swan with chawduen. 6 Capon of grece. Herunsew. 7 Poplar. 8 Custad ryalle. 9 Graunt fflaupant 10 departid. 11 Lesshe damask. 12 Fru- tour lumbert. 13 A sutteltee. Secundus Cursus. Viant in brase. Crane in sawse. 14 Yong pocok. 15 Cony. 16 Pyions. 17 Button 18 Curlew. Carcelle. 19 Partriche. Venysoun bake. Fryed mete in past. 20 Lesshe lumbert. A ffrutour. A sutteltee. Tertius Cursus. Gely 81 ryalle departid. Haunche of venysoun rostid. Wode- cok. 22 Plover. Knottis. 23 Hyntis. 24 Quaylis. Larkys. Quynces bake. Viant in past. A frutour. Lesshe. A sutteltee. Thys was the service at the coman .... of maister Nevell the sone of the erle of Sarisbury, which commenced at Oxenford the .... daye of Oct. . . . the yere of our Lord mcccclij, and the yere of Kyng vj th xxxj th . MS. Cotton, Tit. B. xi, fol. 21 v. I, devises made of sugar and paste. 2, boar's head. 3, a large piece of meat. 4, hulled wheat boiled in milk and seasoned with cinnamon,- sugar, etc. 5, ragout. 6, a kind of forced meat. 7, heron soup. 8, a pottage with a pecul- iar kind of herbs. 9, royal. 10, pancake. II, distributed. 12, perfumed. 13, high-seasoned meat-pie. 14, sauce. 15, peacock. 16, rabbit. 17, seeds of the piony. 18, butter. 19, sanderling. 20, paste (pie). 21, jelly. 22, woodcock. 23, small birds. 24, sea-larks. AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Old English Gastronomy. 447 Ther was a marchaunt of Ynglond whyche awenturyd 1 unto ferre cuntre. When he had byn a monyth 8 or more, there dwellyd a grete lorde of that contre whyche badd this Englysse marchaunte to dener. And when they were at dyner, the lord bad hym prophesyat, or myche goode do hyt hym, and he sayd he merravlyd 3 that he ete no better hys mete. And he sayd that Englysshemen ar callyd the grettyste fedours 4 in the worlde, and one man wolde ete more then vj of anoder nacyoun, and more vetelles 6 spend then in ony regioun. And then the Englysshe marchaunte anssweryd and sayd to the lorde that hyt was so, and for iij reasonable cawsys 6 that they were servyd with grete plenty of veteyll ; one was for love, anoder for phesyke, and the thyrde for drede. 7 Sir, as towchyn 8 for love, we use to have mony 9 dyvers metys for owr frendes and kynnesfolke, some lovythe one maner of mete and some anoder, becawse every man shulde be contente. The second cawse ys for phesyke, for dyvers maladyes that men have, some wyll ete one mete and some anoder, becawse every man shold be pleasyd. The thyrde cawse is for drede ; we have so grete abowndance and plente in ower realme, yf that we shulde not kyll and dystroye them, they wolde dystroy and de- voure us, bothe beste 10 and f owles. MS. Harl., 2252. I, adventured. 2, month. 3, marveled. 4, feeders. 5, provisions. 6, causes. 7, dread. 8, touching. 9, many. 10, beasts. Miscellanea. The following miscellaneous scraps, all written about the middle of the fifteenth century, may give us, from their familiar nature, some idea of the spoken language of that time : RULES FOR PRACTICAL LIFE. Arise erly, Serve God devowtely, And the worlde besely, 1 Doo thy work wysely, Yeve 8 thyn almes secretely, Goo by the waye sadly, Answer the people demeurly, 3 Goo to thy mete 4 apetitely, Sit therat discretely, Of thy tunge be not to liberally, Arise therfrom temperally, Goo to thy supper soberly, 448 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE And to thy bed merely, 6 And slepe suerly. 6 MS. Lansdowne, No. 762. I, busily. 2, give. 3, demurely. 4, dinner. 5, merrily. 6, surely. THE EVILS OF LENDING. I wolde lene 1 but I ne 2 dare, I have lant 3 I will bewarre, When y lant y had a frynd, When y hym asked he was unkynd : Thus of my frynd y made my foo, Therfore darre I lene no moo. 1 I pray ys of your gentilnesse Report for no unkyndnesse. MS. Harl., 941. I, lend. 2, not. 3, lent. 4, more. PROVERBS. Whersoever thou traveleste, este, weste, northe or southe, Learne never to loke a geven horsse in the mouthe. MS. Harl., No. 4294. Wyssdome dothe warne the in many a place, To truste no suche flatteres as gill jere in thy face. MS. Harl., No. 4298. He that spendes myche 1 and getythe 8 nowghte, 3 And owith myche and hathe nowghte, And lokys* in hys purse and fynde nowghte, He may be sary, 6 thowe 6 he seythe nowghte. MS. Harl., 2252. Two wymen in one howse, Two cattes and one mowse, Two dogges and one bone, Maye never accorde in one. I, much. 2, gets. 3, nothing. 4, looks. 5, sorry. 6, though. EARLY RECEIPT FOR MAKING GUNPOWDER. To make Gode Gonepoudre. Take the poudre of ij unces of salpetre aijd half an unce of brymston, and half an unce of lyndecole, 1 and temper togidur 3 in a mortar with rede 3 vynegre,* and make it thyk 6 as past 6 til the tyme that ye se 7 neyther salpetre ne 8 brymston, and drye it en 9 AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 449 the ffyre in an erthe pan with soft ffyre, and when it is wele dryed grynde it in a morter til it be smalle poudre, and than sarse it throow 10 a sarse, 11 etc. MS. Art. Soc. lib., 101. 1, charcoal made of the wood of the linden tree. 2, together. 3, red. 4, vinegar. 5, thick. 6, paste. 7, see. 8, nor. 9, on. io, through, n, sieve. RECEIPTS FOR COPYISTS AND SCRIBES. To make Texte Ynke. Take ij unces of grene vitriole, and cast hym together yn a quarte of standyng rayne water, and lett yt rest iiij days, and than take iij unces of gome, 1 and put therto, and lett yt stond iij dayes togedur and rest, and thou hast gode ynke for texte lettre and for almaner bokys. 3 (Ibid.) For to Wryte Golde. Take grey pomys, grynde yt smalle, temper yt with gleyre 3 as rede ynke, and wryte therwith ; and gwhan 4 yt ys drye, rub theron gold or sylver, and as the metal ys so yt wylle be sene, 6 and than borne 6 yt with the tosch 'of a kalf. MS. Cambr. Pub. Lib., I, 73. To done awey what is Y-wreten* in Velyn or Parchement with- owte any Pomyce. Take the juyst 9 of rewe 10 and of nettyl, 11 in Marche, in Averel, or in May, and medyl ** hit 13 with chese, mylke of a kow, or of shepe, put therto unqueynt M lym, medle hem wele togedur, and make therof a lofe, 15 and dry hit at the sonne, and make therof povvdur. Whan thou wolt do awey the lettre, wete a pensel with spotil 16 or with watur, and moist therwith the lettres that thou wolt do awey, and then cast the powdur therupon, and with thi nail thou maist done awey the lettres, that hit schal nothyng been a-sene, 17 withowte any apeyrement. 18 MS. Sloane, 1313. I, gum. 2, all kinds of books. 3, any slimy matter like the glair of an egg. 4, when. 5, seen. 6, burnish. 7, tooth. 8, written. 9, juice. 10, rue. 11, nettles. 12, mix. 13, it. 14, unquenched (quick). 15, loaf. 16, spittle, saliva. 17, seen. 18, injury. RECEIPT FOR TO MAKE A WOMAN'S NEKE WHITE AND SOFTE. Tak fresch swynes gres 1 molten, and hennes gres and the white of egges half rosted, and do thereto a lytel 2 popyl 3 mele,* enoynt hir therwith ofte. — Reliquice Antiques, p. 53. I, grease. 2, little. 3, poppy. 4, meal, flour. 450 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE RECEIPT FOR HYM THAT HAVES THE SQUYNANSY. 1 Tak a fatte katte, and fla 2 hit wele, 3 and clene, 4 and draw oute the guttes, and tak the gres of an urcheon, 6 and the fatte of a bare, and resynes and sauge, and gumme of wodebynde, and virgyn wax; al this mye 6 smal, and farse 7 the catte within als thu f arses a gos, 8 rost hit hale, 9 and geder 10 the gres and enoynt hym thar- with. — Idem., p. 54. I, quinsy sore throat. 2, flay. 3, neat. 4, clean. 5, hedge-hog. 6, pound. 7, stuff. 8, goose. 9, whole. 10, gather. NOTES OF OWNERSHIP. It was a common custom in the early times for owners of books to write in them metrical notes of their right of ownership. The following was written on a book of Maister Johan Shirley : Yee that desyre in herte and have plesaunce Olde stories in bokis 1 for to rede, Gode matiers 2 putt hem in remembraunce, And of the other take yee none hede ; Byseching yowe 3 of your godely 4 hede, Whane 6 yee thys boke have over-redde and seyne, 6 To Johan Sherley restore yee it ageine. 7 MS. Ashm., 59. I, books. 2, matters. 3, you. 4, kind. 5, when. 6, seen. 7, again. ANOTHER, WRITTEN BY THE COUNTESS OF WORCESTER, ABOUT THE YEAR I44O. And I yt los, and yow yt fynd, I pray yow hartely to be so kynd, That yow wil take a letel payne, To se my boke brothe home agayne. MS. Harl., 125 1. Printing in England. — Caxton. The art of printing had been practised nearly thirty years in Holland and Germany before it was introduced into England — with so tardy a pace did knowledge travel to and fro over the earth in those days, or so unfavorable was the state of the country for the reception of even the greatest improvements in the arts. At length a citizen of London secured a conspicuous place for his name forever in the annals of English literature, by being, so far as is known, the first of his countrymen that learned the new art, and certainly the first who either practised it in England, or in printing an English book. William Caxton was born, as he tells us himself, in the Weald of Kent, it is supposed, about the year 1412. In 1441 he was appointed by the Mercers' Company to be their agent in Holland, Zealand, Brabant, etc., and in this employment he spent twenty-three years, after which he passed into the service of the King's sister, Margaret of AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 451 York, who married Charles, Duke of Burgundy. His expertness in penmanship, his knowledge of different languages, and his intercourse with men of learning on the Continent, would naturally render him very serviceable to an enlightened princess, at a time when the newly-invented art of printing was just beginning to give an extraordinary impulse to the cultivation of literature among persons in the higher ranks of society. And as his opportunities must have led him to watch with interest the progress of typography abroad, it is not surprising that the duchess should encourage him in his efforts to introduce into his own coun- try an art which was going to mark a new era in the history of the world. She employed him in translating from the French Raoul le Fevre's Recueil des His- toires de Troye, a task which he commenced in 1468, and finished in 1471. The original was the first book ever printed in England, and his translation of it was the third. He modestly apologizes for the imperfections of his translation by saying that he had never been in France, and that he had resided out of Eng- land for nearly thirty years ; and in fact his orthography betrays a long residence in Holland. The usual supposition has been that he brought the art of print- ing into England in 1474. From a very curious placard, a copy of which in Caxton's largest type is now at Oxford, we learn that he exercised his business at Westminster in the Almonry. It is as follows : If it plese any man spirituel or temporel to bye ony Pyes of two or thre comemoracyons of Salisburi enprynted after the forme of this present lettre whiche ben wel and trewly correct, late hym come to Westmonaster in to the Almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal have them good chepe. The following extract from his preface to a translation of Vergil's jEneid is important in the history of the English language, for its mentioning the great diversity of dialects existing at that time, and changing from one generation to another. It moreover shows the continual tendency of the age to introduce foreign words and expressions, and also implies that the old English had fallen entirely into disuse toward the latter part of the fifteenth century : I toke an olde boke and redde thereyn, and certainly the Englysshe was so rude and brood, that I coude not wele under- stonde it. . . . Our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken when I was borne. For we Eng- lysshe men ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer stedfaste, but ever wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dycreased another season ; and that comyne Eng- lysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from another, inso- muche, that in myne dayes happened, that certayn marchauntes were in a shippe in Tamyse, for to have sayled ouer the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte Forlond, and wente to londe for to refresshe them ; and one of theym, named Sheffelde, a mercer, came into a hows, and axed for mete and specyally he axyd for eggys, and the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no Frensshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frensshe, but wolde haue hadde eggys, and she vnderstode hym not. And thenne at laste another sayd, that he wolde haue eyren ; and the goode wyf sayd that she un- derstode hym wele. Loo what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, eggys or eyren ? Certainly it is harde to playse euery man by cause of dyuersyte and chaunge of langage ; for in thyse dayes 452 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE euery man that is in ony reputacyon in his countre, wil utter hys comynycacyon and maters in suche maners & termes, that fewe men shal vnderstonde theym, and som honest and grete clerkes haue been wyth me, and desyred me to wryte the moste curyous termes that I coude fynde. And thus between playne, rude, and curyous, I stand abashed. But in my judgemente the comyn termes that ben dayli vsed ben lyghter to be vnderstonde than the olde and auncyent Englisshe. We here close the list of specimens of Early English, which represents the language of all classes of people in England — poets, chroniclers, divines, preachers, citizens, noblemen, etc., from the time of the conquest to the end of the fifteenth century. These have been presented to the reader in a chronological succession, so as to enable him to follow the progress of the language, and the grad- ual changes which most contributed to produce it. In their selection care has been taken not to omit such pieces as from their familiar nature better represent the colloquial language, and which to the philologer are often of more importance than the elegant phrases of learned authors. In fact, it can not have escaped attention that in the former the language is generally more intelligible, and seems al- most more advanced than in the latter ; but it must not be forgotten that in all tongues the principal and most needed terms and expressions have been made by the peo- ple at large in the daily course and business of life, long before literature began. It is language that shapes liter- ature, rather than literature language. The busy world creates the phrases which the student uses. Writers may prune and polish them, and sometimes multiply ; but they never improve language in its stages of formation as the active talking public, ever thinking and discoursing, though rarely composing. APPENDIX FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. " It is owing to the coming of William," says Dr. Free- man, in his History of the Norman Conquest, " that we can not trace the history of our native speech, that we can not raise our wail for its corruption without borrowing largely from the store of foreign words which, but for his coming, would never have crossed the sea. So strong a hold have the intruders taken on our soil that we can not tell the tale of their coming without their help." This language is strong, but true nevertheless; and though there is hardly occasion, it would seem, to dwell so despondingly on the corruption of an idiom from which English literature has derived but little if any value, and which, after its so-called " corruption," has given to the world a Chaucer, a Spencer, a Shakespeare, a Milton — "each in his own field as great as the mightiest that ever wielded a pen," it is not the less certain that the changes which transformed the original speech of England into modern English are greatly due to the influence named, " which began," as Dr. Freeman further observes, " in the eleventh century, and has never been stopped." If, then, we would account for the real nature of this influence, something more is necessary than a mere ac- quaintance .with modern French, which, much as it may assist the student in apprehending the original meaning of many English words, can do so only to a limited ex- tent, unless he be acquainted also with the sources from which such words have been derived. In this respect etymological dictionaries, even when correct, are of little or no avail. Nothing, indeed, is gained by learning that 456 APPENDIX. certain English words are derived from either French or Latin ; nor is the distinction itself of any value to the stu- dent, unless he knows both idioms, and by a previous ac- quaintance with the causes and circumstances of their transformation, and a correct knowledge of the rules which govern the change of forms which words assume in passing from one language into another, he has acquired the habit of generalizing so as to recognize at a glance the inherent meaning of each word in the foreign text, independently of the many transformations through which it may have gone, and by which its original stamp is often much dis- guised. The number of French words that once were Latin and have found their way into the English vocabu- lary being quite extensive, a clear understanding of this important part of the national language may require some special assistance, which the student who has gone thus far through this volume will undoubtedly be pleased to find in the following brief chapters on the origin and for- mation of the French language. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. As far back as evidence can be traced we find the soil of France occupied by two distinct races — the Gauls, by far the most numerous and occupying almost the entire country, and the Iberians who, under the name of Aqui- tanians, inhabited the southwestern parts comprised be- tween the Garonne and the Pyrenees. At a later, though also very remote, epoch, other Iberians, called Ligurians, coming from Spain, invaded Gaul, and spread along the Mediterranean. Later still, about six hundred years be- fore our era, some Greek colonies, in order to escape the Persian yoke, left their country, and settled among these very Ligurians in the southeast of Gaul, where, near the mouths of the Rhone, they founded the city of Mas- silia, now called Marseilles. All we know of the Gauls and their early history is through their enemies the Romans, by whom they are described as a wandering people and of constant annoy- ance to them, either attacking them with overwhelming forces, as in the case of Brennus, or uniting with hostile neighbors, as the Etruscans and Samnites. Later on they were found in almost every war against the Romans. Hannibal made them his allies, and in the battles of Cannes and Trasimene they formed a large part of his army. About 283 B. c. a body of Gauls under Brennus settled in Asia Minor, where they became known as the Galatians, to whose very descendants the Apostle Paul addressed his Epistle. Wherever they went, we find them always described as keeping exclusively to their own manners and their own language. 1 1 Galatas, excepto sermone graeco, quo omnis Oriens loquitur, propriam linguam eamdem pene habere quam Treviros ; nee referre, si aliqua exinde cor- mperint, cum et Afri phoeniciam linguam nonnulla ex parte maturint, et ipsa latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et tempore. — Saint Jerome, Comon. Epist. ad Galatas, lib. ii, Proem. There are many Celtic names in Galatia and the neighboring parts of Bithynia and Magnesia ; such as the rivers AZsius, jEsyros, and yEstm, which apparently contain the root es, water. Abr-os-tola 31 458 APPENDIX. When Cassar entered Gaul he found there three races, different in speech, manners, arid laws — the Aquitanians still occupying the land between the Garonne and the Pyrenees; the Belgians between the Rhine, the Seine, and the Marne ; and the Celts, whose country extended from the frontiers of Belgium to those of Aquitania, 1 with the exception of certain parts between the Seine and Loire on the Atlantic coast, where the Belgians prevailed, and which bore the name of Armorica? This classifica- tion of the various tribes originally inhabiting the coun- try now called France does not include an old Roman settlement around Narbonne (Narbo Martius) nor the Greek colonies aforementioned, nor some German tribes that of late had commenced to cross the Rhine and to set- tle on the left bank of that river. Each of these peoples had its own peculiar speech, with this difference, that while the language of the Aqui- tanians bore a close resemblance to that of the Spanish Iberians, and none whatsoever to that of the Gauls and the Belgians, the idioms of the latter two differed but little, and might be considered as dialects of the same lan- guage. 3 This language is generally known as the Celtic. seems to contain the root aber as well. Vindia, Cinna, and Brianim call to mind the roots gwent, cenn, and bryn. Armorium reminds us of Armorica. Olenus, in Galatia, reminds us of Olentzum in Britain, and Olin in Gaul. Agannia re- minds us of Agennum in Gaul. An Episcopus Taviensis came from Galatia to attend the Nicene Council. We have also the apparently Celtic names Acito- rizacum, Ambrenna, Eccobriga, Landrosia, Roslogiacum, and the river Siberis. — Diefenbach, Celtica, ii, part i, pp. 256, 313 ; Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois, vol. i, pp. 145, seq. ; De Belloguet, Ethnoge'nie, vol. i, p. 249. 1 Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgce, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtez, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutes, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna 6u- men, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. — Caesar, De Bella Gallico, lib. i. Oi fi^jv St], rptxv Sffipovv, 'A/couiVaj'ota Kal B4\yas KaKovvres Kal KeAras. — Strabo, iv. Celtarum quae pars Gallia? tertia est. — Livy, V, c. xxxiv. Temporibus priscis cum laterent hae partes ut barbarae, tripartitae fuisse creduntur ; in Celtas eosdem Gallos divisae, et Aquitanos et Belgas. — Ammian. Marcellin. XV, c. xxvii. 3 Mei-a 5e ra Kex^VTa e'&'Tj, t4 \onra BeX*y£v eVrlv %6v7i, t&v irapwKtavtTwv ' & OveVeroi p.ev eitrlv oi yav/xaxho'avTes wpbs Kalffapa. — Strabo, iv. In this passage of Strabo, UapaxeaviTtts seems to be the translation of the Celtic Armorik, an adjective formed of ar, " on, by, or at," and mor, " sea," from which we have the name of Armorica, in French Armorique. 3 Tobs i*.tv 'AicoviTavobs, re\eas ef^McrVjiieVouy ov rrjs y\t&TT7]s /J.6vov, aK\a Kal toij aiifuuriv, iiitpepeh "Ifiripo-i fiSAAov % raXdVous. — 'Air\as y&p eiireie, 01 'Akovitcu'oI Staxpepovtri tqv ya\ariKov 'Pwfuuiiv Timor, kvH ttj 7A14TT77, «oi tois plots. — Strab., IV. The word barbarian was ap- plied by the Egyptians, and afterward by the Greeks and Romans, to all who did not speak their language. 462 APPENDIX. in Gaul, and those of Autun, Lyons, Treves, Reims, Be- sancon, Poitiers, Narbonne, Marseilles, and Toulouse be- came renowned throughout the land. Henceforth the Gauls cultivated Latin literature with an ardor and activ- ity at that time unequaled in any portion of the Western Empire. They were particularly distinguished by an un- bounded enthusiasm for the disputes of the forum. Juve- nal called Gaul "the nurse for lawyers," 1 and such was the high character of the Gallic academies, that at one time the emperors, either from policy or from preference, sent their sons there for education. Thus Crispus, a son of Constantine, and Gratianus, made their studies at Treves ; Dalmatius and Annibalianus, grandsons of Constantius Chlorus, followed a course of eloquence at Toulouse. In all the cities of Roman Gaul the education of youth was entrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric, who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honor- able privileges. 2 There are still extant many imperial edicts relating to these public seminaries, in which privi- leges are conferred upon the teachers, and regulations laid down as to the manner in which they were to be appointed, the salaries they were to receive, and the branches of learning they were to teach. They were held in high respect, and enjoyed many of the immunities and privileges afterward conferred on the clergy. Several of the Gallic professors, not satisfied with their high renown as teachers, aimed at the still higher distinction of Latin authors, and quite a number among them, such as Petro- nius, Lactantius, Ausonius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Corne- lius Gallus,' Trogus-Pompeius, and Sulpicius Severus attained a well-deserved celebrity. 3 But while Latin had made such wonderful progress among the upper classes in the large cities and the main centers of civilization, it was not so with the working- 1 Nutricula causidicorum. — Juvenal, Sat., vii, 147. 2 To this Juvenal (xv. no) refers in the following lines : Nunc totus Graias, nostrasque habet orbis Athenas, Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos, De conducendo loquitur jam rhetore Thule. 8 Claudianus could not find anything more flattering for the Emperor Ho- norious than calling him, attended upon by the learned men of Gaul and the Roman Senate — " Te Gallia doctis Civibus, et toto stipavit Roma Senatu. Claud., de IV, Consulatu Honorii August. Panegyris, vers. 582. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 463 classes, and especially not with the country people, who at first had not the same inducements to learn the lan- guage, nor the same facilities for its acquisition. Not having the advantage of teachers or schools, they only gradually, generation after generation, gained what they could, partly from contact with the Roman legions, by the natural affinity which always draws the people to the soldiers, partly from necessity in their daily dealings with Roman tradesmen and shop-keepers. In remote dis- tricts it was learned second-hand from other Celts, re- turned from the service perhaps, or settling in their native village after having made some money among Latin-speaking people, where they had learned enough of the language to affect a superiority, or to make them- selves useful as interpreters among their less favored friends and relatives. One may easily imagine the thou- sand various ways in which the overwhelming influence of Roman civilization caused the diffusion of its language among the Celtic population. In the same manner as honey varies in color and flavor, according to the nature of the flowers from which it is collected and the breed of the bees that elaborated it, so the Latin spoken in Gaul approached more or less to the common Latin of Italy according to the location, dialect, and degree of instruction of the people who used it. Even in those centers where the educated prided themselves on their correct use of the Roman language, the people clung for a long time to their ancient Celtic vernacular. In the latter part of the second century Saint Irenasus, Bishop of Lyons, was still obliged to speak the Celtic language in order to be understood by the people among whom he preached the Gospel. 1 In the third century a Druidess, wishing to address some prophetic words to Alexander Severus, did so in Celtic, probably knowing no other lan- guage. 3 It was only in the course of the fourth century that Latin began to be of general use, badly pronounced, of course, 8 and considerably mixed with Celtic, which for 1 Orationis artem non exquires a nobis qui apud Celtas commoramur, et in barbarum sennonem plerumque avocamur. — Saint Irenaeus, Proem, libri adver- sus hceres. 8 Mulier druias eunti {Alexandro Severn) exclamavit gallico sermone : " Va- das, nee victoriam speres, nee militi tuo credas." — ^Elius Lampridis, Collect, script, lat. veter., ii, p. 354. 8 Claudianus said in the fourth century: "Video enim os romanum non modo negligentiae sed pudori esse Romanis, grammaticam uti quandam barba- ram barbarismi et solcecismi pugno et calce propelli." — Miscellanea, iii, p. 27. 464 APPENDIX. a long time after remained the home speech of the poor and the lowly, especially in the mountainous districts, and such as were remote from the main centers of the popula- tion and from the principal ways of communication that were opened by the Romans. Thus we find in the fifth century the Celtic language still lingering on the mount- ains of Auvergne, as appears from a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont, who congratulates Ecdice that, thanks to his efforts, the nobility of that district had got rid at last of their coarse Celtic speech; 1 Saint Je- rome informs us that some of the language he heard in Treves differed but little from that of the Gauls in Gala- tia ; and Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, wishing to com- pliment Bertechram on the excellence of his Latin poetry, predicts that his verses would some day become popular even among the lower classes ; 2 from all of which we may infer that a good deal of Celtic was still current among the people at that advanced period. Still, in the course of that century the Celtic idiom as a vernacular gradually died out, except in Brittany, the ancient Armorica, where it is spoken at the present day. What most powerfully contributed to spread the Latin language among the masses was the establishment of Christianity throughout Gaul. The church had adopt- ed it as the leading literary language in the West, where it became the natural exponent of the new faith, and the most efficacious means to secure its propagation. Thus Christian Rome completed, by the diffusion of its doc- trines, what pagan Rome had commenced by its laws, its institutions, and the powerful influence of its literature and its civilization. It would be difficult to assign the exact time when Latin had entirely displaced the original Celtic, though it is generally assumed that by the end of the fifth cent- ury the change was accomplished. Few there were who could not say something in Latin, partly from pride and vanity, which always leads the people to imitate those whom they consider their betters; but more generally from necessity, in their endeavors to obtain employment from the nobles and the rich, who regarded the Celtic 1 Quod sermonis celtici squamam depositura nobilitas, nunc oratorio stylo, nunc etiam camaenalibus modis imbuebatur. — Sid. Apollin., lib. iii, Epist. 3. 2 Per loca, per populos, per compita cuncta videres Currere versiculos, plebe favente, tuos. Venant. Fortunati opera, p. 89. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 465 idiom with disdain, and knew no other language than that which became a Roman citizen. This universality of the Latin tongue, however, which caused so much pride to the Romans, 1 led that language directly to its ruin. When an idiom becomes the means of communication between so many diverse tribes, so many opposite races, it loses in perfection what it gains in extent. It does not penetrate the unintelligent masses, and still it suffers from their influence ; it wears out in this perpetual friction, and does not polish what it touch- es. We may therefore suppose that, outside the more cultivated classes, the Latin, as spoken in Gaul, was much affected by the contact not only with the native language, but also with that of the colonists and Roman soldiers themselves, which was far from being refined, and, accord- ing to the authors of the period, who disdainfully called it sermo plebeius, rusticus, militaris sermo, castrense verbo, full of barbarisms. This popular Latin was unwritten, and we might have remained ignorant of its existence had not the Roman grammarians revealed it to us by exhort- ing their students to avoid, as low and trivial, certain ex- pressions, which they told them were of vulgar use. Cassiodorus informs us that the feigned combats of gladi- ators and the exercise drill of the army were called bata- lia? whereas pugna was the literary term ; pugna has dis- appeared and batalia has survived in the French bataille. So, " to strike " is verberare in literary Latin, but the popular Latin said batuere, whence the French battre. The words cheval, semaine, aider, doubter, were in the classical Latin equus, hebdomas, juvare, duplicare ; in the popular language, caballus, septimana, adjutare, duplare ; a marked difference, which made the Popular Latin a language within a language, but not the less Latin. The Literary Latin of Gaul was undoubtedly as elegant and refined as that of Rome itself; 3 but there, as elsewhere, it 1 It was not only in Gaul, but also in Spain, in Illiria, in the north of Afri- ca, and more or less everywhere in all the Roman dependencies, that Latin be- came the prevalent language. Saint Augustine tells us that, preaching to the people of Hippone in Africa, on the site of Carthage, he was obliged to trans- late a Punic proverb into Latin : Proverbium notum est punicum, quod quidcm latine vobis dicam, quia punice non omnes nostis ; punicum autem proverbium est antiquum : nummum quaerit pestilentia, duos illi da, et ducat se. — S. Aug., ser- mon 168, De verbos apostol. 2 Quae vulgo batalia dicuntur, exercitationes gladiatorum vel militum sig- nificant. — Cassiodorus, Adamant., p. 2,300. 3 Ut ubertatem gallici nitoremque sermonis gravitas romana condiret.— Saint Jerome, epistola XCV, ad Rust. 466 APPENDIX. was confined to the use of the upper classes, the orators and poets, more select, but less numerous than the people, by whose language it was absorbed after the classical dia- lect had disappeared as a colloquial idiom. The progress of the Popular Latin, henceforth the na- tional language of Gaul, did not remain long undisturbed. Even before Caesar's time, some German tribes, as we have seen, had commenced to find their way on Gallic soil, and, as during the following centuries they gradually increased in numbers and pretensions, it was deemed un- safe to allow this kind of immigration to go on without restriction. To protect Northern Gaul against invasion, the Romans garrisoned their frontiers with a chain of legions or military colonies, as was their custom. When, however, these veterans were no longer able to defend the sanctity of Roman territory, the Romans employed an expedient, which for a century or more kept the in- vaders at bay, or at least modified the nature of their encroachments. It was determined to let the barbarians settle in the north of Gaul, in order to attach them to the empire, and to use them as a new and durable barrier against all further invasions. These tribes went by the name of Lceti — probably only the Latin way of pronounc- ing the German word leute — and formed armed colonies ; they recognized the nominal sovereignty of the emperors, and enjoyed lands granted them under a kind of military tenure. At the same time the emperors hired some Franks, Burgundians, and Visigoths to fill up the blanks in their legions. The first consequence was an ever-increasing intro- duction of Teutonic words into the common Latin. These, as may be supposed, are chiefly connected with warfare. Vegetius tells us that the Roman soldiers began to give the name of burgus 1 to a small fortified work. This is the old word burg, which has survived in French and all Teu- tonic idioms. Thus, nearly a century before Clovis, cer- tain German terms had already found their way into the Gallo-Roman language ; the mixed character of the new national idiom favored their admission, and many foreign words of Teutonic origin slipped in unperceived among those who had occasion for their use. Meanwhile the Roman empire was sinking beneath the weight of its own grandeur ; the want of moral ear- 1 Castellum parvum quod burgum vocant. — Vegetius, De re militari, iv, 60. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 467 nestness, the extinction of the old families, the inequalities of wealth, the decrease of the numbers of free citizens, the corrupting effects of slavery, the dissoluteness of those who ought by their example to have ennobled the supreme power, the venality of the law courts, were gradually lead- ing the empire to its dissolution ; and the nations of the north, profiting by its weakness, burst the barriers upon all sides. The Gallo-Romans, abandoned by the emperors who, harassed "in every quarter, ordered them "to defend themselves," were overcome, as in Britain, for want of military experience, and by the middle of the fifth cent- ury the Germanic league, whose members for two centu- ries had borne the name of Franks, 1 descending in several bands from the mouths of the Rhine and the Maas, had taken possession of all the northern part of Gaul. Two other nations of Teutonic race had already thoroughly invaded and fixed their abode in the provinces of the south, between the Loire and the two seas. The western Goths or Visigoths 2 occupied the country west of the Rhone; the Burgundians 3 that to the east. The estab- lishment of the latter two barbarous nations had not taken place without violence and ravage ; they had usurped a portion of the possessions of each native family ; but the love of repose, when wealth was once acquired, and a certain spirit of justice, which distinguished them among all other German tribes, had speedily softened their man- ners ; they contracted relationships with the conquered, whom their laws treated with impartiality, and they grad- ually came to be regarded by them as simply friends and 1 It is a popular notion that the word Frank means " free, open, candid ; a free man " ; this is not, however, its original meaning, though in a secondary sense the word has borne these significations. In the Teutonic languages, frank, frak, frek, frech, vrek, vrang, mean " bold, warlike, intrepid." Ethnical names, in addition to their primitive meaning, are often used as expressive of certain qualities, whether the use is complimentary or not. Assassin, gascon, vandal, Goth, are attributive words in French as well as English ; the word " slave," esclave, has been derived from the low estate of the Sclavonians. To designate civil liberty there was, in the language of France during the ninth and tenth centuries, no other word for it than that of frankise or franchise, a dialectic difference of pronunciation ; and when we remember how the soldier- like fidelity, and the self-reliant courage of the Franks enabled them with ease to subjugate the civilized but effeminate inhabitants of northern Gaul, we can understand how the name of a rude German tribe has come to denote the frank, bold, open, manly character of a soldier and a freeman, and the word franchise to denote the possession of the full civil rights of the conquering race. (See page 76.) ! West-Gothen, in Latin Visigothi. 3 Burg-hunds, dwellers in burghs or fortified towns ; in Latin Burgun- diones. 468 APPENDIX. neighbors. The Goths, for the most part, adopted the Ro- man manners, which they found generally in use among the civilized inhabitants of Gaul ; their laws were, in great measure, mere extracts from the imperial code ; they prided themselves on a taste for the arts, and affected the polished elegance of Rome. 1 The Franks, on the con- trary, filled the north of Gaul with terror and devasta- tion; strangers to the manners and arts of the Roman cities and colonies, they ravaged them with indifference, and even with a sort of pleasure. They being pagans, no religious sympathy tempered their savage humor. Spar- ing neither sex nor age, destroying churches as readily as dwelling-houses, they gradually advanced toward the south, invading the whole extent of Gaul; while the Goths and Burgundians, impelled by a similar ambition, but with less barbarous manners, sometimes at peace with each other, but more often at war, tried to make progress in the opposite direction. In the weak condition of the central provinces, wliich still formed part, though only in name, of the Roman empire, with which they were utter- ly disgusted, and which, in the words of an ancient Gaul- ish poet, made them feel the weight of its shadow, 3 there was reason to suppose that the inhabitants of these prov- inces, incapable of resisting the conquering nations, who pressed upon them on three sides, would come to terms with the least ferocious ; in a word, that the whole of Gaul would submit either to the Goths or to the Burgundians, Christians like themselves, to escape the grasp of the Franks ; but fate had decided otherwise. The portion of the Gaulic territory which in the latter part of the fifth century was occupied by the Franks ex- tended from the Rhine to the Somme, and the tribe most advanced into the west and south, was. that of the Mero- wings or children of Merowig, 3 so called from the name of one of their ancient chiefs, renowned for his bravery, 1 Burgundiones .... blande, mansuete, innocenterque vivunt, non quasi cum subjectis Gallis, sed vere cum fratribus Christianis. — Paulus Orosius, apud Script, rer. gallic, et francic. 2 Portavimus umbram imperii. — Sidon. Apoll., Carmina. 8 Merovicus .... a quo Franci et prius Merovinci vocati sunt, propter utilitatem videlicet et prudentiam illius, in tantam venerationem apud Francos est habitus, ut quasi communis pater ab omnibus coleretur. — Roviconis Gest. Franc, apud Scriptores, etc., iii, 4. Primum regem traduntur habuisse Mero- veum, ob cujus potentes facta et mirificos triumphos, intermisso Sicambrorum vocabulo, Merovingi dicti sunt. — Hariulfi Chronicon Centulense. In the Frank- ish language, Merowings ; the termination ing indicating descent. (Compare pages 191, 192, and 304.) FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 469 and respected by the whole tribe as a common an- cestor. At the head of the children of Merowig was a young man named Hlodowig or Clovis, who combined with the warlike ardor of his predecessors a greater degree of re- flection and skill. The bishops of that portion of Gaul which was still subject to the empire entered, probably as a matter of prudence and of precaution for the future, into relation with this formidable neighbor, sending him frequent messages, replete with flattering expressions. Many of his envoys even visited him in his camp, which in their Roman politeness they dignified with the name of Aula Regia, or royal court. The king of the Franks was at first very insensible to their adulation, which in no way kept him from pillaging the churches and the treas- ures of the clergy ; but a precious vase, taken by his men from the Cathedral of Reims, placed the barbarian chief in relations of interest, and ere long of friendship, with a prelate more able or more successful than the rest. This was Remigius or Remi, bishop of Reims, under whose skillful management events took the proper form to bring about the grand plan of the high Gaulish clergy. First, by a change too fortunate to have been wholly fortuitous, the king, whom they desired to convert to the Roman faith, married the only orthodox Catholic princess then existing among the Teutonic families ; and " the love of the faithful wife," as the historians of the time express it, gradually softened the heart of the infidel husband. 1 In a battle with some Germans who sought to follow the Franks into Gaul, and to conquer a part thereof for them- selves, Hlodowig, whose soldiers were giving way, in- voked the god of Clothilda (such was the name of his wife), and promised to believe in him if he conquered. He conquered, and kept his word. The example of the chief, the presents of Clothilda and the bishops, and perhaps the charm of novelty, which too often was the motive of these heathens in such mat- ters, brought about the conversion of a number of Frank warriors, as many, indeed, say the historians, as three thousand. 2 The baptism took place at Reims, and all the splendor that could still be furnished by Roman art, which was soon to perish in Gaul, was displayed in pro- 1 Fidelis infideli conjuncta viro. — Aimonii chronicon, lib. xiv. 8 De exercitu vero ejus baptizati sunt amplius tria millia — Greg. Turr. 47Q APPENDIX. fusion to adorn this triumph of the Christian faith. From the time that King Hlodowig was declared a son of the Roman church, his conquests spread in Gaul almost with- out effusion of blood. All the cities of the northwest, to the Loire and to the territory of the Bretons, opened their gates to his soldiers, and their garrisons passed over to the service of the Frankish king. Goths and Burgun- dians had to yield to his power one after the other, and ere long the Frankish dominion extended from the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Before their invasion of Gaul the Franks formed a league, composed of several tribes occupying the terri- tory bounded by the Weser, the Main, the Rhine, and the North Sea. Within this zone, Franks, Dutch, Flemish, Frisians, Saxons, etc., were all one and the same race of people. Their laws, religion, and general character dif- fered but little ; and their language, though of the same stock and in the main alike, included as many dialects as there were confederate tribes. In Gaul, however, all the dialects of the invaders seem to have merged into two principal ones — the Salian and Ripuarian Franks in the north, and the Ne-Ostrian or Neustrian in the west, speak- ing the ancient Dutch and Flemish, which differed but little, and the Ostrasian Franks, in the eastern part of Gaul, speaking old High German, having come originally from Germany, whence their numbers were constantly increasing. In either of these districts Latin was well- nigh crowded out, together with the native population, most of whom, to escape murder or bondage, fled before the conquering enemy. Different it was in Neustria, however, at least in that portion which extends from the Scarpe to the Loire and from the Maas to the ocean, and which was the largest and most populous part. The Sa- lian Franks, who occupied this country, were the farthest removed from the Rhine, and had but little intercourse with the Germanic tribes that dwelt on the other side of the river, while they mingled freely with the Gallo- Roman people, who were vastly superior in number, as well as in civilization and intellectual culture of ever}' kind. Instead of being driven out, the latter were left in possession of a portion of their goods and of their civil rights. The kings of these Franks treated with particular favor the Christian clergy, as a matter of policy, perhaps, to secure their support with the people, and to separate their cause from that of the Germans beyond the Rhine, FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 47 1 whose invasions they dreaded as much as did the Gallo- Romans themselves. This conciliatory . policy brought conqueror and conquered closer together, and, yielding to the irresistible influence of a higher civilization, the former gradually fell in with the manners and habits, and even the language of their new subjects. Many causes led to this result. In the first place, the nu- meral paucity of the invaders — a few bands of armed men, fierce warriors, it is true, but scarcely more than twelve thousand in all, in the midst of six million of Gallo-Romans. Then, again, their language was not exactly one, as we ljave seen, each tribe having its own dialect — Frankish, Burgundian, Gothic, in all their divisions and subdivis- ions ; and though these were all of the same stock, and more or less alike, it may have been found convenient, for the purpose of international, and to some extent even of local intercourse, to make use of a more cultivated idiom. The conquest of Gaul, moreover, was not systematic and simultaneous. At first only small bands of armed emi- grants came in from time to time, and gradually paved the way for the great invasions of Clovis in the fifth cent ury ; and all these were thoroughly assimilated with the Gallo-Roman population in interest and language by the time of the Carlovingian invasion, which took place three centuries later. Then, among the first invaders there were probably many who had served in the Roman legions, and therefore were familiar with the language as well as with the mode of warfare of the Romans. Al- though all these invasions, large and small, partook of the nature of armed immigrations, it is not likely that many of the invaders were married men, and brought their wives with them in the first instance ; and as most of the foreign warriors, after marrying Gallo-Roman women, became farmers and worked in the field when war did not call them to the standard of their chief, they left to their wives the care of their children, who thus naturally learned to speak their mother's tongue. Add to this the influence of the clergy, after their conversion to Christianity, and it becomes evident that a few thousand men, in the midst of a numerous population, could not but fall into the use of the language which they heard spoken on all sides. In viewing the events, and the terrible mode of war- fare of some of these northern tribes upon the peaceable inhabitants of Gaul, to possess themselves of their rich and cultivated lands, we are apt to exaggerate the wicked- 472 APPENDIX. ness of their purposes, and to allow ourselves to be de- ceived by the name of barbarian, which the Romans gave indiscriminately to all uncivilized or semi-civilized nations, and which is now current in its most contemptuous mean- ing only. But these barbarians must have been possessed of remarkable qualities to cope successfully with the Ro- man power, even when in its decline, to wrest from it one of its richest provinces, and hold their sway over a nu- merous population, whose intellectual superiority was acknowledged by the Romans themselves. Nor does the language of these tribes, in its varied combinations, its remote origin, and extensive influences, exhibit such a low condition as would imply the epithet disdainfully be- stowed by imperial Rome on Huns and Franks alike. The poetry of the latter, on the contrary, gives us quite a different idea of their intellectual character. It is true, this poetry dates from after the invasion ; but from the testimony of Tacitus, Jornandes, Ammianus Marcellinus, and from the fragment of a Frankish epopee lately dis- covered, it would seem that these Teutonic tribes must have had something like the Eddas, the Sagas, or the Nibelungen, before setting foot on Roman soil. Their war songs were impetuous and terrible, like the shock of their armies. Conquered, they sang their song of death in the midst of tortures ; conquerors, they celebrated their successes by poetical recitals. If this poetry had not the noble and harmonious beauty, the majestic regu- larity of Greek odes, it exhibited sometimes a grandeur and simplicity that would have been worthy of Homer. Of course they stood below the Romans in point of ele- gance and social refinement ; but they had brought with them what was better than effete Roman civilization — the spirit, at least, and the elementary forms of a new system of political arrangement, founded upon larger and juster views of human rights and duties, and, in its final devel- opment, more favorable to the general security of person and property, and to the promotion of all the other ends of good government and social compact, than any with which antiquity had been acquainted. They had brought with them from their forests principles of liberty and equality, of obedience to law and authority, of voluntary alliance of man to man, inviolate fidelity to the sworn oath, respectful deference to woman, protection to the weak from the strong — in a word, the worship and even the superstition of that kind of honor which afterward FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 473 we find in chivalry, and of which courage and scorn of meanness were the foundation. All this, as much as the strength of their armies, secured their successes in Gaul, where the people began to look upon them as their deliverers from military tyranny and corrupt Roman officials. " In all the cities and villa- ges," says Salvianus, 1 a priest of Marseilles who witnessed the first invasions, " there are as many tyrants as there are officers of the government ; they devour the bowels of the citizens and their widows and orphans ; public bur- dens are made the means of private plunder ; the collec- tion of the national revenue is made the instrument of individual peculation ; none are safe from the devasta- tions of these insatiable robbers. The public taxation is unequally imposed and arbitrarily levied ; hence many desert their farms and dwellings to escape the violence of the exactors. There is but one wish among all Romans : that the}' may dwell under the barbarian government. Thus our brethren not only refuse to leave these nations, but they flee from us to them. Can we then wonder that the Goths are not conquered by us, when the people would rather become Goths with them than remain Ro- mans with us? The Roman cities are full of the most dissolute luxury, and the foulest vices and debauchery. In this state of evil the Goths and Vandals, like a torrent, overran the Roman empire, and settled themselves in its cities and towns. Their speedy corruption was appre- hended in the midst of a population thus abandoned ; but to the astonishment of all, instead of degenerating into the universal depravity, they became its moral reformers. The luxuries and vices around them excited their disgust and abhorrence. Their own native customs were so mod- est, that, instead of imitating, they despised and punished, with all their fierce severity, the impurities they witnessed. They made adultery a capital crime, and so sternly pun- ished personal debauchery, that a great moral change took place in all the provinces they conquered." But while they waged war on Roman villainy and corruption, they also knew how to avail themselves of the advantages of an advanced civilization, and such was their progress in the language of the conquered that, in less than a century after the first invasion, Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, had already occasion to compliment Haribert, 1 Salvianus, de Gubernatione Dei ; Patrologia, vol. v. 32 474 APPENDIX. king of Paris, on the great success of his efforts. He may- have possibly used some poetical exaggerations in extoll- ing the proficiency of this monarch in Latin as well as in his vernacular language; 1 but even so, it evinces a con- siderable amount of culture among the foreign princes. The same poet, undoubtedly also in the way of encourage- ment, has some words of praise for Chilperic, 2 who had written a work in prose on the Trinity and two books of poetry ; but Gregory of Tours, more outspoken, and less given to flattery, condemns his theology as heretical, and his poetry as transgressing all the rules of Latin versifi- cation. 3 If, however, this Frankish king, in spite of his claims to authorship was not much of a Latinist, we may readily imagine what must have been the bulk of his nation. The Franks had kept up in Gaul, like the Saxons in England, their love for independence, and they preferred the free- dom of the open country to the restraints of city life. 4 They generally dwelt near the forests, in clusters of houses, which they called ham? Living the life of farm- ers, and given to hunting, fishing, gaming, and good cheer in general, rather than to study, all they ever knew of any language not their own was from the Gallo-Roman coun- try folks, among whom they lived and with whom they 1 Cum sis progenitus clara de gente Sygamber (Sicamber), Floret in eloquio lingua latina tuo ; Qualis es in propria docto sermone loquela : Qui nos Romanos vincis in eloquio. Fortunat. lib. vi, carm. 4. 8 Discernens varias sub nullo interprete voces, Et generum linguas unica lingua refert. Fortunat. lib. ix, Ad Chilpericum regem. 8 Confectique duos libros, quasi Sedulium meditatus, quorum versiculi de- biles nullis pedibus subsistere possunt, in quibus, dum non intelligebat pro longis syllabas breves posuit, et pro brevibus longas statuebat. — Greg. Turr. vi, c. xlvi. 4 This characteristic of the Teutonic race did not escape the acute obser- vation of Tacitus. Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus pla- cuit. Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem connexis et cohserentibus Eediliciis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat. Germania, § 16. See pages 101— 105. 6 Clovis granted to Saint Remy some land with a house on it, and called it biscofesheim. " Quas Ludovicus .... Biscofesheim sua lingua vocatas mihi tradidit." — Duchesne, Histor. Franc, script., t. ii, p. 385. From ham has come the diminutive hamel, afterward hameau. The word is still found in the name of many cities and villages in Germany and England, as : Oppenheim, Papen- heim, Hamburg, Buckingham, Nottingham, Walsingham, etc., see page 193. In France, especially in Picardy, many localities bear the name of Ham, Han, Hames, Hamel, Hamelet; many others are composed of the word ham and the name of some person, as : Grignan (formerly Greinhanum) ; Taulignan ( Tau- Knhanum) ; Sirignan (Serinhanum), etc. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 475 were in daily intercourse. From them they learned a sort of Latin mixed with Celtic, which in their turn they further corrupted by an additional mixture of ancient Dutch and Flemish — -the whole forming a jargon which varied in every locality, and which men of culture in the cities called lingua romana rustica, " peasant Latin." This rustic Latin, which originated in Neustria as a means of communication between the two races, spread from there to other parts in the course of the sixth cent- ury, and in the beginning of the seventh it had become the general language of almost the entire nation. Its dif- fusion had been favored by the complete abandonment of all studies among the upper classes, and an utter indiffer- ence of all in matters of language andt literature. 1 The clergy themselves greatly contributed to this result, for many of them knew this vulgar Latin only, and what is more, all were obliged to know it in order to be under- stood by the people. Thus, while the cultivated classes, few as they were, affected to despise the half-formed jar- gon, the Church, which had never been afraid of using any vulgar speech wherever it could find hearers, quickly took in its whole importance, and, instead of resisting it and clinging to literary Latin, set herself to make a skill- ful use of the new movement. Even as early as the lat- ter part of the fifth century, Saint Prosper advised the use of rustic Latin to the priests of his time. 2 In the sixth and seventh centuries, missionaries sent from Rome 1 Philosophantem rhetorum intelligunt pauci, loquentem rusticum multi. — Greg. Turr., Hist. Eccles. Franc., lib. v. The style of this very Gregory of Tours must have been quite rustic, too, from what he says of it himself : " Sed timeo ne cum scribere coepero, quia sum sine litteris rhetoricis et arte grammatica, dicat mihi aliquis : Ausu rustico et idiota, ut quid nomem tuum inter scriptores indi aestimas ? Aut opus hoc a peritis accipi putas cui ingenium artis non suppeditat, nee ulla litterarum scientia subministrat ! Qui nullum argumentum utile in litteris habes, qui nomina discernere nescis ; sepius pro masculinis feminea, pro femineis neutra et pro neutris masculina, commu- tas ; qui ipsas quoque praepositiones quas nobilium dictatorum observari sanxit auctoritas, loco debito plerumque non locas ; nam pro ablativis accusativa, et rursum pro accusativis ablativa ponis." — Greg. Turr., De gloria confessorum, praefatio. 2 Tam simplex et apertus, etiam minus latinus, disciplinatus tamen et gra- vit debet esse sermo pontificis, ut ab intelligentia sui nullos, quamvis imperitos, excludat ; sed in omnium audientium pectus cum quadam delectatione descen- dat. Alia enim est ratio declamatorum, et alia debet esse doctorum. Illi elu- cubratse orationis pompam totis facundiae viribus concupiscunt, illi rebus inani- bus pretiosa yerborum indicant ornamenta ; isti veracibus sententiis ornant et commendant verba simplicia ; illi affectant suorum sensuum deformitatem tan- quam velamine quodam phalerati sermonis abscondere ; isti eloquiorum sacrorum rusticitatem pretiosis sensibus venustare. — De vita contemp., lib. i, cap. xxiii. 476 APPENDIX. had first to learn this language, " seeing that the people no longer understood Latin." In 813 the Council of Tours prescribed that " every bishop should order the priests in his diocese to expound the Scriptures in rustic Latin, and preachers to use the same in their pulpits." After this Council of Tours, those of Rheims in the same year, of Strasburg in 842, of Mayence in 845, and of Aries in 851, renewed the order, showing that, in the eyes of the Church, the Latin, as a spoken language in Gaul, was dead and gone from among the people. Even as early as the sev- enth century we find the rustic Latin employed in popu- lar songs, several fragments of which have been preserved, among others two stanzas' of one celebrating the victory of Chlotaire II, iti 662, over the Saxons, and which be- came so popular that it was used as a dancing tune by the women. 1 At first the rustic Latin differed from good Latin es- pecially by the violation of grammatical rules, a vulgar pronunciation, and a ruthless admixture of Celtic and Teutonic words and turns of expression. But graver and more radical changes, to be explained later, gradually decomposed the language, so that by the end of the sev- enth century it became a new and distinct idiom, vastly differing from the Latin from which it had sprung, but in its further development always showing its parentage. It then took the name of Lingua Romana, from which comes 1 Ex qua victoria carmen publicum juxta rusticitatem per omnium pcene volitabat ora ita canentium, feminaeque choros inde plaudendo componebant : De Chlothario est canere, rege Francorum, Qui ivit pugnare in gentem Saxonum. Quam graviter provenisset missis Saxonum, Si non fuisset inclytus Faro de gente Burgundionum. Et in fine hujus carminis : Quando veniunt missi Saxonum in terrain Francorum Faro ubi erat princeps, Instinctu Dei transeunt per urbem Meldorum, Ne interficiantur a rege Francorum. Mabillon, Acta sanct. ordinis S. Bened., p. 617. Hallam quotes the following from Ravaillere, which is simple and quite pretty : At quid jubes, pusiole, Quare mandas, filiole, Carmen dulce me cantare ? Cum si longe exul valde, Intra mare O cur jubes canere ? Intra seems to be used for trans. This specimen is more pleasing than most of the Latin verse of this period, and is more in the tone of the modern languages. It seems to represent the song of a female slave, and is perhaps as old as the destruction of the empire. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 477 the adverb romanice in the phrase romanice loqui, and by contraction Romance, which now designates all the idioms, and dialects that resulted from the alteration of the Latin in Roman Gaul and elsewhere, under the influences to which we have referred. 1 The first mention history makes of the new language by that name dates from the year 659, when Saint Mum- molinus is appointed bishop of Noyon, as the successor of Saint Elvi, " because," says his biographer, " he can speak both German and Romance." 2 It was indeed important in those times that a bishop should know both idioms, so as to be able to address the people of the two races intrusted to his pastoral care, in their own languages; for, although at that time the Romance language was the speech of the entire Neustrian population, the Ostrasian kings and nobles kept much longer to the German of their fathers. Thus it was necessary for the upper clergy to be conversant with the vulgar idiom's as well as with the Latin. 8 We read in the life of Saint Adalhard, abbot of Corbie in the year 750, that he preached in the popular tongue " with a sweet fluency " ; and his biographer's re- marks deserve especial notice by their establishing a clear distinction between the people's language, the German, and the Latin. " When Saint Adalhard spoke the common, that is the Romance tongue," he says, "you would have thought he knew no other; if he spoke German, he was still more brilliant; but when he used Lati?i, he spoke even better than in either of the others." 4 1 In addition to its original meaning, the word " romance " has also in English that of any tale of wild adventure in love and chivalry resembling those of the middle ages, and was first applied to translations from the French. In French, roman is simply a story of fiction, whereas romance corresponds to the English ballad, also of Provencal origin, from the Low Latin and Italian ballare, " to dance," the burden of such songs being originally often accompanied by dancing. ! Interea vir Dei Eligius, Noviomensis urbis episcopus, post multa parata miracula, in pace, plenus dierum, migravit ad Dominum (anno 659). Cujus in loco, fama bonorum operum, quia "praevalebat non tantum in teutonica, sed etiam in romana lingua," Lotharii regis ad aures usque perveniente, prsefatus Mummolinus ad pastoralis regiminis curam subrogatus est episcopus. — Vita S. Mummolini, Ghesquier ; Acta Sanctorum Belgii selecta, t. iv, p. 403. s In the seventeenth canon of the Council of Tours we read : " Easdem homilias quisque episcopus aperte transferre studeat in romanam rusticam lin- guam aut tkeotiscam, quo facilius cuncti possint intelligere quse dicuntur." — Labbe, Concilia, ix, p. 351. 4 Qui si vulgari, id est romana lingua, loqueretur, omnium aliarum putares inscius (nee mirum, erat denique in omnibus liberaliter educatus), si vero teuto- nica, enitebat perfectius ; si latino, in nulla omnino absolutius. — Vie de saint Adalard, S. Gerard ; Acta sanct. ordinis S. Benedicti, saculo quarto, p. 355. 478 APPENDIX. That he spoke Latin fluently seems to be well proved by the above testimony, but whether it was the classical Latin is less certain, to judge from the general corruption of the language, as shown by the chartularies and official documents of the time, in which instances like the follow- ing constantly occur: Episcopi de regna nostra; Donabo ad conjux ; In prcesentia de judices, and other similar forms in which terminations are mixed up in the wildest manner, cases ignored, and prepositions substituted. As this con- tagion of irregularity spread even in the Church, the Council of Narbonne, as far back as 589, had forbidden the conferring of orders on any one ignorant of literary Latin. Still, only a few years later, Pope Gregory the Great writes : " The rules as fixed by the grammarians seem to me little entitled to respect. ... I am not afraid of barbar- ous confusions, and my indignation is stirred at the notion of bending the words of heavenly oracle to the rules of Donatus. 1 Saint Augustine says : " We are not afraid of the grammarians' rod." Saint Jerome observes, " Once and for all, I know cubit um to be neuter ; but the people make it masculine, and so do I." Such was the spirit of the time, and it prevailed, not only in Gaul, but through- out all Roman Europe, though not without its occasional inconveniences. In 752, for instance, we find that Pope Zachary had to be referred to in order to determine the validity of a baptism conferred in the following terms: Ego te babtizo in nomine patria et filia et spiritus sancti ; pretty bad Latin for a clergyman, even in those dark ages. Little is known of the Romance language as spoken by the middle of the eighth century. Some traces of it are left in the litanies read in the diocese of Soissons, 3 in some 1 Unde et ipsam artem loquendi quam magisteria discipline exterioris in- sinuant, servare despexi. Nam sicut quoque hujus epistola; tenor enunciat, non metatismi collisionem fugio, non barbarismi confusionem devito, situs motusque prsepositionem, casusque servare contemno ; quia indigmim vehementer existimo ut verba ccelestis oraculi restringam sub regulis Donati. — Sanct Greg. Gr. Com- ment. , lib. Job. 2 After reciting the litanies, the choir invoked the blessings of heaven upon Pope Adrian I and the Emperor Charlemagne ; at every invocation the people present responded Tu lo juva, thus : Adriano summo pontifice et universale, papae vita, Redemptor mundi, Tu lo juva ; Sancte Petre, Tu lo juva. Karolo excellentissimo et a Deo coronato, magno et pacifico rege Francorum et Longobardorum, at patricis Romanorum, vita et victoria, Salvator mundi, Tu lo juva ; Sancte Johannis, Tu lo juva. Mabillon, Analecta Vetera. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 479 scattered sentences of an ancient homily, 1 and especially in a manuscript, lately discovered in the library of Rhei- chenau, which contains a fragment of a glossary written about the year 768, and explains many of the different words of the Vulgate in the current language of the period. A few of these words will give an idea of the importance of that document : CLASSICAL LATIN. ROMANCE. CLASSICAL LATIN. ROMANCE. Galea Helmo Ctementarii Macioni Minas Manatees Singulariter Solamente Sagrrm Soma Sindones Linciolo Tugurium Cabanna Vespertiliones Calves sorices. This interesting fragment is among the earliest speci- mens yet discovered of the popular language of the time. Though it was evidently compiled by a man of sufficient learning to understand the importance of such a glossary, and well versed in Latin, yet in spite of the Latin orthog- raphy of the Romance words then current, they show a very close resemblance to the corresponding words in modern French, in which helmo* has become heaume ; manatees? menaces ; soma* somme ; cabanna? cab ane ; maciotii, 1 Published by Bethman, Voyage historique dans le nord de la France. s Helnw, helme, healme, from the old Dutch helm, " covering, protection '' ; in English " helmet." E Saul de ses demeines vestemenz fist David revestir, le helme lascier e le halbert vestir. — Livre des Rois, p. 66. Et induit Saul David vestimentis suis, et imposuit galeam aream super caput ejus, et vestivit eum lorica. De ces espees enheldees d'or mer Fierent e caplent sur ces helmes d'acer ; Granz sunt les colps as helmes detrencher. Chans, de Rolland, st. eclxxxiv. Paien chevalchent par ces greignurs valees ; Halberes vestuz e tres bien fermeez, Healmes lacez e ceintes lur espees, Escuz al colz e lances adubees ; En un bruill, par sum les puis, remestrent. — Ibid., st. liv. 3 Manatees, from the Latin minatia employed for mints in several passages of Plautus, among others in Miles gloriosus, act iv, sc. ii, v. 2. Cicero uses minatio with the same meaning, " menace, threat." In Norman French it be- came manace, and it even occurs in that form in Chaucer. " Now cometh manace, that is an open folie ; for he that ofte manaceth" etc. — Pers. Tale. De Ira, near the end. 4 Sagma, quse comipte dicitur salma, says Isidore of Seville. Salma be- comes sauma by regular contraction, and is found so written in eleventh century Latin text. Thus pronounced it became soma in Romance, meaning " a burden, a load." In Merovingian documents the substitution of o for au is general. 6 Cabanna, originally capanna, found so in Isidore of Seville. Tugurium parva casa est ; hoc rustici capanna vocant. In Celtic caban, " a little house, a hut," is the diminutive of cab, " a booth made with rods set in the ground and tied at the top." 4 8o APPENDIX. magons ; solamente, settlement; linciolo, linceul ; and calves sorices, chauve-souris. After these fragments, which, interesting as they are, give us but little insight into the current language of the time, the first monument of real importance yet discov- ered of the. Romance language is the oath which Louis the German took at Strasburg to his brother Charles the Bald, March, 842, after the battle of Fontanet. 1 These princes, having resolved to join their forces in order to resist the ambition of their brother, the Emperor Lothaire, met at Strasburg, each followed by a considerable army, and there, in the presence of their troops called in as wit- nesses and parties to the oath, they swore to lend each other support and mutual assistance. Louis the Ger- man addressed the French army of his brother in Romanc'e, Charles read his oath in Teutonic to the soldiers of Louis, and both received of the troops their agreement in the same languages, respectively. The oath so sworn by Louis is expressly stated to have been in the Lingua Romana? and as from the context of the history it appears that the oath was couched in this language in order that it might be understood by the French subjects of Charles the Bald, we may consider this document as a perfect specimen of the character which the Romance language had assumed toward the middle of the ninth century. What enhances the value of this document is its being preserved in manuscript of the time, 3 and recorded by Nithard, a grandson of Charlemagne, in his " History of the Franks," written at the command of Charles the Bald ; and as he was the personal friend and political adviser of this monarch, it has been even surmised that it was he who framed the language of the oath so as to make it sat- isfactory to both the king and to all concerned. However this may be, certain it is that the language so recorded was the Romance as current at the time among the Neustrian people who spoke and understood no other. Still, as the oath was taken both in German and in Ro- 1 In Latin Fontanetum, now Fontenay near Auxerre. 8 Ergo xvi kalenda: Marsii cum Ludhovicus et Karolus in civitate, quae olim Argentaria vocabatur; nunc autem Strazburg vulgo dicitur, et sacramenta qua; subter notata sunt Ludhovicus romana, Karolus vero teudisca lingua, jurave- runt ; ac sic ante sacramenta circumfusam plebem, alter teudisca, alter romana lingua alloquuti sunt. — Nithardi Hist. ap. Sacr. Rer. Francic, vii, p. 26. 3 The original manuscript is in the library of the Vatican in Rome. See plate opposite p. 6oo, where the language of the Oath is examined and explained. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 481 mance, and as, moreover, both sovereigns are recorded, before taking the oath, to have harangued their people, each in his own idiom, it is evident that among the Os- trasian Franks the use of their original language was kept up much longer than elsewhere, and probably even gained ground, under Carlovingian rule, all along the Rhine where, diversely modified, remnants of it may still be found in the local patois of some rural districts. Thus, while the fusion of the two races was more or less complete, accord- ing to the various localities, and while the name of Franks had everywhere superseded that of Gauls or Gallo-Romans, there was still a difference of speech, marked enough throughout the entire ninth century, to make a distinction between Latin Franks and Teutonic Franks, 1 which dis- tinction, expressive as it was, not only of a difference of language but also of manners, customs, and interests, en- gendered feelings of antagonism, and often led to serious disturbances and even bloody encounters. Thus it is re- lated that on one occasion, when Charles the Simple, a grandson of Charles the Bald, had gone to meet Henry the Fowler on the banks of the Rhine, for a political confer- ence, some young men in the retinue of these princes were so disgusted at each other's language and accent that from taunts and sneers they came to open insults, which ended in a regular fight in which several were killed, among others Erlebald, Count of Castricum. 2 It seems that at all times there are people who hear something odd and comical in the sound of a foreign language, even when used on solemn occasions. So when Hrolf or Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, on swearing fealty to Charles the Fat, declined to kiss the king's foot, unless he could lift it to his mouth, and expressed his determination with the words Bi Got, 3 all the company burst out laughing, 1 Ejusdem Arnullfi tempore (anno 888) Gallorum populi elegerunt Odonem ducem sibi in regem. Hinc divisio facta est inter teutones Francos et latinos Francos. — Chronique anonyme, Recueil des historiens de France, t. viii, p. 234. 8 Germanorum Gallorumque juvenes linguarum idiomate offensi, ut eorum mos est, cum multa animositate maledictis sese lacessere cceperunt, consertique gladios exerunt, ac se adorti, lethaliter sauciant. In quo tumultu, cum ad litem sedandam Erlebaldus comes accederet, a furentibus occisus est. — Richeri hist., lib. iv. 8 Hie non est dignatus pedem Caroli osculari, nisi ad os suum levaret. Cumque sui comites ilium ammonerent, ut pedem regis in acceptione tanti mu- neris oscularetur, linqua anglica respondit : Ne se bi Got ; quod interpretatur ; Ne per Deum. Rex vero et sui ilium deridentes, et sermonem ejus corrupte referentes, ilium vocaverunt Bigoth ; unde Normanni adhuc Bigothi dicuntur. — Duchesne, Histories Francorum scriptores, t. iii, p. 359-360. The author evi- dently makes no distinction between Norse and English. 482 APPENDIX. and this hilarity came very near breaking up the meeting, and bringing about a resumption of hostilities. But it is especially when one nation has vanquished another, and feels strong enough to hold the conquered in subjection, that people are apt to look down with contempt upon the language of those whom they consider of an inferior race. Such were the feelings of the Ostrasian Franks toward the unfortunate Gallo-Roman people that lived as by tol- erance among them. Though actually small in number, they still outnumbered the latter, and this numerical supe- riority, as well as the fact of their having as neighbors friendly tribes of the same blood, gave the Franks a sense of importance which was still further increased by the prestige of the empire in Carlovingian times. Charlemagne, the hero and founder of the Carlovingian dynasty, knew several foreign languages and spoke Latin fluently, according to Eginhard, his historian and biog- rapher, but the Francic was his vernacular, and so fond was he of this rude but energetic idiom, that he even un- dertook to write a sort of grammar of it himself. His son, Louis the Pious, also preferred his native language, though he was equally familiar with Latin. 1 He ordered a Teu- tonic translation to be made of the Gospel, and it is prob- ably to him that we owe the version of Otfrid, the monk, which is still extant. 2 It is not likely, therefore, that his grandson, Charles the Bald, though reigning over a Ro- mance-speaking people, and speaking that language him- self, could have forgotten the language of his sires, or even neglected it, obliged as he was to use it constantly in his Bigot remained for a long time a nickname among the French to designate the Normans, and had not then its present meaning of " a blind zealot ; a hypo- crite": For la discorde et grant envie Ke Franceiz ont vers Normendie, Mult ont Franceiz Normanz laidiz E de mefaiz e de mediz. Sovent lor dient reproviers E claiment bigoz e draschiers ; Sovent les ont medl6 el rei, Sovent dient : Sire por kei Ne tollez la terre as bigoz ? A vos ancessors et as noz La tolirent lor ancessor Ki par mer vinrent robeor. Rom. de Rou, v. 9938 et suiv. 1 Latinam vero sicut naturalem sequaliter loqui poterat. — Theganus, De gestis Ludovici Pii ; Recueil des histor. de France, t. vi, p. 78. 8 Otfrid's version of the Gospel is found in Shilter's Thesaurus antiquita- tum teutonicarum, vol. ii. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 483 relations with the Germanic princes, which were often com- plicated and of a delicate nature. So even his ministers, and those who took a leading part in the management of public affairs, were compelled to learn the language which at that time was indispensable for the transaction of politi- cal business. But by the middle of the ninth century a correct knowledge of the Francic language had become so rare in the kingdom, that Loup de Ferriere, one of the principal ministers of Charles the Bald, found it necessary to send his nephew and two other young gentlemen to Germany for the purpose of learning German. 1 And so it went on for a century or more, the Romance idiom steadily improving as it was gaining ground, the German rapidly declining, and studied only by those who had ab- solute need of it. It was about this time that the Danish Vikings — Nor- man as they were called in Gaul — afflicted the country with incessant invasions. Their mode of conducting war, of which we have seen the direful effects in England, was here of the same character, and such as to disconcert even the best-framed measures of defense. Making their attacks by surprise, and retreating with the utmost rapid- ity after striking their blow, they devastated whole dis- tricts to such an extent that, to use the expression of a contemporary writer, " where they had passed, no dog remained to bark." Castles and fortified places were the sole refuge against them ; but at this first epoch of their irruptions, very few of these existed, and even the walls of the old Roman towns were falling into decay. While the rich nobles flanked their manor-houses with turreted towers, and surrounded them with deep ditches, the in- habitants of the plains emigrated in crowds from their villages to the neighboring forest, where they encamped in huts, defended by palisades and felled trees. Ill-pro- tected by their rulers, who found themselves powerless, they sometimes became inspired with the courage of de- 1 Filium Guagonis, nepotem meum, vestrumque propinquum, et cum eo duos alios pueros nobiles, et quandoque, si Deus vult nostro monasterio suo servicio profuturos, propter germania lingua nanciscendam scientiam, vestrae sanctitati mittere cupio. — Loup de Ferriere, epist. xii, ad Marcwardum abbatem, anno 844 ; Sec. des histor. de France, t. vii, p. 488. In a subsequent letter Loup de Ferriere acknowledges Marward's attention to his request and recommendation. Siquidem inter alia quae nobis jam plurima praestitistis, lingua? vestrse pueros nostras fecistis participes, cujus linguae usum hoc tempore pemecessarium nemo, nisi nimis tardus, ignorat. — Loup de Fer- riere, epist. Ixx; ap. Duchesne, Histor. Franc, script., t. ii, p. 764. 484 APPENDIX. spair, and, armed merely with clubs, would encounter the axes of the Normans. As in England, not a few, de- pressed and demoralized, renounced their baptismal vow to propitiate the pagan conqueror. This apostasy was more general in the quarters most exposed to the disem- barkation of the pirates, who even recruited their ranks from among the very people that had lost all by their ravages ; we are, indeed, assured by ancient historians, that the famous sea-king Hasting was the son of a laborer near Troyes. Nearly a century elapsed between the first and the second descent of the Normans upon Gaul, in which in- terval was accomplished, amid calamities of every de- scription, the dismemberment of the empire founded by Charlemagne. Brittany, which, independent under the first Frankish dynasty, had been subjected by the sec- ond, commenced the movement, and in the first half of the ninth century became once more a separate state. Fifty years later, the ancient kingdom of the Visigoths — the district between the Loire, the Rhone, and the Pyre- nees—after having long, and with varied success, strug- gled against the Frank dominion, became, under the name of Aquitaine and Guienne, a distinct sovereignty ; while, on the other side of the Rhone, a new sovereignty was formed of Provence and the southern part of the ancient kingdom of the Burgundians. At the same time, the provinces along the Rhone, whither the flood of Ger- manic invasions had brought the Teutonic idiom, raised a political barrier between themselves and the countries where the Romance dialect prevailed. In the intermedi- ate space left by these new states, that between the Loire, the Maas, the Scheldt, and the Breton frontier, was com- pressed the kingdom of the Gallo- Franks, or France. This new kingdom of France, the genuine cradle of modern France, contained a mixed population — Dutch and Flemish under one aspect, Gaulish or Roman under another — and foreigners applied to it different names, ac- cording to the different view under which they regarded it. The Italians, the Spaniards, the English, and the Danes called the people of Gaul Franks ; but the Ostra- sians, who claimed this noble appellation for themselves, denied it to their western neighbors, whom they termed Wallons or Welches} In the country itself there prevailed 1 Few Ethnic names are more interesting than that of the Welsh. The root enters into a very large number of the Ethnic names of Europe, and ap- FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 485 another distinction ; the landed proprietor, in dwelling amidst his vassals and colcni, solely occupied in war or the chase, and who thus lived conformably with the man- ners of the ancient Franks, 1 assumed the title of frank- man? or that of baron? both taken from the language of the conquest. Those who had no manor-house, and who inhabited towns (villa-), hamlets, or villages, in masses, after the Roman fashion, derived from that circumstance the names of villains and manants? which, originally mean- ing " people living on the villa, people permanently dwelling on the farm, husbandmen, bondsmen, slaves," have since, by a further degradation, acquired the mean- ing of " churl, boor, knave, 5 rascal," in the sense of what pears in German, in the form teal, which means anything that is " foreign,'' or " strange." Hence we obtain the German words ttcHer, a stranger or pilgrim, and tettUeit, to wander, or to move about. A walnut is the "foreign nut," and in German a turkey is called SBdlfdje tya^tt, " the foreign fowl," and a French bean is ©olfdje bobtte, the " foreign bean." All nations of Teutonic blood have called the bordering tribes by the name of SBalfdje, that is, Welshmen, or " foreigners." We trace this name around the whole circuit of the region of Teutonic occupancy. SBdlfdjIanb is the German name of Italy. The Ber- nese Oberlander calls the French-speaking district to the south of him by the name of Canton Wallis, or Wales. Wallenstadt and the IValUnsec are on the frontier of the Romansch district of the Chur-walchen, or men of the Grisons. The Sclaves and Germans called the Bulgarians Wlochi or Wolochi, and the district which they occupied Wallachia ; and the Celts of Flanders, and of the Isle of Walcheren, were called IValloons by their Teutonic neighbors. North- western France is called Valland in the Sagas, and in the Saxon Chronicle Wealand denotes the Celtic district of Armorica. The Anglo-Saxons called their Celtic neighbors the Welsh, and the country by the name of Wales. See note, page 20. Cornwall was formerly written Corn-wales, the country inhab- ited by the Welsh of the Horn. The chroniclers uniformly speak of North- Wales and Corn- Wales. In the charters of the Scoto-Saxon kings the Celtic Picts of Strath Clyde are called Walenses. 1 Vivere, habitare, succedere more Francorum. — Ducange, Glossar. 8 Francus homo. — Ibid. 1 Baro, barn, beam, bairn, beorn, originally meant " a male child ; a man " ; and by extension, " a husband." Lo bar non est creat perla femna, mas la fem- na per lo baro. — Raynouard, Lexique Roman. 4 In Latin villani and manentes. The term villa, which, among the Ro- mans only designated a country house, was at an early date applied, in the Neo-Latin languages, to every description of inhabited place. 6 The terms churl, boor, knave, conveyed originally no opprobrium whatso- ever. Churl, in Anglo-Saxon ceorl, in German, Danish, and Swedish karl, in Dutch kerel, means " a man ; a fellow." In the latter language Karel is the proper name for Charles. Boor is a Dutch word, written boer, and pronounced as in English, the Dutch oe having the sound of the English 00 or ou. In that language it means " a peasant ; a farmer ; a tiller of the soil," and, in its Eng- lish form, is part of the word neigh-bour. In Anglo-Saxon gebiir meant " a hus- bandman ; a farmer ; a countryman." Knave meant originally " a boy.'' It is the German knabe, the Dutch knaap, the Anglo-Saxon cndfa and cndpa, in every case meaning " a lad ; a boy ; a male child " ; sometimes " a servant boy." Chaucer speaks of " a knaue child " ; and in the Ancren Riwle we find " the kokes knaue thet wassheth the disshes," " the cook's boy that washes the dishes." 486 APPENDIX. is lowest and most despicable. There were villains re- puted free, and villains serfs of the glebe ; but the free- dom of the former, constantly menaced and even invaded by the lord, was feeble and precarious. Such was the kingdom of France, as to its extent and as to the different classes of the men who inhabited it, when, in the early part of the tenth century, it was again disturbed by that grand invasion of the Normans under the leadership of Rollo, referred to at length in Chapter V of this volume, and whose exploits and success in various parts of Europe, for a century and a half, culminated at last in their con- quest of England. Owing to the unsettled state of society, and the con- stant wars which followed the death of Charlemagne, learning was still rare in France, literature and science non-existent. The Carlovingian revival had certainly ac- complished a good deal ; it left its mark ; but, after all, the permanent results were not great. Whether we look at the three centuries that preceded it, or the two hun- dred and fifty years that followed it, we do not find much that can be called learning, we find nothing that can be called literature. In spite of the labors of Alcuin and of Theodulf, the decrees of episcopal councils and edicts of kings, we are told by Loup de Ferriere, the favorite of Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald, that the study of letters was in his time almost null. But while it is true that there were only a few great literary names during that period, it would not be correct to infer from this that there was absolutely no learning. Not to speak of the Irish monks and other scholars, such as Theodulf and Eginhard, and the patient and secluded learning of the greater monasteries and abbeys, such as St. Riquier, St. Galle, Fulda, and the famous schools of Orleans and Rheims and, later, of Paris, we have to remember that the Benedictines everywhere were teachers and to a cer- tain extent students. While steadily accumulating mate- rials and forming libraries, they maintained, with varying fortunes, the tradition of knowledge. Thus, after all, the ninth and tenth centuries, perhaps, did more for educa- tion, as that word was then understood, in proportion to the means and opportunities available, than any period since Alcuin and Charlemagne. Theological questions engaged the leaders of the Church, great political and social movements preoccupied men's minds. The Nor- mans were invading France, the Danes were descending FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 487 on England, the Turks and Saracens were threatening all Christendom, and society was fighting for its life. Notwithstanding the savage struggle, Europe was being slowly penetrated by Christian ideas. The self-sacrifice of the religious orders kept steadily before men's minds the fact that the spirit lives by the spirit, and that the things of earth are not to be compared with the things that are eternal ; and many men of noble birth and great possessions, to whom a conspicuous secular career was open, sought refuge in the monkish cowl, and a life in community. Their monastic life was, however, not merely a religious life ; in most cases it was an academic life, and education in those days devolved upon them alone. Each monas- tery was usually divided into two schools, and had two classes of pupils — the inner, or claustral school, in which the boys who were devoted by their parents to a monkish life {pblati) were taught, and the outer school, frequented chiefly by those intending to fill the office of parochial priest, or preparing themselves for secular appointments. These outer schools were also attended by some for edu- cation solely, without ulterior reference to any specific ecclesiastical or secular function. In the inner school the oblati were maintained, as well as educated, gratuitously ; in the outer schools, pupils had to pay for their mainte- nance, but not for their instruction. At the same time, the giving of presents was largely encouraged, especially when the boys left. These presents, often of great value, went sometimes to the funds of the school, at other times as tips into the pockets of the master. For the poor in the outer school, the monasteries themselves often made provision. Land was also frequently bequeathed for this specific purpose, and even alms asked. Hence the origin of the foundations attached to cathedrals and monasteries, and afterward to universities. The course of studies for beginners was much the same throughout the entire ninth and tenth centuries as had been laid down by Alcuin. 1 In the earlier stages of the higher instruction the master explained the Latin authors in the vernacular ; but the more advanced scholars had explanations given them in Latin, and were required to , show that they understood the author by rendering him in Latin prose. The main object always kept in view was 1 See pages 161-164. 488 APPENDIX. a practical command of the Latin tongue — not literature or art ; still a good metrical exercise seems always to have been regarded in the more learned schools as a high test of linguistic proficiency. Rhetoric received little or no attention ; but the writing of letters, and the drawing up of public documents was taught with much care, and re- duced to a regular system. In a letter of importance, for instance, the following order of composition was always Strictly observed, viz., Salutatio, Captatio, Benevolentia, Nar- ratio, Petitio, Conclusio. Young ecclesiastics looked for- ward to employment as secretaries at royal courts and in noble houses, and hence the attention paid to the teaching of correspondence. There were, of course, among the monks, some who had a larger conception of their work than others. John of Salisbury, in giving an account of the teaching of a distinguished monk of the beginning of the twelfth century, Bernard de Chartres, tells us that he accustomed his pupils to apply the rules of grammar to the texts they read, that he directed their attention to delicacies of language and beauty of expres- sion, to the aptness of terms and metaphors, and the dis- position of the argument. He criticised the varieties of style of different authors, and took advantage of allusions to give much collateral instruction. He also exercised his pupils daily in writing Latin prose and verse, and re- quired them to learn fine passages by heart. This, it will be seen, was applied rhetoric as well as grammar, and indeed constitutes what we now understand by training in the humanities. No doubt this was an exceptional school, and it existed only after the university movement had begun. As in England, so in France, school discipline was ex- ceedingly severe, and in those days the rod, it seems, was considered the basis of all human understanding. Guizot, in his fifth lecture on the " History of Civilization," quotes the following passage taken from the autobiography of Guibert de Nogent 1 as an illustration : " My mother," says the author, " brought me up with the most tender care. Scarcely had I learned the first elements of letters, when, eager to have me instructed, she confided me to a master of grammar. There was, shortly before this epoch, and even at this time, so great a scarcity of masters of grammar, that, so to speak, scarce one was 1 D' Archery, Venerabilis Guiberti de Novigento opera. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 489 to be seen in the country, and hardly could they be found in the great towns. He to whom my mother resolved to confide me had learned grammar at a rather advanced age, and was so much the less familiar with this science, as he had devoted himself to it at a later period ; but what he wanted in knowledge he made up for in virtue. From the time I was placed under his care, he formed in me such a purity, he so thoroughly eradicated from me all the vices which generally accompany youth, that he preserved me from the most frequent dangers. He never allowed me to go anywhere except in his company, to sleep anywhere but in my mother's house, to receive a present from any one without her permission. He required me to do every- thing with moderation, precision, attention, and exertion. " Every one, seeing how my master excited me to work, hoped at first that such great application would sharpen my wits ; but this hope soon diminished, for my master, altogether unskillful at reciting verses, or composing them according to rule, almost every day loaded me with a shower of cuffs and blows, to force me to know what he himself was unable to teach me. Still he showed me so much friendship, he occupied himself concerning me with so much solicitude, he watched so assiduously over my safety that, far from experiencing the fear generally felt at that age, I forgot all his severity, and obeyed with an inexpressible feeling of love. One day, when I had been struck, having neglected my work for some hours in the evening, I went and seated myself at my mother's knee, severely bruised, and certainly more so than I had de- served. My mother having, according to her custom, asked if I had been beaten that day, I, in order to avoid accusing my master, assured her that I had not. But she, pulling aside, whether I would or no, the garment they call a shirt, saw my little arms all black, and the skin of my shoulders all raised up and swollen by the blows of the rod which I had received. At this sight, complaining that they treated me with too much cruelty at so tender an age, all troubled and beside herself, her eyes full of tears, she cried, ' I will no longer have thee become a priest, nor, in order to learn letters, that thou thus endure such treatment.' But I, at these words, regarding her with all the anger of which I was capable, said to her : ' I would rather die than cease learning letters, and wishing to be a priest.' " If such was the character of the best private instruc- 33 490 APPENDIX. \ tion obtainable in those days, we may form an idea of the methods then in vogue in the conventual establishments which the mass of students had. to resort to for their edu- cation. " Up to the end of the eleventh century the instruction was, speaking generally, and allowing for transitory periods of revival, and for a few exceptional schools, a shrunken survival of the old trivium et quadrivium. The lessons, when not dictated and learned by heart from notes, were got up from bald epitomes. All that was taught, more- over, was taught solely with a view to ' pious uses.' Criticism did not exist ; the free spirit of speculation could not, of course, exist. The rules of the orders inevitably cribbed and confined the minds of the learners, old and young. The independent activity of the human mind, if it could be called independent, showed itself only in chroni- cles, histories, acta sanctorum, and so forth. This was, doubtless, a necessary stage in the historical development of Europe, and it is absurd to talk of these ages as ' dark ages,' by way of imputing blame or remissness to the Catholic Church. All that could be done was done by the Catholic organizations, and by no other agency. The Catholic Church did not prohibit learning if it subserved the faith. Opinion was watched, certainly, but to look with superfluous alarm on possible developments of anti- theological speculation did not occur to the men of that time, and this is conspicuously shown in the attitude which the popes took to universities when they began to arise (1100-1150). When heresies did show themselves, they were, at least at first, met by labored argument, and the suppression of them by councils was, in truth, the last act in a series of able disputations — the judicial summing up and sentence, so to speak. In brief, the Christian schools were doing their proper work for Europe. They did not promote learning in any true sense ; but they conserved learning, and, what was of more importance, they were leavening the life of the people." 1 But those early centuries not only were engaged in taking to heart the practical teachings of Christianity ; in other directions than that of learning there also was great activity. In the century that saw the death of Charle- magne, there arose out of feudalism an educational force far more potent than the monastic schools. This was a 1 S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 491 secular order, destined to work great changes in the po- litical as in the moral world — the order of chivalry. The element of personality and individual merit was so all- powerful in this order, that, in this respect, it may be said to have contained the germs of reformation ideas. Tak- ing its rise in the tenth century, it grew steadily in im- portance, and effloresced in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. These last were also the centuries of intellect- ual revival, and it is interesting to note that together with this intellectual movement we have the assertion of moral freedom and personal moral responsibility in the chivalric order. Its creed was love of honor, personal courage, alone and against odds, truthfulness, an abstract love of justice, respect for woman, and courtesy. The Teutonic spirit thus illustrating itself in Christianity was a civilizing and spiritualizing agency of no mean character. This the Church soon saw, and it quickly brought chivalry within its own organization by consecrating with solemn cere- monies the sword of the knight to the defence of the faith. As it was an order of personal nobility as distinguished from the nobility attached to hereditary possessions, a career was thus opened for ardent and ambitious youth. At the great castles there arose what might be called ba- ronial schools of gymnastic and military training, of cour- tesy and honor. High moral tone led to a corresponding refinement in thought, in taste and manners, and ere long not only singing and playing on stringed instruments were among the choicest pleasures, both of noble knights and ladies, but even the art of versification was cultivated and encouraged by them. From the tenth century the French nation begins its real life. The circumstances which had kept up a knowl- edge of the Francic idiom among the Carlovingian princes had ceased to exist under the kings of the succeeding dy- nasty, and Hugh Capet, the first of these, though of Ger- man origin, was as ignorant of the language of Charle- magne as he was of that of Augustus. When he had an interview with Otto II, Emperor of Germany, who ad- dressed him in Latin, he was obliged to call in the assist- ance of Arnulphus, Bishop of Orleans, as an interpreter. 1 Under his reign the Romance was the only language spoken 1 Otto gloriam sibi parare cupiens, ex industria egit ut omnibus a cubiculo regio emissis .... dux (Hugo) etiam solus cum solo episcopo (Arnulfo) intro- duceretur ; ut rege latiariter loquente, episcopus latinitatis interpres duci quic- quid diceretur indicaret. — Richeri hist, lib., iv. 492 APPENDIX. at his court, and such of the German princes as wished to keep up relations were obliged to send ambassadors who knew that language. 1 As the use of the French speech increased, the knowledge of Latin diminished, and its use as a colloquial language was finally abandoned even by the upper classes who had clung to it for three centuries after it had died out among the people. Still, while by this time the language had assumed a distinct form which made it differ from Latin, its tendency was more and more to cast off Celtic and Germanic influ- ences, and to remain Latin in spirit, although divested yet of that uniformity of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax which it had at the time of Augustus, and which it was to acquire again in the age of Louis XIV. Nothing, on the contrary, could be more diverse, more irregular, or more confused than the various dialects spoken in the Middle Ages, from the Rhine to the Atlantic, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. All these, however, were the con- tinuation of the numerous Latin dialects which had found their way into Gaul, modified by contact with other dia- lects, and by the wear and tear of ages ; but the same fam- ily resemblance found in the originals remained discerni- ble also in their descendants. At first sight it may seem impossible, perhaps, to distinguish between all the provin- cial and local differences that may have risen from an ig- norant use of a language already divided and subdivided into so many dialectic varieties ; but after minute inquiry and careful observation, light appears, and order comes out of chaos. Then, under the infinite caprices of igno- rance and local freaks and fancies, we discover peculiar tendencies depending on race, climate, food, occupation, intercourse with neighboring nations, and other influences which affect the human speech in different directions. Examined in this light, and considering the main charac- teristics only, we find in Early French two main dialects to which all the rest may be referred ; the one spoken to the north of the Loire, in which the Teutonic influence was more sensibly felt, under the name of Roman- Wallon or Langue d'oil; the other used to the southward of that 1 Thierry, Duke of Lorraine, sent Nanter, Abbot of Saint Michel, as am- bassador to the King of France, because he knew him to be a man of ready wit, and perfectly conversant with the language. Dux (Lotharingice) Theodoricus eum (Nanterum) .... ad quoscumque regni principes dirigebat legatum, et maxime ad consobrinum suum, regem Francorum, quoniam noverat eum in re- sponsis acutissimum, et lingua gallica peritia facundissimum. — Chron. monast. S. Michaelis ; Mabillon, Vetera analecta, Rcc. des Histor. de France, t. x, p. 286. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 493 river, where Roman civilization, being better established, opposed that influence, and which was termed Roman proper or Langue d'oc} Of these, the most refined and polished was that which was spoken by the inhabitants of the southeastern district of France. Many causes combined to give this idiom an early development. The southeastern Provincals were more completely Romanized in the first instance; 2 they were less subject to foreign invasion than the other in- habitants of France ; the Burgundians and Visigoths who settled among them were more adapted to social life than the other German tribes, and more readily assimilated their language and customs to those of their subjects ; and when at last Provence became a part of the Frankish do- minions they were no longer an overbearing foreign sol- diery, but the civilized and Romanized subjects of a regular monarchy. The happy climate of Provence, and the wealth and commerce of the people, contributed to foster and en- courage those arts which nourish only in a genial soil ; and we are not to wonder if the southern Provincals out- stripped at that time the northern Gauls in intellectual .tastes as well as in physical comforts. It is not within the limits of this chapter to enter into 1 These curious names spring from the custom, not uncommon in the Mid- dle Ages, of designating languages by the sign of affirmation ; just as Dante calls Italian la lingua di si. The modern French oui was oil in the north and oc in the south of France. Oc comes from the Latin hoc (that is it), and was sometimes further shortened into t. Ne dire ni S ni non was in the thirteenth century equivalent to ne dire ni oui ni non. Just as hoc became oc, so the com- pound hoc Mud (just so) became oil. As in many other French words, the final / was not pronounced. This form oil had corresponding to it the form nennil from the Latin non Mud (not so), and in the same way as nennil was afterward written nenni, so oil became oi, whence oui in modern French. The Langue d'oil is also known by the name of Langue des trouveurs or irouveres, and the Langue d'oc by that of Langue des troubadours, Lemosi, Provensalesc, from the inhabitants of southern Gaul calling themselves Provinciates, that is, Romance Provincice inquilini, as distinguished from the Francigence of the north. The word trouvere comes from the French trouver, and troubadour from the Pro- vencal trouba with the same meaning, and the sense of which, like that of the Greek word iroiziv, " to make," from which we derive pofoie, implies invention. 2 It is right, perhaps, to say that Marseilles in particular was rather Greecised than Romanised; and as to its civilization Cicero remarks: "Neque vero te, Massilia, prsetereo : cujus ego civitatis disciplinam atque gravitatem non solum Graeciae, sed haud scio an cunctis gentibus anteponendam dicam ; quae tarn procul a Graecorum omnium regionibus, disciplinis linguaque divisa, quum in ultimis terris cincta Gallorum gentibus barbaric fluctibus alluatur, sic optima- turn consilio gubernatur, ut omnes ejus instituta laudare facilius possint quam aemulari." — Oral, fro Flacco., 26, § 36. And Justin : " Adeoque magnus et hominibus et rebus impositus est nitor, ut non Graecia in Gallia emigrasse, sed Gallia in Graeciam translata videretur." — Hist. Philipp. lib. xliii, cap. 4. 494 APPENDIX. any detailed history of the language spoken south of the river Loire, now generally known by the name of Pro- vencal; we need only observe that in its forms it bore a much closer resemblance to the Latin than the Langue d'oil, and that, as the literary language of the south of France during a great part of the middle ages, it has left numerous documents of rare value both for history and philology. The following extract, in which the two lan- guages figure side by side, will give an idea of their analogy : LANGUE D'OC. LANGUE D'OIL. Totz hom que vol trobar ni Toz hom qui vuelt trover ne entendre deu primierament sa- entendre doit premierement sa- ber que neguna parladura no es voir que nule parleure del nos- tant naturals ni tant drecha del tre langage n'est tant droite notre lingage con aquella de com cele de Provence ou de Proenza o de Lemosi. Limousin. This double quotation suffices to show the close rela- tionship between the two languages. The only character- istic difference lies in the rich and brilliant tones of the Provencal, compared with the duller sound of the northern French. In trobar, neguna, parladura, drecha, aquella, Proen- za, and Lemosi, all the final syllables are sonorous, while the Langue d'oil substitutes nasal and muffled sounds, with a tendency to make the final a a silent e in all the words corresponding — trover, nide, parleure, droite, cele, Provence, Limousin — a dialectic difference, owing to a difference of character, temperament, and other influences alluded to already. 1 1 The final e, which is now only a whisper, and utterly silent before a vowel sound, was, up to about the middle of the sixteenth century, a distinct and well- marked sound, similar to the final o, still heard in the pronunciation of the Pro- vencal peasantry, as in franefco, musico, pdsto, for francaise, musique, poste. Palsgrave, the old English grammarian, in his Esclairassement de la langue francoyse, published in 1530, says expressly (lib. i, regula 5) : " If e be the laste vowell in a Frenche worde, beynge of many syllables, eyther alone or with an j ffollowynge hym, the worde not havyng his accent upon the same e, then shall he in that place sound almost lyke an 0, and very moche in the noose, as these wordes, hdmme, fdmrne, honSste, pdrle, lidmmes, fimmes, honistes, shall have theyr laste e sounded in maner lyke an 0, as hommo, femmo, honesto, parlo, hom- mos, femmos, honestos ; so that if the reder lyft up his voyce upon the syllable that commeth nexte before the same e, and sodaynly depresse his voyce whan he commeth to the soundynge of hym, and also sounde hym very moche in the noose, he shall sounde e, beyng written in this place as the Frenchmen do ; whiche upon this warnynge if the lerner wyll observe by the Frenchmen's spekynge, he shall easely percieve." Then, passing from theory to practice, he gives us the pronunciation as it ought td be : "La trh honnorfa magnificence " j FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 495 The principal dialects of the Lauguc d'oil were four in number — the Norman, Picard, Bourguignon, and the French of the lie de France, which was the center of the triangle formed by the provinces where the other three were spoken. Each of these dialects had its own distinct features, mainly consisting of a difference of pro- nunciation and orthography, but marked enough to be noticed even by foreigners. Roger Bacon, in considering what the dialects of a language may be, thus states what he had observed in France. " The idioms of the same language," he says, "vary in different districts, as is clear- ly the case in France, which has numerous varieties of idiom among the French, the Normans, the Picards, and the Burgundians ; and what is correct speech in Picardy, is looked upon as a barbarism by the Burgundians, and even by the French." 1 This difference, which affected the forms of words only, and not the syntax, may be illustrated by a few, nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which we have selected, and placed together with the Latin words from which they are derived, the Norman dialect being the elder, and the Picard the nearest to modern French in point of time of formation. LATIN. NORMAN. BOURGUIGNOJi r. PICARD. FRENCH. Ccelum Cel Ciel Chiel Ciel Sol Soleus Soloil Solaus Soleil Monachus Muine Moine Moignes Moine Bonus Buen Boin Boin Bon Bona Buene Boine Bonne Bonne Bucca Buche Boiche Bouce Bouche Gula Gule Gole Goule Gueule Venatio Veneisuns Venison Venoison Venaison Cadere Cheir Chaoir Quer Cheoir Dicebat 11 diseit 11 disoit 11 disoit 11 disait Faciebat 11 feseit 11 fesoit 11 fesoit 11 faisait the French, he says, pronounce (" la-tres onnoreo-manijisdnsd) : secretaire du roy nostre sire, (secretdyro-deu-roy-nStro-sird) ; glorieuse renommie (glorieuzo-renoum- me"o.") This leaves us no room to doubt what was the pronunciation of the silent e at that time, and shows the difference of sound between northern and southern dialects to have been much less in that particular than it has been since. 1 Nam et idiomata variantur ejusdem lingua; apud diversos, sicut patet de lingua Gallicana quae apud Gallicos et Norfnannos, et Picardos, et Burgundos multiplici variatur idiomate. Et quod proprie dicitur in idiomate Picardorum horrescit apud Burgundos, imo apud Gallicos viciniores. — Roger Bacon, Of us Majus, iii, 44. In the middle ages the name of Francoys, " Frenchman " was exclusively that of the inhabitants of the He de France. 496 APPENDIX. All these show a fundamental uniformity under a va- riety of outward forms, due to local influences, similar to those which caused the broader differences between the northern and southern dialects, which in some instances were so great as to make the dialects of one part of the country to be looked upon as foreign in the other ; and so thoroughly foreign was French considered in the south of France, even as late as the fourteenth century, that in the Leys d'Amor, a poetical code of laws, it is classed with English, Spanish, and Lombard. 1 In 1229, in a municipal document of Albi, a notary excuses himself for not hav- ing read the inscription of a seal because it was in French, or some other foreign tongue. 2 Such ignorance of an- other dialect, however, was often affected, and generally accompanied by the expression of haughty disdain, the remnant of former international antagonism, often sub- sisting among immediate neighbors, who disliked each pther simply for speaking a different dialect, or even the same, but with a different 'accent. Thus the monks of the abbey of Andres could hardly bear those of the abbey of Charroux, of which theirs was a dependency, on account of a difference of accent — propter linguarum dissonantia, says the chronicler. Meanwhile the court of France had become, for all the northern provinces, the model and school of courtesy and refined manners, and the language spoken in the royal palace was the natural expression thereof. As early as the twelfth century no one was admitted at the court of France, were he prince or noble, who could not express himself in French, that is in the dialect of the Ile-de- France ; s and no trouvere had any chance of success un- 1 Apelam lengatge estranh come frances, engles, espanliol, lombard. — Leys it Amor, ii, 318. 8 In lingua gallica vel alia nobis extranea, quam licet literse essent integrse, perfecto non potuimus perspicere. 3 About the year 11 80, Quenes de B6thune was invited to court, when Alice de Champagne, and the prince her son, who afterward reigned under the name of Philippe-Auguste, expressed a desire to hear some of his poetry. So Quenes declaimed some of his best verses, but spoke with a strong Picard accent. The consequence was that he was laughed at by the courtiers, reproved by the queen and her son, and blamed by everybody, especially by a certain countess whom he had most at heart to please. He thus describes himself his misadventure : \ " Mon langage ont blasm€ li Francois Et mes chanfons, oyant les Champenois Et la contesse encoir, dont plus me poise (pixe) La roine ne fit pas que courtoise, Qui me reprist, elle et ses fiex li rois ; FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 497 less he used that dialect for his compositions. 1 When not sufficiently acquainted with the prevailing dialect to vent- ure upon its use, they generally make some statement to that effect in the preface of their works, often expressing sarcastic regrets for not being conversant with the more refined dialect of Paris. 3 In using the word dialect, so often recurring in these pages, we mean some particular mode of speech peculiar to one locality, and differing from that of other provinces by changes of pronunciation, of orthography, and the ar- rangement of words in the sentence. As long as the dia- lects of a country have all the same literary importance, and no predominance one over another, they remain in the condition of dialects. Thus in Greece, the Ionian, iEolian, Attic, and Doric were dialects, 3 inasmuch as Encoir ne soit ma parole francoise. Si la puet-on bien entendre en francois. Ne cil me sont bien appris ne courtois Qui m'ont repris, si j'ai dit mot d'Artois, Car je ne fus pas norriz a Pontoise." 1 It was for this reason that Aymon de Varennes, a trouvere of the twelfth century, wrote his " Roman de Florimont " in French, and not in the dialect of Lyons, where he composed his poem : II ne fut mie fait en Frame, Mais en la langue des Francoys ; Le fist Aimes en Leones (Lyonnais). . . . Aux Francois veult de tant servir, Car ma langue leur est sauvage, Que j'ay dit en leur language Tout au mieux que je ay sceu dire. He did not write in French because he liked the language better than his own, for he says : Mieux ains ma lengue que l'aultrui ; but only for the sake of celebrity, since — Romans ne histoire ne plait Aux Franfoys, se ilz ne l'ont fait. s A trouvere, born in Meun, and who is sometimes mistaken for Jehan de Meun, who continued the Roman de la Rose, expresses himself thus : Si m'excuse de mon langage Rude, malostru et sauvage, Car nes ne sui pas de Paris, Ne si cointes com fu Paris. Mais me raporte et me compere Au parler que m'apprist ma mere A Meun, quant je l'alaitoie. Another trouvere from Normandy, Richard de Lison, finds it necessary to warn his readers : Qu'il est Normanz ; s'il a mepris, II n'en doit ja estre repris, Se il y a de son langage. 8 In respect to the origins of these dialects, Sharon Turner somewhat bluntly remarks : " The numerous conjugations of the Greek verbs seem, like those of the Sanscrit, to be a collection of barbarisms and cumbersome anoma- 498 APPENDIX. none of these, at the expense of the other three, became the language of the entire country, but kept a separate and complete existence, each one by itself, with its own authors and its own masterpieces of literature. But when, from some cause or other, one dialect in particular be- comes the exponent of governmental authority and litera- ture, that is, of moral and material power, then the latter assumes an overwhelming importance, to the detriment of all around it, attracts and absorbs their best talent, and soon becomes the national language, while the others are gradually reduced to the condition of patois. These forms of speech, called "patois," therefore, are not, as is com- monly thought, literary French corrupted in the mouth of ignorant peasants ; they are, on the contrary, the re- mains of ancient provincial dialects which, through po- litical events, have fallen from the position of official and literary languages to that of simple patois. Such was the fate of the Norman, the Burgundian, the Picard, and all the other dialects of France, except that of the He de France, which, being the dialect of the domi- nant province, rose in importance, and, eclipsing the others, became the common language of the country. Hugh Capet, on ascending the throne, had made Paris the capital of France. Still, throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Capetian sovereigns, lords of little but the He de France and the Orleans territory, had no great influence outside the royal domain ; and the dialects around it retained their independent equality. But by the middle of the thirteenth century the sovereignty of the Capets grew stronger, and with its growth the French dialect grew also in importance. In noi they took Ber- ry ; Picardy fell to Philip Augustus in 1203, and Touraine after it; Normandy followed in 1204; Languedoc was added in 1272, and Champagne in 1361. The French dia- lect followed the triumphant progress of the dukes of France, and drove out the dialects of the conquered prov- inces. First it was introduced through the official acts of lies. Four inflections to express the past tense ! I am aware that our scholars have elaborately studied to explore the fine shades and distinctions of meaning between the perfect and imperfect, and the first and second aorist. Their ac- knowledged failure may be taken as evidence that what they search for did not exist. I suspect that they have arisen from the same language having been used by many rude tribes, who became afterward much intermixed. Some had used one tense, some the other, and the common practical language was at last compelled to retain all. The same remark is applicable to the several declen- sions of the Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit nouns. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 499 the conquerors ; then it was used in literary works, and finally adopted by all who wished to be thought gentle- men. The people alone resisted and kept up their an- cient speech, which, gradually ceasing to be written, but spoken only by the lower classes, and thus, subject to in- cessant alterations, fell from the rank of dialects to that of mere patois — in which condition, with some rare ex- ceptions, it still subsists in the rural districts of France. But, though French is the only recognized national language, and every patois has only its own local exist- ence, the study of the latter is not the less important to the etymologist, as in their remains especially he looks for the connecting links between the modern French and Latin, and even for the earlier forms of the latter, many of which are still lingering in some remote and isolated districts. All these changes and revolutions are the result of regular transformations, in which the philologer sees only the natural application of general laws ; and, even as the solar beam in passing through the prism is decom- posed into luminous rays of colors and intermediary shades, so a language, after its decomposition, still sub- sists in a series of linguistic degradations, which will often show traces of their noble origin, though eclipsed by the splendor of a rising luminary, to whose power and glory they have lent their best substance. Thus the French language, not to speak of the various writers from all parts of France who have contributed to its luster, has largely drawn upon the neighboring dia- lects. From the Bourguignon it took the word roi for in- stance, and from the Norman reine. Charger was French, but cargucr comes from the Langue d'oc. It needed such a word for a special meaning ; and in the same manner it took attaquer from the Picard, though it had attacher al- ready. Many words which in the latter dialect had re- tained the hard c of the Latin, had the form of ch in French. Thus the Latin campus, carta, catus, castellum, which in Picard had become camp, carte, cat, caste/, were champ, charte, chat, chastel. In some cases modern French has adopted both forms, with different shades of meaning, though they are in reality the same word. In the same way we may account for the double forms of fleurir and florir ; grincer and gri?icher ; e"corcer and fcorcher ; laisser and lacher ; charrier and charroyer ; plier and ployer, etc. It is difficult, in speaking of the history of a language, not to allude to the works it has produced, inasmuch as 500 APPENDIX. they are the exact expression of its successive develop- ments. We there follow the traces of its formation, and at every step discover the various influences by which its forms are modified ; and although the study of the au- thors of a language belongs more particularly to the his- tory of its literature, it will not be the less interesting to show how the same may be studied in chronological order from a philological point of view. The French language, which had commenced as vulgar Latin, which in the sixth century was only the jargon of the lower classes, and which in the eighth and ninth centu- ries began to be cultivated by those who wanted to be heard and listened to by the masses, had in the eleventh century become almost a learned language, having its poets, its prose writers, and even its savans. In tracing the transition from Latin into French, in the Oath sworn at Strasburg, we find that the sense is still better explained by a translation into the former than into the latter lan- guage. A hundred years later appears a hymn or poem of great beauty, in French verse, on the martyrdom of St. Eulalia, which we quote on page 602, followed by its French translation. To show, however, how near the lan- fuage of the time still came to the Latin, we give here the rst four lines of this poem with a Latin interlinear trans- lation : Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, Bona puella fuit Eulalia, Bel avret corps bellezour anima. Bellwn haberet corpus bellior anima. Voldrent la veintre li Deo inimi, Voluerunt Mam vincere Mi Deo inimici, Voldrent la faire diavle servir. Voluerunt Mam facer e diabolum servir e. Compare this with the following extract of the Chanson de Roland, the original of which dates less than a hundred years later, and notice the remarkable progress of the language, which finds its explanation far better by a trans- lation into French. The extract describes how Charle- magne, wishing to avenge the death of Roland, combats the Saracens, and is only saved from the terrible blows of the emir Baligant by the intercession of the archangel Michael: Li amirals est mult de grant vertut ! Fiert Carlemagne sur l'elme d'acer brun, Desur la teste li ad frait e fendut, FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 501 Met li l'espde sur les chevels menuz, Prent de la cam grant pleine palme, e plus. Iloec endreit remeint li os tut nut ! Carles cancelet, por poi qu'il n'est caiit, Mais Deus ne volt qu'il seit mort ne vencut : Seint Gabriel est repairet a lui, Si li demandet : "Reis Magnes, que fais-tu ?" LITERAL VERSION IN FRENCH. L'Emir est plein de grand courage ! II frappe Charlemagne sur son heaume d'acier brun, Sur la tete l'a frappe" et l'a fendu, Lui met son ep£e sur ses cheveux clair-semds, Prend de la chair une grande palme pleine, et plus. En cet endroit reste l'os tout a nu ! Charles chancelle ; pour peu il se laisserait choir. Mais Dieu ne veut pas qu'il meure ou qu'il soit vaincu. Saint Gabriel est apparu a lui, Et lui demande : " Grand Roi, que fais-tu ? " As it was this song which in 1066 led the army of Will- iam the Conqueror to victory, it must have been known long before to be so popular among the soldiers. In the form here given it probably dates from the middle of the eleventh century. 1 From this time forward we have a series of thoroughly original poetical productions, graceful and brilliant lyrics, and high epics which followed each other in rapid suc- cession, and became exceedingly popular in other coun- tries as well as at home. Even in the tenth century we find it the custom among the English nobles to send their sons to France for education, 2 and in the reign of Edward the Confessor, French was the language of his court. Adenet le Roy, a trouvere of French Flanders, who lived about 1210, informs us that in his time it was the custom among the German nobles to have French per- sons in the family to teach their children French. 3 Bru- 1 See page 604. 1 Ob usum armorum, et ad linguae nativse barbariem tollendam. — Duchesne, vol. iii, p. 370. * Avoit une coustume ens el Tyois (Teuton) pais Que tout li grant seignour, li comte et li marchis Avoient entour eux gent francoyse tous dis Pour aprendre francoys leur filles et leur fils. " Frenchmen," says Max Muller, " became the tutors of the sons of the Ger- man nobility. French manners, dresses, dishes, dances, were the fashion every- where, and German poets learned from French poets the subjects of their own romantic compositions." 502 APPENDIX. netto Latini, Dante's master, wrote his " Thresor de Sa- pience " in French (1260), and as a reason for doing so he says : " S'aucuns demandoit porquoy chis livres est escript en romans selonc le parler de France, pour chose que nous somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ch'est pour deux raisouns ; l'une porce que nos somes en France, l'aultre pour chou que la parleure en est plus delitauble et plus comune a tous gens." In 1275, Martino da Canale translated into French the Latin history of Venice, " parce que la lengue franceise cort parmi le monde, et est plus delitauble a lire et a oir que nulle aultre." Marco Polo wrote his travels in French (1295). In 1356, John Maundeville translated his " Voiage and Travaile " from Latin into French as well as into English, so that every one of his nation, he says, might understand it. Similar reasons determine Delia Perena and Nicolo di Casola, contemporaries of Boccaccio, and after them Luigi di Porcia, the Marquis di Saluces, and many others to use the French language in preference to their own. French was, indeed, the language most gen- erally understood, and learned authors, for the purpose of popularizing their works, translated them into that idiom. Guillaume de Nangis says it is " pour la commodit6 des bonnes gens qu'il a translate^ son histoire de Latin en Ro- mans." High in renown among all universities stood the University of Paris. Among the students on its rolls in the twelfth century are to be found nearly all of the most distinguished among the learned of every country. One of the teachers alone, the celebrated Abelard, is said to have had as pupils twenty persons who afterward became cardinals, and more than fifty who rose to be bishops and archbishops. Thomas a Becket and John of Salisbury were educated there, and so was Nicholas Breakspear, who afterward became pope by the title of Adrian IV. Paris was then wont to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, the City of Letters, and from every country of Europe students flocked to its university. 1 The following passage of the first Psalm of David, as found in the versions of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, 1 The fact is referred to in the following lines of a mediaeval Latin song : Filii nobilium, dum sunt juniores Mittuntur in Franciam fieri doctores. Notwithstanding the rising reputation of Oxford and Cambridge, so many Eng- lishmen were constantly found among the students of the University of Paris, that they formed one of the four nations into which the members of the univer- sity were divided. See page 330. It would appear from the following verses of Nigellus Wireker, a German student at Paris in 1170, that these young gentle- FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 503 fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, will serve as specimens of the French language in its various stages of progress during that period, observing that the text of the Bible is in every language always more antiquated than the cur- rent idiom, probably from a sense of reverence for things sacred which refrains from translating Scriptures in too familiar language : Twelfth Century. Et iert ensement cume fust tresplantet de juxte les ruisals des ewes, lequel sun fruit durrat en sun tens. E la foille de lui ne decurrat ; e tuit ceo que il serrat fait prospre. Thirteenth Century. Et il sera si com arbre que planted est juste le cours des eawes, lequel donra son fruit en temps sesonale. La foille ne cherra ; et totes choses qecunque il fera, tut dis en prosperunt. Fourteenth Century. Et il sera come li fust qui est planted de coste le decourement des yauwes qui donra son fruit en temps. Et sa fueille ne cherra pas, et tout ce qu'il fera sera touz jours en prosperity. Fifteenth Century. Et il sera comme l'arbre qui est plant6 jouxte le cours des eaues qui son fruit donnera en tout temps. Et sa fueille ne descherra ; et toutes choses que le juste fera, tous jours prospereront. Sixteenth Century. II sera comme l'arbre plant6 le long des eaux courantes, qui rend son fruict en sa saison. Les feuilles ne tomberont point ; et tout ce qu'il produira viendra k souhait. The great intellectual movement which was called the " revival of learning," and which resulted mainly, though not wholly, from the recurrence to Greek and Roman literature and art as models, had been working in Italy throughout the fifteenth century ; and the close connec- men were then already noted for certain national characteristics which still make a prominent part of their reputation : Moribus egregii, verbo vultuque venusti, Ingenio pollent, consilioque vigent ; Dona pluunt populis, et detestantur avaros, Fercula multiplicand et sine lege bibunt. 504 APPENDIX. tion between the French and Italian people was certain to spread its influence northward. Still independently of this, the studies of native Frenchmen pointed in the same direction. In Latin literature the chief works had long been known. Virgil, Ovid, and even many of the works of Cicero had been for ages the delight of scholars and the food of poets. But even in respect to these the greater publicity which the multiplication of copies by the print- ing-press gave to them, led to innumerable questions being stirred which till then had lain comparatively dormant, while the problems of textual, philological, and literary criticism, which the careful study of the author suggested, were now taken up with eagerness by a large and ever- increasing circle of students. Other questions of a more general interest likewise seized upon the public mind. The magnetic needle had pointed out new routes for en- terprise and navigation, and the discovery of new coun- tries promoted a general spirit of adventure and inquiry in intellectual as well as commercial matters. The inven- tion of gunpowder had affected materially the composition of armies, and changed entirely the former mode of war- fare ; and lastly, the great religious revolution, which, after smoldering long in England, had burst out in the most violent form on the continent, gave the amplest exercise to men's power of speaking and writing. All these forces required some time to set to work, and to avail themselves of the tremendous weapon which the press had put into their hands. In no country was their literary result more striking and more manifold than in France. The double effect of the study of antiquity and the religious movements especially, almost at once pro- duced there an outburst of literary development of the most diverse kinds, which even the fierce and sanguinary civil disorders to which the Reformation gave rise did not succeed in checking. No century can show a group of prose writers and poets as was then formed by the leading minds in France. These great writers were not merely remarkable for the vigor and originality of their thoughts, the freshness, variety, and grace of their fancy, the abun- dance of their learning and the solidity of their arguments ; their great merit was the creation of a language and a style able to give expression to the acumen of their thought and their advanced knowledge. It would be idle to un- derrate or despise the literary capacities and achievements of the older French ; but the old language, with all its FREiXCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 505 merits, was ill-suited to treat the more serious questions which now preoccupied men's minds. Pleasant or affect- ing tales could be told in it with interest and pathos. Songs of charming naivett' and grace could be sung ; the requirements of the epic and the chronicle were suitably- furnished ; but its vocabulary was limited, not to say poor ; it was barren of the terms of art and science, and did not readily lend itself to sustained eloquence, to impassioned poetry or to logical discussion. It had been too long ac- customed to leave those things to Latin, and it bore marks of its original character as a lingua rustica — a tongue suited to homely conversation, to folk-lore and to ballads rather than to the business of the forum and the court, the speculations of the study, and the declamation of the theatre. Efforts had indeed been made to supply the de- fect, but not yet with any marked result. It was reserved for the sixteenth century to accomplish the task. The first few years of that century were naturally oc- cupied rather with the last developments of the mediaeval forms than with the production of the new model; but before the century was half over a school of poetry was set on foot by a small association of friends who were all ardent admirers of the ancient classics, and who endeav- ored, as nearly as might be, to shape French poetry and the French language in general upon classical models. The leaders in this movement were the celebrated " Pleiade," a group of seven writers whose names were Ronsard, Du Bel- lay, Baif, Jodelle, Dorat, Belleau, and Ponthus de Thyard. Of these, Dorat was one of the oldest, and the instructor of the others in classical lore. Jodelle was before all things a dramatic writer, and his models were Seneca and Ter- ence rather than Sophocles and Aristophanes; but the style was suited to the taste of the people before whom it was set, and French tragedy followed no other for nearly three hundred years. The other five members of the Pleiade were chiefly poets, among whom Baif was the learned founder of an academy of poetry and music, es- tablished in 1 571 under the patronage of Charles IX. He proposed a new alphabet and vocabulary, favoring the un- limited admission of Greek and Latin words, and was especially fond of Latin comparatives and superlatives, which caused his friend Du Bellay ironically to address him as " docte, doctieur, doctisme Baif." The latter him- self, however, issued a celebrated manifesto entitled De- fence et illustration de la langue francoyse (1548), in which 34 506 APPENDIX. he proposed a plan for the production of a more poetical and noble language by the wholesale importation of Greek and Latin words in their natural state, and by introducing the literary forms employed by the ancient classical au- thors. But the representative poet of the school is Pierre de Ronsard, A. D. 1524-1585, who was its acknowledged head, and was for a very long time hailed as " the prince of poets " by both Frenchmen and foreigners. He threw aside the indigenous French poetry and wrote odes, ele- gies, and pastorals in ancient fashion, and so profusely mixed up with Greek and Latin as to be almost unintelli- gible to the generality of readers. Still his manner was greatly admired by the classical scholars of the age, and for a long time after looked upon as the only legitimate one in point of good taste and noble inspiration. Thanks to his efforts, and the many imitators he found at home and abroad, the images of Greek mythology and the tra- ditional allegories of Olympian polytheism well nigh crowded out the pure symbols of Christianity. Among the many causes which led to this great aim at improving the vernacular among the men of letters, there was one which, probably more than any other, gave the real impulse. Up to Ronsard's time a low and corrupt Latin had been the language of public adminis- tration. This was abolished in 1539 by Francis I, who prescribed the exclusive use of French in all public and private transactions, and from this time forward it became the official language of the courts, the parliament, in short of every one, except the clergy and the savans, who kept up the practice of studying Latin as a preparation for their learned investigations. Still, from the moment that French became the official language by royal decree, they could not affect to ignore it; and, following their leaders, several set to work to see how it could be im- proved, not by a rational inquiry into the modifications which time and events had wrought in the language, but by a blind return to ancient rules, by which they thought the rebellious idioms would be again brought under dis- cipline. To them French was a kind of Latin patois, that could never be made to serve the purpose of a great na- tion unless it was brought back to its ancient classical purity, and in their ignorance of the real origin of the language, they applied Latin grammar and syntax to an idiom which for fifteen centuries had been growing up in utter disregard of its rules. This unintelligent manner FREXCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 507 of understanding linguistics has left a curious trace in the very title of one of the first grammars published in France : Tract at as Latino-Gallicus, c'est a dire, essay de concordance entrc le latin et le /rancors (1543), in which the author re- duces everything to the rules of classical Latin, and lays it down as a principle, that through Latin alone one can obtain a correct knowledge of French, which notion, how- ever absurd, found great favor with the classical scholars of the time, who were anxious to show their superiority by the employment of words not French, but borrowed from the Greek and Latin. At no time had any revolution been more threaten- ing to the existing forms of language, nor had men ever been more active or more successful than those who formed the Pleiade, in producing the aimed-at results. If France was ever to possess a literature worthy of the nation, the language, they held, must be enriched and strengthened by unlimited borrowings from its parent Latin ; and in their enthusiasm they were not far from turning the whole Latin dictionary into their native tongue. They would even have imported the Greek license of compound words, though the genius of the French language is wholly repugnant to it. Still, as they were all men of the highest talent, and not a few of them men of great genius, they achieved much that they de- signed, and, even when they failed, they very often indi- rectly produced results as important and more beneficial than they intended. Doubtless they went too far, and adverse criticism and the* natural course of time rejected much that they had added ; but their work as a whole remained, and no force of reaction was ever after able to undo it. Their ideal of a separate poetical language, dis- tinct from that intended for prose use, was a doubtful, if not a dangerous one, especially from the wholesale Latin- izing and Hellenizing of their mother-tongue, by which they sought to accomplish it ; but for all that their works are models of elegance and grace, they abound in pas- sages of great eloquence and sustained dignity of language, and are singularly free from the heaviness and dryness which have since generally attended translations and imi- tations of the classics in modern tongues. The truth is that, though these writers professed to despise the mid- dle ages, they themselves were still animated by a large portion of the mediasval and romantic spirit. The union of this with the classical attention to elegance and form 508 APPENDIX. produced the various schools of art and literature to which the term " Renaissance " has been attached, and among which French sixteenth century literature, and in particular the poetry of the P16iade, of which Ronsard was the leading spirit, is universally acknowledged as holding the most conspicuous place. But great as was the importance of that century in the history of French poetry, its importance in the history of French prose is greater still. Some of the most distin- guished names in prose writing date from this period, and many of their works became models of style at home and abroad, though they themselves had hardly any predeces- sors by whom to guide their attempts. Up to the begin- ning of the century, the only works of importance that had been written in prose were chronicles and lengthy prose versions of the old verse romances. A few sermons, a few legal works, a few short prose tales, and still fewer treatises on serious subjects summed up the contents of French prose literature. Before the close of the period, however, there was not a single branch of literature prac- ticed in the present day, if we except the comparatively re- cent growth of journalism, which had not been attempted by writers of the first talent. Foremost among these, both by his influence and by the style and power of his language, must be named Cal- vin, whose Institution de la Religion Chrestienne contains, so to speak, the constitution and code of all those religious bodies which, at the Reformation, definitively broke with the Catholic tradition, and declined to recognize the con- tinuity of the Christian Church. Originally written in Latin, it was almost at once translated into French by its very author, who saw the necessity of appealing to the people and not merely to the learned, and who, indeed, is responsible for the strong democratic feeling which ac- companied the religious revolt in many cases. He dedi- cated his work to Francis I, A. D. 1535, calling on him, almost in threatening language, to exert the royal power in behalf of his views and principles. " C'est votre office, sire, de ne detourner ne voz oreilles ne vostre courage d'vne si iuste defense, principalement quand il est question de si grande chose, c'est assauoir comment la gloire de Dieu sera maintenue sur la terre, comment sa verite retiendra son honneur et dig- nite", comment le regne de Christ demeurera en son entier." The power and elegance of his language elicited univer- sal admiration, and Bossuet himself admitted of him FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 509 "d 'avoir excelle" dans la langue maternelle, et aussi bien Scrit qu'komme de son siecle." After Calvin, the champions of the national language are almost all more or less suspected of Protestantism. Clement Marot (1497-1544) translated the Psalms into French, and Marguerite de Navarre, the king's sister, and a great patroness of literature as well as of the new re- ligious doctrines, had them sung at her court. Etienne Dolet published in 1543 a Brief discours de la re"publique francoyse dc sir ant la lecture de la Saint e Escriture lui estre loysible en sa langue vulgaire. But the most eager and most open Protestant of all was Guillaume du Bartas (1544- 1590), the most famous of the followers of the Pleiade. He attempted works on a much greater scale, and was much more successful than any of his predecessors. His Divine Sepmaine, or " Week of the World's Creation," is an elaborate poem, written in phraseology of the stiffest P16iade pattern, full of Latinisms, double epithets, and strange looking words, after the taste and fashion of the time, but not the less abounding in passages of great elo- quence and sustained dignity of language. As such it enjoyed a high reputation at home and abroad, thirty editions of it having been printed within six years after its appearance. Its religious tone made it a great favor- ite with English writers of the time, 1 by whom the author was always designated as the " Divine Du Bartas," and placed on an equality with Ariosto. At present he would be difficult to read, as he even outstripped Ronsard in creating new words and in reconstructing words already in existence, in lines like these for instance : .... "Apollon donne-honneurs Donne-dme, porte-jour / .... Herme guide-navire Mercure, eschelle-ciel, invent' art, ayme-lire ! " Though such forms seem to us absurd at present, yet they were then received by some with boundless admiration. The truth is, literature had become the business of a clique, with a kind of learned language, which was under- stood by the initiated only. At last the good sense of the people protested against such extravagances. Rabelais never lost an opportunity of ridiculing the pedants of this school, and his scoffing 1 See page 365. 510 APPENDIX. sneers did still more than the learned arguments of others to check their affected mannerism. To a fop of Bourges, who in this exquisite style said : " L 'origine primeve de mes aves et ataves feut indigene des regions limoviques ok requiesce le corps de Vagiotate sainct Martial. J'entends bien, dist Pan- tagruel, tu es Limozin pour tout potaige, et tu veidz icy contre- faire le Parizien." After him, the sharp criticisms of schol- ars like Henri Estienne (1528-1598) and Francois de Mal- herbe (1556-1628), did with the educated what he had done with the masses. Malherbe, especially, set himself to oppose the classical tendencies of the Pleiade by sub- stituting for them other aims of a quite dissimilar kind. " How can our poetry be truly French," said he, " while we load it either with Greek and Latin words, or with the provincialisms of the various patois of our land "? When- ever applied to for an opinion about French words, he always referred his questioners to the people at large, saying that "they were his masters in language." By thus repudiating alike court and college, fashion and erudition, and taking for his guide the better instincts of the people of Paris, he recognized the taste of the day, and gave to the vast wealth of materials gathered by his predecessors order and regularity. He it was who set the example of the characteristics which distinguished French poetry for fully two centuries, and which made it the admiration of all Europe. These characteristics may be thus summed up : 1 . A very accurate versification, absence of hiatus, and correct observance of the rhyme. 2. The exclusive use of a simple but carefully chosen phraseology, free from all harsh and forced inversions and every species of license in language. 3. The avoidance of too picturesque or startling effects, and the preference of a kind of elegant commonplace in the treatment of every subject. " Good verse," he said, "ought to be as beautiful as beautiful prose." This respect for the reader as well as for the laws of style, this high idea of the difficulties of the art, was a new thing to the sixteenth century, and under its influence French poetry ripened at once into maturity. As the founder and chief of a new school, Malherbe had of course his partisans and his opponents. But the mediaeval influ- ence had become exhausted in his time, and the Ronsard school had worn itself out, partly owing to its undue pedantry, partly to the error, constantly recurring in the history of literature, of its members forming themselves into a kind of sect or clique, claiming exclusive superiority FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 511 over all others in point of taste and talent. Still their in- fluence on the language was immense, and though the new school did not participate in that reverence for class- ical antiquity, which was the strongest of all intellectual peculiarities of the former, it not the less acknowledged the advantages literature had derived from an enriched vocabulary, though pruning and shaping it for higher and nobler purposes, and checking its abuses and excesses. All that caprice and fancy had created vanished ; all that analogy and necessity had formed remained. Thus the words apostropfie, jurisconsult e, pricellence, stratagcme , ana- logie, etc., continued to be used ; astorge, amine, ente'le'chie, ocymore, oligochronien and the like have disappeared. If the classical erudition of Ronsard and his followers has enriched the French vocabulary with words taken from the ancients, the several expeditions of Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I, beyond the Alps, and especially the alliance of Henry II with Catherine de Medicis had no less influence in introducing words from the Italian. The prolonged sojourn of the French armies in Italy, dur- ing the early years of the sixteenth century, had made the Italian language very familiar to the French. The splen- dor of the Italian Renaissance in literature and art dazzled the French mind, while the regency of Catherine de Medi- cis gave the prestige of fashion to every thing Italian. This Italian influence was omnipotent at the courts of Francis I and Henry II, and the courtiers did their best to make it felt throughout the nation. With them the gentlemen were doctissime, grandissime, se're'nissime ; the ladies bellissime, blondelettes, and had la bouche vermeillette. The most ridiculous opposites, such as terriblement heureux, grandement petit, etc., were considered extremely fashion- able. Then appeared a number of words hitherto un- known, especially such as had reference to court life, the army, the fine arts, commerce, and matters of modern in- terest. Once the impulse given, it became quite the fash- ion with some to ignore good old words in ordinary speech, and to substitute others utterly Italian. Thus, your man of taste would not deign to say suffire, grand revenu, la premiere fois, but called it baster, grosse intrade, la premiere volte. Add to this the peculiar mode of pronouncing like ou, er like ar, and the shocking affectation of using the first person singular pronoun with the verb in the plural, and we shall understand the meaning and object of Henri Estienne's rebuke : 512 APPENDIX. . . . . " Vous Qui lourdement barbarisants Toujours' fallions, je venions dites j N'estes vous pas de bien grans fous De dire chouse au lieu de chose, De dire j'ouse au lieu de fose ! En la fin vous direz la guarre, Place Maubart et frere Piarre ! " In noticing this strange habit of altering the pronuncia- tion and form of the language through Italian influence, it is interesting to find the same thing among the peasantry in many districts in France, and consequently in the jargon which comic authors put in the mouth of the peasants on the stage. In his Don Juan, for instance, MolieYe makes Pierrot say to Charlotte : "je sommes pour itre mane's en- semble!' As with the words of classical origin, the useful ones, introduced through the Italian, have been retained ; the others have disappeared from the language. The Italian influence vanished in the reign of Henry III, but was almost immediately replaced by that of Spain. The wars of the League, and the long occupation of French soil by Spanish armies toward the end of the sixteenth century, spread wide among the French nation the knowl- edge of the Castilian speech. This invasion, which lasted from the time of Henry IV to the death of Louis XIII, left very distinct marks on the French language. For a time the court of Henry IV was almost entirely Spanish. Sully tells us that the courtiers did nothing but utter Cas- tilian cries and exclamations. Regnier laughs at their affected phrases, en ma conscience, il en faudrait mourir, and the like. Spanish influence lasted to the year 1643, and though quite sensible in French manners and literature, it affected the vocabulary but little. By the end of the sixteenth century the mediaeval in- fluence was entirely exhausted and no trace remained of it as an active and living force. While the purism of Mal- herbe was rapidly making its way in French verse, a simi- lar and still more healthy influence was being exerted in the department of prose by Jean de Balzac (1 594-1654) — the elder Balzac, as he is often called, to distinguish him from the great novelist of the nineteenth century. In his letters, essays, etc., he endeavored to purify the vocabu- lary from the foreign intrusions, and to regulate the style of ordinary prose-writing, which hitherto had been, except in the hands of a few great writers, by no means a con- FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 513 venient instrument for general literary purposes. These various reforming influences were largely assisted by the fancy of the time for literary coteries, in which authors and ladies of rank played the chief parts, and which were also frequented by many statesmen and nobles. The fa- mous Madame de Rambouillet was the chief patroness of these meetings, at which much minor poetry and many short prose pieces were composed or recited. But the really great developments of French literature during the first half of the seventeenth century were of a very different kind. Abundant as had been, during the century preced- ing, the exercise given to the intellect, that exercise had been chiefly confined to religious disputes on questions of church government and a few points of dogma. The un- seemly controversies of the earlier religious struggles, and the furious preachings of the League, were succeeded by religious polemics of a more decent kind and by pulpit eloquence which promised the great oratorical displays of the latter part of the century. But the thought of the new age threw itself still more into purely philosophical lines, and into subjects which appeared less dangerous to handle. The old scholastic philosophy, which in various shapes had satisfied the philosophical appetite of the Mid- dle Ages, had been practically dead for a long time, though its forms still continued to be taught in colleges and uni- versities. The sixteenth century, in this as in other things, showing its reverence for classical antiquity, had tried, but without success, to satisfy itself with the actual text of the Greek philosophers. It is the glory of France to have produced, in Ren6 Descartes (1 596-1650), at once one of the earliest and most skillful writers of a clear, elegant, and scholarly prose in any modern language, and also the first great modern philosopher, taking philosophy in its strictest meaning. The Discours de la Methode and the Meditations of Descartes treat of the most abstruse subjects that can possibly occupy human thought; yet they are written in French so clear and simple that any child, as far as the mere literal and grammatical meaning goes, can understand them at once. Nor did the spirit of discussion stop at profane philosophy. Many points of Christian theology, which had not been made the subject of the great half-political, half-ecclesiastical disputes of the six- teenth century, came in for discussion and study. The renown, also, which France had already acquired for me- moir-writing, did not decline in this age, which supplied in 514 APPENDIX. its turbulent and changeable politics abundance of mate- rials for the purpose. Conspicuous among such writers is the great Cardinal Richelieu, who, though not exactly the founder of the Acade'mie, as he is sometimes called, brought it for the first time into a solid and stable condi- tion, and transformed it from a mere private club of wits, such as the country saw many of, into an institution for- mally charged with the overseeing of French language and literature. The considerations on which the establishment of this institution was founded were, among others : " Que notre langue, plus parfaite deja que pas une des autres vivantes, pourroit bien enjin succeder a la Latine, comme la Latine a la Grecque, si on prenoit plus de soin qu'on ri avoit fait jusqu'ici de 1 1 (/locution ; . . . que les fonctions des acade'miciens seroient de nettoyer la langue des ordures qu'elle avoit contractus, ou dans la bouche du peuple, ou dans la foule du palais, et dans les impuretez de la chicane, ou par les mauvais usages des courtisans ignorans, ou par I'abus de ceux qui la corrompent en I'e'crivant, et de ceux qui disent bien dans les chaires ce qu'il faut dire, mais autrement qu'il ne faut." These considera- tions, as well as the work assigned to the Acade'mie, were in perfect harmony with the policy and character of the Cardinal. He loved too much rule and order in every- thing not to wish to impose them even on the work of imagination ; he possessed too much the instinct of gov- ernment not to desire to rule and regulate also language and literature. Besides, it gave him an opportunity to denounce officially les ordures que la langue avait contractus dans la foule du palais ou par les usages des courtisans igno- rants, whom he put on a par with the lower classes, as far as language was concerned ; and also to take out of the hands of the Italian nobles who congregated at the resi- dence of Madame de Rambouillet — the headquarters of those who pretended to regenerate the language — the su- preme direction of matters of taste ; which was a sort of victory over the nobility who tried to be independent, and a triumph over the foreigners who were opposed to him. Moreover, in 1611, Cotgrave had already published in London a French-English and English-French Dictionary, a large work in folio, and it seemed impossible for France to remain behind in the production of a standard work on the national language. In 1680 Richelet published his Dictionary, which, instead of being simply an alphabeti- cal list of words, was the first that was composed on a FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 515 methodical plan, and indicates the proper and figurative meaning of the expressions, justified by common use and examples taken from good authors. Ten years later ap- peared, in spite of the opposition of the Acade'mie, the Dictionnaire universel de Furetiere, contenant les mots francais ta?it vicux que modernes, a kind of encyclopedia of the lan- guage, which had its merits, but obtained greater success abroad than at home. The A cademie francaise was founded in 1635 pour e"tablir des regies certaines de la langue, et rendre le langage francais non settlement e'legant, mats capable de trailer tons les arts et toutes les sciences, and its first Dictionnaire was published in 1694. It consists of an alphabetical list of words and their definitions, illustrated by examples consecrated by usage and the practice of the best writers. No word is admitted but on the highest authority, the object of the work being, according to a contemporary critic, to fixer les dcrivains, lorsqu'ils ne savent pas bien si un mot est du bel usage ; s'il est asses noble dans une telle cir const anc e ; ou si une certaine expression n'a rien de diffectueux. As such the Acade'mie has had undeniably a salutary influence on the language ; only its forty members are not infallible, and are liable to error as well as the judges of any other tribunal. Such a word as they reject remains in the language not the less, while such other as they have sanctioned disappears. Still, a comparative study of the seven editions of the Dictionary, which have appeared at long intervals in 1694, 171 8, 1740, 1762, 1795, 1835, and 1878, shows the happy influence ex- erted by the Acade'mie upon the public, and reciprocally by the public upon the Acade'mie. Each edition contains words which had been rejected previously, but which the persistency of their use have proclaimed correct and in- dispensable. Thus, in as much as it takes the Acade'mie many years to prepare a new edition of its Dictionary, and as on principle it registers only such words as are of undoubted national existence, it follows that, in a certain sense, the work is already old the day of its publication. But this flavor of antiquity is not to be disdained ; it, on the contrary, offers important advantages ; and if the offi- cial vocabulary does not include the terms which fashion creates and which occasionally are consecrated by usage, it does not contain either those irregular forms of language, admissible, perhaps, in very familiar style, but not destined to live — " words which come like shadows, so depart." Even the severe criticisms which every new edition of 516 APPENDIX. this official dictionary always draws forth have benefited the public by stimulating individual energies : and the consequence is that no language is better provided with dictionaries of every description than the French is to-day. As the history of the language after the middle of the seventeenth century is purely that of its literature, we close with these remarks on its dictionaries, which, in their vari- ous spheres, are to some extent the records of its progress. CHAPTER II. ETYMOLOGY. Etymology is usually denned as that department ot the study of language which traces words to their ele- ments, their original forms, and primary significations. Similar definitions are given of the terms Philology and Linguistics, and we often find them employed one for an- other, almost at haphazard, and according to the more or less urgent euphonic requirements of the phrase or the sentence. Still they admit of a nice distinction ; and, to illustrate the difference, we quote from a German writer the following ingenious analogy between the philologist and the botanist on the one hand, and the linguist and the horticulturist on the other. 1 " Linguistics," he says, " is an historical science, a science which has no place except where we are in pos- session of a literature and a history. In the absence of monuments of a literary culture, there is no room for the linguist. In a word, linguistics are applicable to histori- cal documents alone. It is very different with philology, whose sole object 'is language itself, whose sole study is the examination of language in itself and for itself. The historical changes of languages, the more or less acci- dental development of the vocabulary, often even their syntactical processes, are all but of secondary importance for the philologist. He devotes his whole attention to the study of the phenomenon itself of articulate speech — a natural function, inevitable and determined, from which there is no escape, and which, like all other functions, is of inexorable necessity. It little matters to the philologist that a language may have prevailed for centuries over vast empires ; that it may have produced the most glori- ous literary monuments, and yielded to the requirements of the most delicate and refined intellectual culture. He little cares, on the other hand, whether an obscure idiom 1 A. Schleicher, Sprackvergleichende Untersuchungen. 518 APPENDIX. may have perished without fruits or issue, stifled by other tongues, and ignored utterly by the mere linguist. Liter- ature is unquestionably a powerful aid to him, thanks to which he finds it more easy to grasp the language itself, to recognize the succession of its forms, the phases of its development — a valuable, but by no means an indispensa- ble ally. Moreover, the knowledge of a single language is insufficient for the philologist, and herein he is again distinguished from the linguist. There is a Latin linguist- ic science, for instance, totally independent of the Greek ; a Hebrew, equally independent of the Arabic or Assyrian ; but we can not speak of a purely Latin or a purely Hebrew philology. Philology, as above stated, is nothing unless comparative. In fact, we can not explain one particular form without comparing it with others. Hence linguist- ics may be special, and restricted to one language ; but to judge correctly of the constituent elements and the structure of a language, we must be previously familiar with the phonetics and the structure of a certain number of other tongues. The researches of the philologist are consequently always and essentially comparative, whereas those of the linguist may be quite special." It is here that our author introduces his ingenious and reasonable comparison. " The philologist," he remarks, " is a naturalist. He studies languages as the botanist studies plants. The botanist must embrace at a glance the totality of vegetable organisms. He inquires into the laws of their structure and of their development ; but he is in no way concerned with their greater or less intrinsic worth, with their more or less valuable uses, the more or less acknowledged pleasure afforded by them. In his eyes, the first wild flower at hand may have a far higher value than the loveliest rose or the choicest lily. The province of the linguist is quite different. It is not with the botanist, but with the horticulturist that he must be compared. The latter devotes his attention only to such species that may be the object of special attraction ; what he seeks is beauty of form, color, and perfume. A useless plant has no value in his eyes ; he has nothing to do with the laws of structure or development, and a vegetable that in this respect may possess the greatest value, may possibly be for him nothing but a common weed." The comparison is correct, and, better than any more or less lucid explanation, points out that the philologist studies in man the phenomenon of articulate speech and FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 519 its results, just as the physiologist studies such other func- tions as locomotion, smell, sight, digestion, or circulation of the blood. And not only does the former inquire into and determine the normal laws peculiar to this phenome- non, but he also discovers and describes the changes ■which are frequently presented during the course of life of languages. For languages originate, grow, decay, and perish like other living things. They pass first through an embryonic period, then reach their highest develop- ment, and lastly enter upon a stage of disintegration. It is precisely this conception of the life of language that dis- tinguishes the modern science of language from the un- methodical speculations of the past. Considering thus philology as a natural, and linguistics as a historical science, we may define etymology as the re- sult of both. It was for want of making this distinction that etymology of old tried to explain the origin of words ac- cording to their apparent resemblance or difference, based chiefly on arbitrary relations, superficial analogies, and fanciful combinations. Modern etymology, ' on the con- trary, applying the method of the natural sciences, holds that words ought to explain themselves, and that, instead of inventing special systems for special cases, or what is worse, manufacturing words for the express purpose of deriving others from them, as was a common practice among philologers in former days, we must be guided by facts alone, and look upon every conclusion as doubtful which is not reached by the test of both phonetics and history. This process of etymological inquiry may be illustrated by a suitable example. Taking the word bachelier, for in- stance, which corresponds to the English word " bache- lor," and to which various origins have been assigned, we find it in thirteenth century French to be written bacheler ; in eleventh and twelfth century French, baceler ; in early Provengal, baccalar ; and in Merovingian Latin, baccalarius, from baccalia, which was derived from bacca, in classical Latin vacca, " a cow." Curious as this origin is, and little flattering as it may seem, perhaps, to unmarried men in general, and college men in particular, who could wish for a nobler line of ancestry to the title which adorns or is to adorn their name, it is not the less certain that this is its real pedigree, as we shall now show by the tests re- ferred to above. The change of v to b, so common in modern languages, 520 APPENDIX. existed also in Latin, especially in words of Celtic origin. Thus Pliny writes bettonica for vettonica, a word imported from Gaul, now called in French bttoine ; and Petronius, who wrote in the first century, and was a Gaul by birth, writes berbecem for vervecem, in French brebis, whence we find later on berbecarius, shortened to bercarius, from which we have the French berger. In the same way we find bacca ior'vacca as early as the fourth century, and in Mero- vingian Latin baccalia means "a herd of cows," and bacca- larius, "a man attached to the grazing farm ; a cowherd." In early Provencal, baccalarius was shortened to bacca- lar. In spreading northward, the open sound of a before / and r was much flattened among the Frankish tribes, and in their mouths the Latin ar and al became er and el, and in the course of time was so written. Thus mare, cams, amarus became mer, cher, amer ; and sal, talis, morta- lis ; sel, tel, mortel. In early French, also, the ace often lost one c, and accomplir, for instance, from the Latin accom- plere, was then written with one c only. In the same way accost er, from accostare, became acoster ; accroire, from ac- credere, acreire ; accouder, from accubitare, acouder ; and by analogous changes baccalar or bacalar became baceler, sometimes even written with a k, in which form we find it during the eleventh and twelfth centuries in northern French, and especially in the dialect of Picardie. The Latin c, as is believed, was generally pronounced k before all vowels, except before an i followed by an- other vowel, in which case it was pronounced like z, tz, or tch, somewhat like the Italian ce and ci, or the English ch in such words as cheap, churl, chin, 1 which was the Nor- man mode of pronouncing the Anglo-Saxon c. Already in Merovingian formulas we find unzias for uncias, and ever since the beginning of the tenth century the ch gradu- ally replaces the c in ancient manuscripts, indicating the prevailing mode of articulating that letter. Thus the Latin caro becomes chair in French ; caput, chef ; canis, chien ; caminus, chemin ; caballus, cheval ; camelus, chameau ; capellum, chapeau ; causa, chose ; bucca, bouche ; furca, fourche, etc., etc. ; and in the same way baccalarius, baccalar, baceler, became gradually written and pronounced bache'ler. In this form the word was introduced into England in the middle of the thirteenth century, and is still so pronounced in English, though in the sixteenth century it was changed 1 In Anglo-Saxon ceap, ceorl, cinne. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 521 into bachelor, probably through a misconception of the ter- mination er, which, being taken, as it would seem, for the Teutonic suffix er, in Latin or, was made to conform to the latter, while in modern French the termination ier continued to indicate its real origin, the Latin suffix arius being often thus contracted, as primarius, premier ; carpen- tarius, charpentier ; scutarius, e"cuyer ; distinctly showing, together with the foregoing changes and permutations, the gradual transformation of baccalarius into bachelier. If, now, we apply the test of history, we will find that the Latin word vacca, which is found written bacca as early as the fourth century, constantly took the latter form in Merovingian Latin. Omnes baccce catenarum confracte ceciderunt. Gregorius Turr., lib. i, cap. 2. Sometimes the word occurs spelled with one c only. Vineae vero habeant dignitatem ut mea proprise, ubicumque fuerint, si ibi inveniantur oves, bacce, seu porci, occidantur me teste. Hist. Pinnatensi, lib. iii, cap. 27 (Ducange). In a grant of 895, A. D., we read : Cedimus res proprietatis nostras ad monasterium quod voca- tur Bellus Locus cum ipsa baccalaria et mansis. Chartulary of Beaulieu, p. 95. The name of baccalaria, which in Roman Gaul original- ly meant " a grazing farm," from baccalia, " cattle," gradu- ally acquired the meaning of a cultivated piece of land, the arable part of which could be plowed in one day with twenty oxen, and having ten dwellings on it, called mas, thus described in the Chartularies of Charlemagne : Est mansum vel mansus quem par boum cotidie arare po- test, et sufficit duobus bobus in anno massa fundus, heredium, unde quis se et familiam suam tueri possit, et vectigal aut censum domino referre. This is further shown from a will of Turpio, bishop of Limoges, 882, a. d., in which we find the following item : Dono etiam baccalariam quae est in ipsa villa cum campis et vineis et pratis et omnibus quae ad ipsum alodum pertinent. This donation is thus referred to in the Tabularium Bellilocense in Lemovicibus, Charta 1 3 : Dedit eis baccalariam quae decern in se mansos continere vide- batur. 35 522 APPENDIX. In Carlovingian texts which have lists of serfs, we find the term baccalarius, and its feminine baccalaria, applying also to young persons not less than sixteen years of age, and engaged in field labor. A Descriptio mancipiorum or inventory of the abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles, in the ninth century, gives such a list of serfs living on a colonica, or piece of land tilled by a colonicus, which reads as follows : Colonica in Campania ; Stephanus, colonicus, Dara, uxor, Dominicus, Alius baccalarius, Martina, filia baccalaria, Vera, filia annorum xv. Chartulary of St. Victor, ii, p. 633. When Baccalarius was the name given to cow-boys on the farm, it naturally became also that of the camp-follow- ers who had charge of the cattle ; and as this duty gen- erally devolved upon persons who had become possessed of a little piece of land, the size and tenure of which im- posed certain feudal duties on the possessor, it so hap- pened that in course of time the name of baceler or bache- ler readily acquired the signification of one who from poverty or lack of proper age was not able to rank as a knight. Thus we read of — Castrum adolescentum quod dicitur de bakelers. Albertus Aquensis, lib. 3, cap. 26. Hoirs fu de la contd de St. Paul, mais povres bacelers estoit tant COU ses oncles vesqui. Theobaldo de Domno Medardo. A un chevalier baceler Ki par povret6 vot aller Droit en Pulle a Robert Wiscart, etc. Philippus Mouskes in Hist. Francor, Quant je reving a ma nef, je mis en ma petite barge un es- cuier que je fis chevalier, et deux moult vaillans bachelers. Joinville, 214. Dedans avoit bonne chevalerie qui la gardoient et defen- doient (la ville de Rennes): premierement le vicomte de Rohan, le sire de Laval, messire Charles de Dynant et plusieurs autres bons chevaliers et £cuyers. Et y estoit adoncques un jeune bachelier qui s'appeloit messire Bertran du Guesclin, qui depuis fut moult renomme" au royaume de France . . . et se combattit, le siege tenant par devant Rennes, a un chevalier d'Angletere. Froissart, i, p. 369. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 523 Sire, je ne suis qu'un pauvre bachelier dans le metier des armes. Du Guesclin. Thus the name in feudal custom takes the sense of " a lower vassal," who for want of means is unable to lead a body of retainers into the field — or to use the technical phrase, was unable de lever banniere, and compelled there- fore to serve under the banner of another. Quand un bachelier a grandement servi et suivi la guerre, et qu'il a terre assez, et qu'il puisse avoir gentilshommes pour ac- compagner sa banniere, il peut licitement lever banniere, et non autrement. Le pere Daniel. In the thirteenth century the title of bachelier was given to those "gentilshommes ' who by some great feat of bravery had earned the military belt and golden spurs ; and that of bachelier d' armes to him who, the first time he appeared in a tournament, had come out the victor. By this time the title of bachelier had become one of honor and distinction, including the idea of " youth, novi- tiate, training, apprenticeship," and with this meaning, which constantly attaches to the word, the same title was given to the junior members of certain guilds and trade corporations of which the regular members were called jure"s. In the Royal Ordinances of France, under the year 1366, we read : Pierre Triel et Pierre la Postole, jurez en la ville de Paris oudit mestier de boulengerie; Gerat de Breban et Jehan Le- comte, bacheliers oudit mestier, etc. And, farther on : Toutes et quantefoiz il a este ndcessite 1 de pourveoir a l'office vacant d'aucun jurd, les autres jurez desdiz mestiers superestans, a grant et muere deliberacion, nomment et eslisent entre eulx sans faveur l'un des bacheliers, etc. Ordinat. reg. Francor., page 709. The Church also had its bachelers, baccalarius ecclesice, bachelier d'eglise, and the name was given to ecclesiastics at the lowest stages of their training, during which cer- tain minor duties were assigned to them. Finita Missa in exitu Ecclesise incipitur Antiphona O Mar- tine ; Sequitur Litania Salvator mundi, et debet dici a duobus baccalariis. Ordin, Abbatio S. Laurentii Dioec-Autiss., aim. 1286. The degree of Bachelier-es-Arts was instituted by Pope Gregory IX, 1235 A. D., to be conferred on college stu- 524 APPENDIX. dents who, after completing the prescribed course, con- tinued their studies for the degree of Master. Soon after, both degrees were conferred by the University of Paris. Previous to their institution, no other distinctions were recognized in the schools than those of master and pupil. The branches of literary and scientific knowledge taught in the colleges of the Middle Ages, and which were spe- cially denominated the Arts, were considered as divided into two great classes — the first, or more elementary of which, comprehending grammar, rhetoric, and logic, was called the Trivium; the second, comprehending music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, the Quadrivium}- John of Salisbury speaks of this system of studying the sciences as an ancient one in his day. 3 " The Trivium and Quadrivium," he says, in his work entitled Metalogicus, " were so much admired by our ancestors, in former ages, that they imagined they comprehended all wisdom and learning, and were sufficient for the solution of all ques- tions, and the removing of all difficulties ; for whoever understood the Trivium could explain all manner of books without a teacher ; but he who was farther advanced, and was master also of the Quadrivium, could answer all ques- tions and unfold all the secrets of nature." Such were the beginnings of college studies in the Middle Ages, and such were the usual attainments of college graduates at the time the title of Bachelor of Arts was introduced into England. Being used by the Normans in all the various meanings it had then on the continent, it readily took in the new meaning which it had acquired in France, and both degrees in the Arts were conferred at Oxford as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. 3 A six to eight years' course of study in actual attend- 1 The seven arts, so classified, used to be thus enumerated in a Latin Hexameter : Lingua, Tropus, Ratio, Numerus, Tonus, Angulus, Astra ; or, with definitions subjoined, in two still more singularly constructed verses : Gram, loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rhet. verba colorat, Mus. cadit, Ar. nu- merat, Geo. ponderat, Ast. colit astra. 2 See page 161. 3 Entering upon the first degree was called at Oxford " Commemoration,'' as the act of calling to remembrance by some special solemnity the distinguished honor conferred ; at Cambridge it was called " Commencement," from the fact that it marked the beginning of a course of professional studies to which Bache- lors alone were admitted. The latter name has remained current in America to designate the anniversary occasions when this degree is conferred upon college students who have completed their prescribed course, whether they are to follow a course of professional studies or not. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 525 ance, or its equivalent ascertained by examination, was then exacted as the condition of the first degree, after which the second degree was granted at the end of three years more to Bachelors of good standing, upon presenta- tion of one or more theses, which the candidate had to support by argument in public before a board of Academic examiners. As any graduate present could join in the de- bate, discussion was often very lively, and apt to embar- rass the candidate unless he had some previous training in the art of public speaking and debating, for which some Bachelors' societies were then famous : J'ai des forces, du feu, de l'esprit, des dtudes, Et jamais sur les banes on ne vit bachelier Qui sut plus a propos interrompre et crier. L'Abbe de Villiers. In the sense of " an unmarried man," which is the most general meaning of bachelor in English, the word is also of Norman importation. Robert of Gloucester and Chaucer wrote still bacheler, which was then the current form, and only in the sixteenth century erroneously changed into bachelor ; but in whatever manner spelled, or with what- ever meaning, in France as well as England, the idea of " aspiring youth " is always underlying : Esleece-toi Jouvence en ta bachelerie was translated in the Dialogues de S. Gregoire, liv. iv, chap, iv, " Lastare Juvenis in adolescentia tua." In a chartulary of St. Vincent, 1243 A. D., we find un- married men spoken of as bachelers : Les jeunes enfans k marier, autrement appelez bachelers ou varletz a marier. And not only did the term include unmarried men, but in an analogous form also spinsters : Adolecentes non conjugati, et juvenculae nondum nupta?, bachelers et bachelettes vulgo nuncupabantur. Ducange. Beu qu'il eust, et rendu le hanap a la bachelette gentille, feit une lourde exclamation. Rabelais, Pantagruel, liv. iv, chap. li. Encore en Picardie bachelier et bachelette sont appeMs les jeunes garcons de seise et dixhuit ans, et filles pretes a marier. Fauchet (1529-1601). The word may still be heard occasionally in the country dialects of Picardie and Basse Normandie with the same meaning. 526 APPENDIX. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, bachelier in the sense of a graduate in a faculty was Latinized, according to the fashion of the times, into baccalaureus by the univer- sity clerks, who also gave to this new-formed word the etymology bacca-lauri, thus alluding to Apollo's bay. After inventing baccalaureus — found for the first time in De Cle"- mengis, de Studio Theol., they made out of it baccalaureatus, which was then turned into baccalaurt'at, in which form it was afterward imported into England. It is hardly necessary to add that neither this etymology, nor that which derives the word from bas chevalier, has any foun- dation. It is evident that in this brief and elementary chapter we can not trace the history of any other word as far or as searchingly as we have that of bachelor ; this indeed would be superfluous since full information of the kind is obtainable from larger works on the subject. It is rather for the purpose of showing how every word in the language may be analyzed, and of explaining the plan on which modern etymological and historical dic- tionaries have been of late constructed. 1 Besides, it is of more immediate importance to the student first to be- come acquainted with the general character of the French vocabulary, the various elements of which it is composed, and the phonetic changes that have turned them into French. Merely noticing the changes of form and mean- ing of any given word, as recorded in dictionaries, inter- esting as it may be, as anything is interesting that belongs to language, would be of but slender benefit to the stu- dent unless a previous knowledge of the growth and for- mation of the language to which such word belongs enables him also to take a general view of the causes and circumstances that have led to these changes. If not, it would be like viewing the dry plants of a herbarium, without a reference to the living vegetable world from which they are collected. It is, therefore, only when familiar with such details of a nation's history as have bearing on its language, that he can profitably enter on the study of its words, and consult etymological diction- aries to advantage. From the evidences collected in the preceding chapter, 1 We here refer especially to Littre's Dictionnaire de la Langue francaise, and the New English Dictionary on historical principles, founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by James A. H. Murray, now in course of publication. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 527 the student has probably already come to the conclusion that whatever have been the vicissitudes which the lan- guage has gone through in the course of many ages, and however different its features have grown from those of its parent, French is still in substance Latin. In this he will be confirmed by comparing the following versions into French and Latin of a passage in St. Luke which has already served us elsewhere for similar illustration. Con- sidering that twenty centuries have elapsed since the lan- guage of Rome found its way into Gaul, and the many channels through which it has passed before assuming its present form, it may seem even astonishing that such is still the family likeness between the Ancient Latin and the Modern French, that one conversant with either finds but little difficulty in understanding the other : LATIN. 12 Quando ille appropin- quavit porta? pagi, vidit mor- tuum portari, filium unicum matris qua? vidua erat ; et turba numerosa hominum pagi erat cum ilia. 13 Dominus illam vidit, et plenus commiseratione pro ilia, illi dixit : Ne plores. 14 Appropinquavit, et teti- git feretrum. Et qui ilium portabant, restiterunt, et dixit : Juvenis, ego tibi illud dico : Surge. 15 Et mortuus resedit, et coepit loqui ; et Jesus ilium red- didit suae matri. 16 Et omnes fuerunt affecti formidine ; et glorificabant Deum, dicentes : Certe magnus propheta surrexit in medio nos- trum, et Deus visitavit suum populum. 17 Et rumor de eo cucurrit in tota Judaea, et in tota vicini- tate. FRENCH. 12 Quand il approcha de la porte du bourg, il vit qu'on por- tait un mort, fils unique d'une mere qui 6tait veuve, et une troupe nombreuse d'hommes du bourg etait avec elle. 13 Le Seigneur la vit, et, plein de commiseration pour elle, il lui dit : Ne pleure pas. 14 II approcha et toucha la Mere. Et ceux qui la portaient s'arreterent, et il dit: Jeune homme, je te le dis : Leve- toi. 15 Et le mort se rassit et se mit a, parler ; et Jesus le rendit a. sa mere. 16 Et tous furent satsis d'ef- froi j et ils glorifiaient Dieu, di- sant : Certes, un grand prophete a surgi au milieu de nous, et Dieu a visite son peuple. 17 Et le bruit en courut dans toute la Jud6e et dans tout le voisinage. Of one hundred thirty-two words forming the French text, one hundred twenty-seven are derived from the Lat- 528 APPENDIX. in, four from old High German, and one from the Celtic. Those that are of German origin are bourg, 1 troupe? Here? 1 Bourg, bourc, burg, hire, bore, bor, in all of which forms the word is found, is one of the oldest Teutonic words in the language. Originally it meant a place of shelter, a small fort ; what we would call a block-house. In Isidore of Seville the word has already got its modern sense. " Burgus," he says, " est domorum congregatio, quae muro non clauditur." It is the English borough, boro, bury, found in the composition of many geographical names. See pages 187 and 466. From burgensis, a form found in Merovingian documents, we get bour- geois, in English burgess, " a dweller in a bourg, a citizen." Li bochier d'Orliens prennent sor chascune beste six deniers, et metent en une boete a defendre eels de lor boro contre autres genz. — Livre de Justice, p. 7. Ici sunt li quatre livres des Dialogues Gregoire, lo papa del bors de Rome, des miracles des peres de Lumbardie. — Dial, de S. Grig. El tems alsiment de eel meisme prince, quant Dacius li veske del bore de Moilans, demeneis por la cause de la foid, s'en aloi al bore de Constantinoble, dunkes vint-il a Corinthe. — Ibid. All these extracts show the word bor, bore, borg to correspond to the Latin word urbs. " Ejusdem quoque principis tempore, cum Datius Mediolanensis urbis episcopus, causa fidei exactus, ad Constantinopolitanam urbem pergeret, Corinthum devenit." ! Troupe, troupeau, " a troop, a flock, a multitude, a great quantity." In Gothic, troppe ; in Old German, trupp ; in Low Latin, troppus. " Si enim in troppo de jumentis illam ductricem aliquis involaverit" Lex Allemanorum, 7. From the primitive German the French derive the adverb trop which for- merly had not its present meaning, but rather applied to what may be counted. Thus, trop de gens [troupe de gens) corresponded to the English form '' a number of people." Later on it took the meaning of beaucoup, which itself is only a modification of grand coup, as : Le roi eut grant coup de la terre du comte. This sense of grand is still seen in other phrases, as un beau mangeur, and the like. En Nervie, dont je suis nez, A un homme (ceci tenez Pour verity et pour certain) Qui est de si grant sainte plain, Et si juste, sanz touz pechiez, Qu'il n'est grief mal dont entechiez Soit homme ou femme, si le voit, Que tout gari ne Ten renvoit ; Et ce a-il fait a trop (beaucoup) de gent, Sanz prendre salaire n'argent. Miracle de Saint Valentin, Theatre francais au moyen ftge. Even now trop retains the meaning of "truly, fully, with certainty" in cer. tain locations, as : Je ne sais trop si vous pourrez reussir. On ne peut pas trop dire si cela est reellement. 8 Biire, a bier or litter on which a body is borne, in Old German bara, from baran, " to bear, to carry " ; in the same way as the Latin made feretrum from fero. Uter, King of the Bretons, having fallen sick, caused himself to be car- ried in a litter at the head of his army : A ses homes dist en riant : Mius voel jo en Here jesir Et en longe enfrete langir, Que estre sains et en vertu, Et este a deshonor venqu. — Rom. de Brut, ii. Les nafrez (blesses) vout toz que Torn querre, Si s'enporte Tom soef en bierre A Roem por medecinier, Por garir e por respasser. — Chron. des dues de Norm., ii. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 529 saisir, 1 and that of Celtic, bruit? This small proportion of Celtic and Teutonic words, as compared to those of Latin origin, is even far in excess to that presented by a full vocabulary of the language ; and this paucity of foreign terms, which is a leading feature of the French language, may be accounted for by the following considerations : "f he Latin, as spoken in Gaul, was that of the great mass of Romans of all classes who lived there and whose num- ber constantly increased. The Celtic aristocracy, and such as had any claim to respectability, endeavored to speak the language well, and whatever Celtic word was retained among them or adopted by the Romans themselves, either from fancy or necessity, was at once Latinized in such a manner as to make few ever think whether such a word was of Latin or Celtic origin. In this respect we may be guided by our own experience in reference to foreign words that have been introduced within our own time, and, being useful or necessary, have become naturalized among us. If Latin was at first pronounced badly by those who ventured on its use, it was what we see to-day all the world over among the uneducated, and especially the country people who, speaking a vulgar patois, improve notwithstanding, generation after generation, in language and in accent. The circumstances, of course, were not then the same as now, but improvement in speech will al- ways go on wherever a rude idiom exist side by side with one more cultivated. In this respect the Latin had all the advantage. When introduced into Gaul it had attained its broadest development and its highest degree of culture ; it presented a homogeneous and regular system, a perfect unity, and at the same time a fixity of form which even the hardest use, has never succeeded in entirely obliter- ating. Under such circumstances a language best resists the pressure of outside influences and the admission of many foreign terms into its vocabulary. In all languages such words have lasted the longest as had a greater num- 1 Saisir, " to seize, to grasp," from the Old High German sazjan " to give possession of land " ; hence bizazjan, in German besitzen, " to possess." In medi- seval Latin documents we find the word satire, meaning " to take possession of another's property." " Alterius rem ad proprietatem sacire." Li reis Achab chalt pas levad e vers la vigne alad pur la vigne saisir e tenir en sa main. — Livre des Rois, p. 402. Achab .... surrexit et descendebat in vineam Naboth Jezraelittz ut pos- sideret earn. ! Bruit, noise, tumult, is in Breton, br&d ; in Welsh, brwth ; in Scotch, bruidhinnj and in Irish, bruidhean, all with the same meaning. 53Q APPENDIX. ber of compounds and derivatives of their own kin around them. Any word not so surrounded seems to be lacking in support ; it stands, so to say, isolated in the midst of other words to which it bears no relation, and hence is most exposed to be lost out of common usage. This will explain why words of Celtic and Teutonic origin have constantly dropped out of Modern French, and why the main bulk of its vocabulary is derived from the idiom of Cicero and Virgil. No monument whatsoever of the ancient Celtic lan- guage has come down to us, nor does history refer to any work written in that language. The Druids 1 alone could have left some writing, but every kind of written composition was forbidden as sacrilegious, and the trans- mission of religious principles was the object of an initia- tion full of mysteries. It is this absence of all written documents 2 which prevents us from knowing anything certain of the difference between the Gaulish and Gaelic dialects which Sulpicius Severus mentions as being so distinct even in the fourth century as not to be mistaken the one from the other. All we know of those idioms con- sists of about a hundred words, which the Romans had borrowed from the Gauls, and which, according to Ennius, Caesar, Varro, Livy, Pliny, and others, were current in their time in Latin. Among these we may mention sagum* 1 Druid, in Latin druida, in Celtic Derouyd, is derived from the words De, " God," and rouyd, " speaking." Derouyd, therefore, means " one who speaks of the Gods " ; an interpreter of the Gods." The Greek word SeoAoyos has literally the same meaning. (Compare pages 25-30.) * Jacob Grim quotes two magic formulae from Marcellus Empiricus, who lived in the fourth century, and was a native of Bordeaux. If really Celtic, they are the only specimens thus far discovered. The passage reads as follows : "Digitis quinque manus ejusdem cujus partis oculum sordicula aliqua fuerit ingressa, percurrens et pertractans oculum, ter dices: Tetunc resonco bregan gresso. Ter deinde spues, terque facies. Item ipso oculo clauso qui carminatus erit, patientem perfricabis, et ter carmen hoc dices, et toties spuens : In mon dercomarcos axatison. Scito remedium hoc in hujusmodi casibus esse mirificum. Si arista vel quaelibet sordicula oculum fuerit ingressa, occluso alio, oculo, ipso- que qui dolet patefacto, et digitis medicinali ac pollice leviter pertracto, ter per singula despuens dices : Os Gorgonis basio." — Marc. Emp., Medici principes, Henri Estienne, p. 278, D. 8 From sagum, the Roman overcloak, the old French made saye : Bref le villain ne s'en voulut aller Pour si petit, mais encore il me happe Saye et bonnet, chausses, pourpoinct et cappe ; De mes habits en effect il pilla Tous les plus beaux ; et puis s'en habilla Si justement, qu'a le veoir ainsi estre, Vous l'eussiez prins, en plain jour, pour son maistre. Marot, Epistre au roy, pour avoir esti dirobi. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 531 alauda, arpennis, bcccus, cippus, ccrvisia, leuca, and bracca ; which in French became sate, sayon, sayctte, alouctte? ar- pe/it, 2 bee* cep* cervoise? /ieue, 6 braie, and brayette? Fortu- 1 Alouette, from the old French aloe, alone, which had the same meaning: Quant Yaloe prist a chanter Se commencerent a armer. — Chron. des dues de Norm., i, p. 235. Caesar, having raised at his own expense a legion in Transalpine Gaul, gave it first the name of galerita, " skylark," which he afterward changed into alauda, being the name of that bird in the language of the Gauls who com- posed the legion. " Ab illo galerita appellata quondam, postea, gallico vocabulo, etiam legio- ni nomen dederat alauda." — Plin., lib. ii, ch. 371. "Qua fiducia, ad legiones quas a Republica acceperat, alias privato sumptu addidit. Unam etiam ex Transalpinis conscriptam, vocabulo quoque gallico alauda enim appellabatur, quam disciplina, cultuque romano institutam et ornatam, postea universam civi- tate donavit." — Sueton, Vita Ccesar. " Avis galerita quae gallice alauda dici- tur. — Marcellus Empiricus, c. xxix. " Avis corydalus, quam alaudam vocamus." — Greg. Turr., lib. iv. 8 Arpent, in Latin arpenis and aripenis is stated by Columella to be of Gallic origin. " Galli candetum appellant in areis urbanis spatium c pedum ; in agrestibus autem pedum CL, quod aratores candetum nominant, semijugerum quoque aripenem vocant." — Colum., v, I. * Suetonius informs us that Antonius Primus, one of Vespasian's generals, a native of Toulouse, was called beccus, when a boy, on account of his big nose. " Cui Tolosse nato cognonem in pueritia Becco fuerat ; id valet gallinacei ros- trum." — Suet., Vita Vitell. * Cep or ceps, originally two or more sprouts growing out of the same trunk. The name was given to a frame made of two pieces of wood, into the openings of which the legs of a person may be set fast, formerly used as a temporary pun- ishment for petty crimes and misdemeanors. In English, " stocks." " Cippus est quilibet truncus, et specialiter truncus ille quo crura latronum coarctantur ; gallice, cep." — Isidore de Seville, Origines. 6 Cervoise, now Hire, Pliny tells us was a Celtic word. Et frugam quidem haec sunt in usu medico ; ex iisdem fnint et potus ; zythum in ^Egypto, ccelia et ceria in Hispania, cervisia et plura genera in Gallia. — Plin., lib. xxii, c. 25. Nus cervoisiers ne puet ne ne doit faire cervoise fors de yaue et de grain, e'est a savoir, d'orge, de mestuel et de dragie. — Livre des metiers, p. 29. Vostre aiol Robert de Faleise Soleit mult bien bracier cerueise. — Chron. des dues de Norm. 6 The Roman measure of distance was the mile, composed of eight stadia, each of 125 paces or 625 Roman feet ; that of the Gauls was the league, lieue, in Breton lev, in Scotch leig, in Irish leige. " In Nilo flumine, sive in ripis ejus, solent naves funibus trahere ; certa habentes spatia quae appellant funiculos, ut labori defessorum recentia trahentium' colla succedant. Nee mirum si unaquse- que gens certa viarum spatia suis appellet nominibus, cum et Latini, mille passus, et Galli leucas et Persae parasangas, et rastas universa Germania ; atque in sin- gulis nominibus diversa mensura sit." — S. Jerome Comment. Joel, c. iii. This is further confirmed by Hesychius : Aeiyii, nirpov rl yaKAriKov. Isidore de Se- ville says in his Origines, ch. xvi: "Mensuras viarum milliaria dicimus, Graeci stadia, Galli leucas'' ■ 7 Braies, in English "breeches," was a word long in use in old French : Rices dras ot Partonopeus, Et li rois de France autretels. Ne vos quier or faire devise Ne de braies ne de cemise, Ne de braiels, ne de lasnieres. — Partenopeus de Blois, ii, p. 19O. 532 APPENDIX. nately for our studies, however, our knowledge of the Celtic vocabulary is not confined to the words which Greek and Latin authors give us as of Celtic origin, for the language survived the Roman, the Frankish, and the Saxon conquests, and we find it still as a living language in Low Brittany, the ancient Armorica in France, as well as in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in Great Britain. Though everywhere reduced to the condition of patois only, and more or less altered by the contact with French and Eng- lish, and the introduction of French or English words, the alteration is not so great as to disguise the primi- tive form of most of the words which Greek and Latin authors mention as belonging to these dialects. Thus in case of any word which shows no affinity with either Latin, Greek, or Francic, its true origin may often be traced by its corresponding form being found in one or more of these Celtic dialects. In making such com- parisons, it will be found that the Scotch and Irish, called Gaelic by those who speak the language, have a closer resemblance to each other than to the Welsh, called Cymraeg, and the Low-Breton, called Brezonec or Breyzad, which are more alike, either because the former are derived from the original Celtic, and the latter from the Gallic, or because the Welsh and Low-Breton have be- come assimilated by the number of British people who crossed the channel during the fifth and sixth centuries to escape the fury of the Saxon invaders. 1 French words which by this test have been found to be of undoubted Celtic origin are aluine? now obsolete, Por estanchier faire ma plaie, Copai lou tivuel de ma braie Et ma chemise an detranchai. — Dolopa.th.os, p. 303. Brague for braies may still be heard in the western departments of France, where that article of dress has kept up its ancient form among the country peo- ple. Ammianus Marcellinus calls the Celtic soldiers braccati. Suetonius refers to the hracca when speaking of Caesar's disposition toward the Gauls. See page 159. Diodorus Siculus, speaking of the inhabitants of Gaul, says : Xpwvrcu Sh avalvplmv ts ^Keivot {Ipatcas tcaKovffu/. ' See page 63. 8 " Absinthium, vulgus vocat de I'aluine ; alias appellatur du fort, propter insignem amaritudinem. Quidam tamen nomen latinum imitantes vocant de I'absinse." — Charles Etienne, De re hortensi, p. 55. 'H Se kcKtik^i vipfios yevyarcu n^v iv tois Karct Aiyvpiav "AKiretriy, iirixuplas wvojxaa^vrj kKiotiyyia. — Dioscorides, I, vii, p. 9. Si est-il expedient adoucir la durete du lenguage et dissimuler l'austerite d'icelluy, come quant l'on veut guerir un enfant des verz, lui donnant pour ce une medecine i'aluine, et l'attrempe-on avec du succre pour les garder de sentir l'amertume de Yaluine. — Bonivard, Advis et devis des Ungues. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 533 arpent, b/toine, 1 bouleau? branche, bruyere, carriire, cep, co- quelicot* dune, 4, fagot, gres, greve, gravier, guirlande, marne? mine, motte, peautre? pldtre," 1 roc, ruche, samo/e, B obsolete, soc, tan, verne now called aune. All these terms refer to 1 " Vettonica dicitur in Gallia, in Italia serratula." — Liv., xxv, ch. viii. Remede por la dolor de chief. — Raez si le peil de la teste, puis si prenez de vetoine plein pot, si quassiez o le vin, et puis si en oingnez la teste o le jus aus- tresi chaut come il porra souffrir, et si li metez l'emplastre sur le chief en une coiffe linge dessus, et si lessiez estre treis jors. — MS. de M. D., quoted by Roque- fort, gloss, art. Vitoine. 1 " Gaudet frigidis sorbus, et magis etiam betulla, Gallica hsec arbori, mira- bili candore atque tenuitate terribilis magistratuum virgis, eadem surculis flexilis, item corbium costis. Bitumen ex ea Galliae excoquunt." — Liv. xvi, ch. xviii. 8 Fastidium stomachi relevat papaver silvestre, quod gallice calocatonos dici- tur, tritum et ex lacte caprino potui datum. — Marc. Empiric, De remediis em- piricis. 4 Plutarch informs us that near the river Arar (SaSne) is a height which was called Lougdounon, and had received that name on the following occasion : Mo- moros and Atopomaros, who had been dethroned by Sezeroneos, undertook by the advice of an oracle to build a city on that height. They had already marked out the foundations, when a flock of ravens came and alighted on the trees. Momoros, who was an expert in augurship, gave the name of Lougdounon to the city, inasmuch as the Gauls called the raven lougon and a height dounon. — Aovyov yap T»j (Ttpwv SiaKeKTtp rbv xSptuca KaXovcn, hovvov $\ rbv i^exovTa. — Plutarch, IIcpl noTauwy, vi. This city was the Lugdunum of the Romans, now the city of Lyons. 6 " Alia est ratio quam Britannia et Gallia invenere alendi earn (terram) ipsa ; quod genus vocant margam. Spissior ubertas in ea intelligitur ; est autem quidam terne adeps, ac velut glandia in corporibus, ibi densante se pinguitudi- nis nucleo." — Plin., lib. xvii, 4. Elsewhere, xvii, 8, speaking of the Bretons, the author says : " Tertium genus terrae candidse glischro?nargam vocant." 6 Peautre or piautre, from which the English " pewter," meant formerly " tin," and is now obsolete in French. Nuls ne doit faire courroies d'estain, c'est assavoir cloer ne ferrer ne de plonc ne de piautre ne de coquilles de poisson ne de bois, a Paris ne ailleurs. — Livre des m/tiers, p. 238. Abuse 1 m'a, et faict entendre, Tousjours d'ung que c'estoit ung autre ; De farine, que c'estoit cendre ; D'un mortier, un chapeau de feautre ; De viel machefer, que fust peautre. Villon, Grand Testament. ' In Breton, plastr ; in Welsh, plastyr; in Scotch, plasdalr; and in Irish, plasda. Se uns plastriers envoioit piastre pour metre en ceuvre chies ancun hom, li macon qui oeuvre a celui a cui en envoit le piastre doit prendre garde par son serement que la mesure del piastre soit bone et loiax ; et se il en est en soupecon de la mesure, il doit le piastre mesurer, ou faire mesurer devant lui. — Livre des metiers, p. 109. 8 Without any description of this plant, Pliny gives us an interesting ac- count of its supposed medicinal virtues which, to be brought out to their utmost strength, required it to be picked by people on an empty stomach, with the left hand, and without looking. The samolus or " water-pimpernel " was a specific against murrain in swine and cattle. Iidem (druidse Gallorum) samolum her- bam nominavere nascentem in humidis ; et hanc sinistra manu legi a jejunis contra morbos suum boumque ; nee respicere legentem. — Plin., xxiv, c. ii. 534 APPENDIX. the earth, to agriculture, trees, shrubs, flowers, minerals, etc. Among the words designating animals, birds, fishes, and things connected therewith, we find alouette, date, 1 cochon, mouton? gourme, gourmette, go'eland? pinson? and the term dia, 6 which is rather a cry than a word, and which teamsters use to make their cattle turn out the road. The club-moss (Selago), which has been mistaken for this plant, was a fetish of another kind. The man who carried the divine object was secure against all misfortune ; and blindness could be cured by the fumes of a few of its leaves, which were dried and thrown into the fire. It had to be gathered with a curi- ous magical ceremony. The worshiper was dressed in white ; he must go to the place barefoot and wash his feet in pure water before approaching the plant. No metal might be used in taking it, but after offerings of bread and wine it was snatched from the ground with a thievish gesture, the right hand being darted under the left arm. The Breton peasants are said to retain their respect for the plant. They call it " Vherbe d'or," and the lucky finder still follows the fashion of his ancestors ; "pour le cueillir il faut ltre nu-pieds et en chemise : il s'arrache et ne se coupe pas'' 1 Claie, formerly cloie, cleie ; in Breton, Moued / in Welsh, clwyd ; _ in Cor- nish, cluid j in Scotch and Irish, death ; " a hurdle ; a screen." In Low Latin, clida. " Si eum interfecerit, coram testibus in quadrivio in clida eum levare debet." — Lex Bajuwariorum, tit., Ixxvii. 2 Mouton, in Scotch, malt; in Irish, molt j in Welsh, mollt ; in Breton, maoult, from which we have the form multo in Low Latin. Adonias fist un grand sacrelise de multuns e de gras veels. — Livre des Rois, p. 221. .. Immolatis ergo Adonias arietibus et mtulis. . . . L'um sacrifiout un buef e un multun. — Ibid., p. 141. Immolabat bovem et arietem. 8 Goeland, " a gull, a sea-gull," from the Breton, gwelan / in Welsh, gwylan j in Cornish, guilan; in Scotch and Irish, faoileann, all conveying the idea of " whining," evidently on account of the whining notes emitted by that bird. On the coast of Normandy the popular name is le gros miaulard. 4 Pinson. Some write pincon, which is more conformable to its etymology. In Welsh, pine is both the name of that bird, and the adjective " jolly, gai, merry," which corresponds exactly to the French proverb : Gai comme pinson. In Breton, pint. 6 Dia, id, ha, aha, are calls or cries heard everywhere for driving unbitted animals, especially teams of oxen. Claudianus informs us that the muletiers in Gaul had one word to make their mules go to the right, another to the left. As dia is still a Breton term, and used all over France for the same purpose, it is probably one of the words referred to by the poet : De Mulabus Gallices. Aspice morigeras Rhodani torrentis alumnas Imperio nexas, imperioque vagas, Dissona quam varios flectant ad murmura cursus, Et certas adeant, voce regente, vias. Quamvis quseque sibi nullis discurrat habenis, Et pateant duro libera colla jugo ; Ceu contrista tamen servit, patiensque laborum Barbaricos docili concipit aure sonos. Absentis longinqua valent pra^cepta magistri, Frenorumque vicem lingua virilis agit. Hsec procul angustat sparsas, spargitque coactas, FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 535 Words referring to man, his good and bad qualities, his tastes, habits, and customs, his amusements, etc. Barde, 1 bourde, 2 brave, 9 barguigner* carole* jarret, druide, dartre, Haec sistit rapidas, haec properare facit. Lseva jubet ? laevo deducunt limite gressum. Mutavit strepitum ? dextcriora petunt. Nee vinclis famulse, nee Hbertate feroces, Exutse laqueis, sub ditione tamen ; Consensuque pares, et fulvis pellibus irtse, Esseda Concordes multisonora trahunt. Miraris, si voce feras pacaverit Orpheus, Quum pronas pecudes gallica verba regant. — Claudianus ii. 1 In Scotch and Irish, bard ; in Welsh, bardd ; in Breton, barz. Eitri 5e Trap' avro7s (KeXrois) K"al TTOlrjral /xeKui/ otis fidpSovs 6vofld£ovtTlV ' OVTOl 5e /act 1 opydvav rats \vpais dfwiotv ots /xev ifwovffiv, otis 5e 8Kaffropfyet unter ung aufgeftanben, unb ©Dtt b,at fein 33oIf tyeimgefudjt. 17. Unb biefe Sdebe con tf)tn er» fct)ott in bag ganje jiibifdje Sanb, unb in atle utnliegenbe Sanber. 1 Ammonii Alexandrini qua et Tatiani dicitur Harmonia evangeliorum, edit. Schmeller, Viennse, 1841, in-40, p. 33. 548 APPENDIX. Some terms respectable in German, as land, ross, buck, herr, have been turned, in derision, into lande, '• waste land"; rosse, " a broken-down horse, a jade"; bouquin, "an old book"; hire, "a poor wretch." The word schnapphahn, which meant an " old-fashioned musket," was turned into chenapan, " a scamp, a blackguard, a good-for- nothing," and so on. Mining industry, so general in Germany, has given more recently a number of mineral- ogical terms, such as bismuth, cobalt, couperose, glette, man- ganese, potasse, quartz, spath, zinc, which have been adopted in French. Nickel is a Swedish word. 1 Modern German words thus introduced have had no effect whatsoever on the French language, except that of adding some sixty words to its vocabulary ; whereas the old Teutonic dialects have had much to do with shaping the language, partly in its pronunciation, and hence in its orthography; but especially in generalizing the declen- sion of nouns by means of prepositions, like the Celts, and by using auxiliaries in the conjugation of verbs, which was a German custom, and which was to some extent the practice also among the Latin-speaking people of Gaul. Elsewhere we have seen the great similarity of local names in both Northern France and England. 2 In addi- tion to these we have also such familiar English forms as Graywick, the river Slack, Bruquedal, Marbecq, Longfosse, Dalle, Vendal, Salperwick, Fordebecques, Staple, Crehem, Pi- hem, Dohem, Roqueton, Hazelbrouck, and Roebeck. Twenty- two of this class of names have the characteristic suf- fix -ton, which is scarcely to be found elsewhere upon the Continent, and upward of one hundred end in ham, hem, or hen. There are also more than one hundred patro- nymics ending in ing. A comparison of these patronym- ics with those found in England proves, beyond a doubt, that the colonization of this part of France must have been effected by men bearing the clan-names which be- longed to the Teutonic families which settled on the oppo- site coast. More than eighty per cent of these French patronymics are also found in England. * The French word Allemand, for " German," is modernized from the name of the Alemanni, the ancient frontier tribe between Germania and Gaul. The Alemanni seem to have been a mixed race — partly Celtic, partly Teutonic, in blood. The name is itself Teutonic, and probably means " other men " or " foreigners," and thus, curiously enough, the French name for the whole Ger- man people has been derived from a tribe whose very name indicates that its claims to Teutonic blood were disowned by the rest of the German tribes. 3 See pages 193-196. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 549 The Scandinavians who settled in France have left few memorials of their speech in the French dictionary — few permanent conquests have had so slight an influence on the language of the conquered nation. The conquer- ors married native women, and their sons seem to have learned only the language spoken by their mothers ; so that, except in the neighborhood of Bayeux, where the Norman speech was grafted on the nearly-related and firmly-established language of the Saxon shore, 1 the sons of the soil at no time spoke a Scandinavian dialect. But the map of Normandy supplies abundant traces of the Sandinavian conquest. In England the former abodes of the Northmen — Grim, Biorn, Harold, Thor, Guddar, and Haco — go by the names of Grimsby, Burnt hw ait e, Harroby, Tfwresby, Guttersby, and Hacconby : in Normandy these same personal appelations occur in the village-names in the form of Grimonville, Borneville, Herouville, Tourville, Godarville, Haconville, and Hacqueville. The Norse garth, " an inclosure, or yard," occurs in Normandy at Fisigard, Auppegard, and Epegard — names which we may compare with Fishguard and Appleguard in England. Toft, which also means an inclosure, takes the form tot in Normandy, as in Yvetot, Ivo's toft ; 2 Plumetot, flower toft ; Lilletot, little toft ; Routot, Rbdtot, or red toft ; Criquetot, crooked toft ; Berquetot, birch toft ; Hautot, high toft ; Langetot, long toft. We have also Pritot, Tournetot, Bouquet ot, Grastot, Appetot, Garnetot, Ansetot, Turretot, Hc- bertot, Cristot, Brestot, Franquetot, Raffetot, Houdetot, and others, about one hundred in all. Toft being a Danish rather than a Norwegian suffix, would incline us to sup- pose, from its frequent occurrence, that most of Rollo's followers were Danes rather than Norwegians ; 3 and the total absence of thwaite, the Norwegian test-word, tends to strengthen this supposition. The suffix by, so common in Danish England, generally takes, in Normandy, the form bceuf beuf or bue, as in the 1 See pages 80, 207, and 208. ! There was a saint by that name in Brittany, said to be an Irishman. He was an honest lawyer, and hence he is represented as a black swan in certain mediaeval verses in his honor : " Sanctus Ivo erat Brito Advocatus, sed non latro Res miranda populo." — Jephson, Tour in Brittany, p. 81. ' Moreover, in Denmark we often find combinations identical with some of those just enumerated. Such are Blumtofte, Rodtofte, Langetofte, and Gras- tofte. 550 APPENDIX. cases of Criquebuf (Crog-by, or crooked-by), Marbceuf (Mark-by), Quittebeuf (Whit-by, or White-by), Daubeuf (Dale-by), Carquebuf (Kirk-by), Quillebeuf (Kil-by), Elbceuf, Painbeuf, and Lindebeuf. The form beuf, or bceuf, may seem very remote from the old Norse boer ; but a few names ending in bue, such as Longbue and Tournebue, and still more the village of Bures, exhibit the transitional forms through which the names in buf and bauf have passed. Hambye and Colomby are the only instances of the English form found in France. The village of Le Torp gives us the word thorp, which, however, more usually appears in the corrupted form of torbe, tourp, or tourbe, as in the case of Clitourps. The name of the river Dieppe, which was afterward given to the town which was built beside it, is identical with that of the Diupa, or " deep water," in Iceland ; and may be compared with the Nieuwe Diep in Holland. From the Norse beck, Danish bcec, Dutch beek, " a brook," we have Caudebec, the " cold brook," the same name as that of the Cawdbeck in the Lake District, and the Kaldbakr in Iceland. The name of the Briquebec, the " birch-fringed brook," is the same as that of the Birkbeck in Westmoreland. The Houlbec, the " brook in the hol- low," corresponds to the Holbeck in Lincolnshire, the Holbek in Denmark, and Hollenbeek in Holland. The name of Bolbec we may compare with Bolbek in Denmark ; and the name of Foulbec, or "muddy brook," is identical with that of the Fulbeck in Lincolnshire. The Norse oe and ey, " an island," are seen in Eu, Cantaleu, Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. The suffix -fleur, which we find in Honfleur and other names, is derived from the Norse fliot, " a small river or channel," which we have in the English, Purfleet, North- fleet, and the Dutch Watervliet, etc. The phonetic resem- blance between fleur and fleet may seem slight, but the identification is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that Har fleur was anciently written Herosfiuet ; while Roger de Hovenden calls Barfleur by the name of Barbeflet, and Odericus Vitalis calls it Barbeflot. Vittefleur is the " white river," and Fiquefleur seems to be a corruption of Wickfleet, " the river to the bay." Holm, " a river island," appears in the names of Tur- hulme, Nihou, and Le Houlme, near Rouen. Cape de la Hogue, Cape Hoc, and Cape Le Hode, may be compared with the cape near Dublin, called the Hill of Howth. This FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 551 is the old Norse hatigr, a sepulchral mound, the same word which appears in the haughs of Northumberland. Les Dalles, Oudales, Crodale, Croixdal, Danestal, Dcpcdal, Dicppedal, Darnctal, and Bruquedalle, contain the Dutch word dal, and remind us of some of the dales of Holland. Escoves seems to be the Icelandic skogr, and corre- sponds to the Old English shaw, " a wood, or shady place." Bosc, " a wood, or bushy place," is a very common suffix in Normandy, as in the names Verbose, Bricquebosq, and Ban- dribosc. Holt, " a wood," occurs in the name Terhoulde, or Theroude. The Calf of Man is repeated in Le Cauf} While thus the local and patronymic names of north- ern France and England are essentially the same, and show the origins of the people of both countries to have been identical, it is deserving of notice that in England the Teutonic idiom prevailed, whereas in France it was absorbed by the Rustic Latin. Among the Eastern languages which have contributed to the French vocabulary, not by direct contact, but only accidentally and from fortuitous causes, Greek has fur- nished some forms, though it is difficult to determine in what way and to what extent it has done so. Some six centuries before our era, as already noticed, 3 some Greek emigrants landed in Gaul on the Mediterranean coast, and established there permanent and nourishing colonies. But in spite of their literary culture, which made Mar- seilles and several other cities in the south of France as many new Athens, there is no evidence that their lan- guage spread to any extent among the Gauls — there being more occasion for the former to practice the language of the surrounding country than for the Celts to learn Greek, except for trading purposes. But even business, carried on between Greeks and Celts, diminished, if not ceased entirely, about one hundred and fifty years before Christ, when the Romans came in as their protectors, and held land enough around these colonies to isolate them almost entirely. It is therefore more than probable, if not certain, that most of the Greek words that are found in French have come there through the channel of the Romans, who constantly borrowed from the Greeks whatever words they were in need of. Thus Greek art and Greek man- ners, as well as Greek literature, introduced into the liter- 1 On the Norse names in Normandy, see Depping, Expeditions Maritimes des Normands, vol. ii, pp. 339-342. 8 See page 457. 552 APPENDIX. ary language of Rome a crowd of words utterly unknown to the uninitiated, and whatever number of these occur in French have come there through the Literary Latin. We do not refer here to the Greek terms used in modern technology, and which are formed every day from simple roots, for the sake of accuracy in scientific nomenclature ; nor do we allude to the barbarous combinations, invented ever since the sixteenth century, to designate diseases, drugs, and patent medicines, and which would have puz- zled the ancient Greeks themselves to understand, as much as any of us at present. But between these words arti- ficially wrought, and those which have found their way into the language unperceived, as it were, there is this dis- tinction to be made, that the former keep up their foreign appearance, while the latter, like all those that have come through the Latin, are thoroughly assimilated in sound and form with all words in the language. It is in refer- ence to the prevailing affectation of a fondness for Greek literature, ever since Ronsard and followers, that Moli£re, deriding the literary pretense of the Femines Savantes of his time, makes Philaminte exclaim : " Quoi, Monsieur sait du grec ! ah ! permetiez de grdce Que pour I 'amour du grec, Monsieur, on vous embrasse." The first Greek words that, with any degree of cer- tainty, can be asserted to have penetrated into the popu- lar language of Gaul, are due to the influence of Chris- tianity, which grew up in the East before spreading among the Latin nations. Its first books were written in Greek, which accounts for some Greek forms which the Roman church adopted in its liturgy, and which still remain there, such as the Kyrie eleison in the daily mass, and the anthems Agios o Theos and Athanatos o Theos, sung on Good Friday. Saint Irenasus, second bishop of Lyons, wrote in Greek as well as in Celtic for the instruction of the people in his diocese ; Saint Caesarius of Aries ordered Greek anthems to be sung before the sermons, and Saint Jerome informs us that some of the Aquitanians of Gaul boasted of their Greek origin, and that they studied that language with remarkable success. The emperors favored this disposition, and in the year 376 Gratianus established a Greek chair at Treves. Finally, as an indisputable evi- dence that at one time Greek was the learned language in Gaul we have the Celtic coins, on which the inscriptions are engraven in Greek letters. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 553 Still, outside Marseilles, Aries, and a few other cities, where the population were principally Greek, the lan- guage soon ceased to be the colloquial speech in any part of Provence after the Roman conquest ; but so well was it rooted in these cities that the orator, charged to deliver the funeral oration of the younger Constantine, addressed the people of Aries in Greek, and that according to Saint Cyprian the Arlesians still sang Greek hymns during the sixth century in their churches ; and such was the high renown of Marseilles for its scholars, that Pope Celestine I sent to the city for a Hellenist to come and interpret to him a letter from the heresiarch Nestorius. In the ninth century, Greek was taught in Tours, Metz, and in various monasteries, and was in familiar use at the court of Charles the Bald. When Constantine VI was to marry one of the daughters of Charlemagne, Ellisee was sent as ambassador to his court, by the Empress Irene, to teach the betrothed the language and the customs of the court of Byzantium. In the tenth century, when the triumph of the Iconoclasts caused the persecuted Greek priests to seek refuge in all civilized Europe, many of these came to Toul, where the bishop allowed them to keep to the liturgy and rites to which they were accustomed. Finally, the Crusades in- creased the relations between the East and the West, and the intercourse between the Greeks and the French was too close and too constant for the language of the soldiers, the pilgrims, and the merchants, not to be in some way affected by the contact. 1 With all this, the influence of the Greek on the French language has been much more literary than lexical ; that is, it has borrowed from the Greek more turns of phrases than words, and of these, as we have said, almost all come through the Latin. Such are, among others : crabe, chere, corde, crane, crapule, moustache, somme, thon, bocal, fiole, bourse, tre"sor, tyran, trone ; in Latin, carabus, cara, chorda, cranium, crapula, mystax, sagma, thunnus, baucalis, phiala, byrsa, thesaurus, tyr annus, thronus ; from the Greek, Kapaftos, icdpa, ypphri, Kpaviov, fcpanraKr}, fivid\r], ftvpcra, di)vaari\s, "solitary," derived from pov&feiv, "to live single," which comes from fi&vos, the root of novaxbs ; in Latin monachus, " a monk." 8 In Old French yglese, in Latin ecclesia, from the Greek eVicArjcria, " an as- sembly, a reunion of the faithful," derived from ixKukiu, " to convoke." 9 In Low Latin paroecia, parochia, " a diocese " in Saint Augustine ; " a parish " in Sidonius Apollinaris, from the Greek Trapoixla, " a dwelling in the neighborhood," itself derived from irapoiicea, " to live in the neighborhood." The first Christians, in order to conceal their religious practices from the Romans, held their meetings in the neighborhood of the cities where they lived. f H ^KKKTjtrlaTj irapotKovffa iv 'Zpbpvq. — Euseb. IV, c. xvii. 'Ewctofir/a 5e ttj irapotKovffp Toprivav. — Id., IV, c. xxiii. 'H 'EicKK-rja-ta rov ®eov t\ irapoiKovtra V&firjv. — S. Clem., Ep. Corinth. 10 In Old French Christian, in Latin Christianus, from the Greek xpun&s, " the anointed ; the Christ." 11 In Old French diavle, in Latin diabolus, from the Greek Sii/3o\os, " calum- niator ; the devil." 12 From the Greek iropo/3o\^, in Latin parabola, originally meaning " a com- parison, a simile," next " a recital," afterward " speech," and finally " word." In a ch'artulary of the counts of Barcelona, by Diego, II, c. i, we read : " As- sumpta parabola sua, respondit episcopus (Hesso scoliasticus) : Non dicam illas parabolas quas vos dixeritis ad me, et mandaveritis mihi, ut celem eas." Para- bolare is used for " to speak," in Carlovingian documents. In a capitulary of Charles the Bald we read : " Nostri seniores, sicut audistis, parabolaverunt simul, et consideraverunt cum communibus illorum fidelibus." Later on parabolare be- came paroler. " Ki de la naissance de Christ parolent," says Saint Bernard. " Par grant saveir parolet li uns al altre." — Chans, de Roland, St., xxvii. 18 In Old French blasmer, in Latin blasphemare, from the Greek $XaBtyt\ikCiv, " to calumniate." Gregory of Tours uses blasphemare in the sense of " to blame." In the glossaries we find " blasphemare, vituperare, reprehendere." " Tantum- modo blasphemabatur a pluribus quod esset avaritiae deditus." — Aymon the monk. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 555 words in any way directly traceable to Greek are but few, there are in French many metaphors which Greek so perfectly accounts for that it would be idle to look for their origin elsewhere. In French, for instance, as in Greek, on assomme quelquun de son bavardage ; on lui rompt la tcte, and on lui rend mille graces ; on roule un projet dans sa tete, and on en seme le bruit. On est homme du peuple, d'mie grande maison, d'un bon sang, and enfle" de vanite". On donne des coups ; on dort sur les deux oreilles ; on pleure a chaudes larmes ; on brode une histoire ; and on couronne dig- nement son ouvrage. As in Greek, a drunkard is called un sac a vin ; a quarrel, un diffe"rend ; and a burglar's key, une fausse clef. The proverb, tendre comme la ros/e, is really nonsense, and is only explained by the fortuitous identity of the word ep of the Greeks is shown by the latter constantly employing B to represent it. Thus Severus, Valentia, Varro, were spelled ~S,($r\pos, /JoAecria, 0appuv. Nor could it have had among the Romans the vowel sound of the medial v, as noticed in note 3, page 581, since they too often wrote i instead of v at the beginning of the word. Berbecem is of Petronius, who wrote in the first century. Pliny writes bettonica for vettonica. The custom must have been very common, for Isodorus, speaking of this habit, says, " Bir- tus, boluntas, bita et his similia, quae Afri scribendo vetiant omnino rejicienda 588 APPENDIX. LATIN. FRENCH. LATIN. FRENCH. apicula auricula pariculus s vermiculus abeille oreille pareil vermeil aviolus* filiolus capriolus bovariolus aieul filleul chevreuil bouvreuil viginti triginta quadraginta quinquaginta vingt trente quarante cinquante quomodo hanc-horam subitaneus demane comme encore 3 soudain demain 1 sine de-intus ab-ante 6 subinde sans dans avant souvent magis jam magis tarn diu jam diu* mais jamais tandis jadis ubi ou ibi y 7 sunt, et non per b sed per v scribenda." Still the practice continued, and so we find berbecarius for vervecarius, berger ; baccalarius for vaccalarius, bache- lier. See page 520. Berbicem is a form common in the Salic Law " si quis berbicem furaverit." — IV, § 2. In the Ambrosian Library at Milan is a MS., probably dating from the sixth century, in which b and v are constantly interchanged. Voluntas is spelled boluntas ; vetustas, betustas ; and even in the middle of words we find cibica for civica ; lavoribus for laboribus ; absolbunt for absolvunt ; and devitorem for debitorem. This permutation of b, p, v, fis constant in modern languages — Habana, Havana; Sebastopol, Sevastopol; April, Avril ; pater, vader, father; etc. 1 From avius the Romans made aviolus, and from jilius, jiliolus. Aviolus, properly meaning " a little grandfather," soon supplanted avius, in accordance with the Roman tendency to use diminutives. The church, giving the name of spiritual father and mother to those who held the child at the baptismal font as sponsors, has also given the name of Jiliolus, that is — " darling little son," to the baptized infant. s Pariculus is found in very ancient mediaeval Latin documents. " Hoc sunt pariculas cosas," says the Lex Salica. ' Originally spelled anc-ore. 4 The Latin mane gives the French substantive main: II joue du main au soir, "he plays from morn to eve." Demane formed the adverb demain, which meant originally " early in the morning." 6 The old Roman grammarian Placidus strongly objects to this as * vulgar word, and warns his readers against it — " Ante me ftigit dicimus, non Ab-ante me fugit ; nam praepositio praepositioni adjungitur imprudenter : quia ante et ab sunt duae praepositiones." — Glossae, in Mai, iii, 431. 6 The letter j was pronounced i-i by the Romans ; they said mai-ior and i-iuvenis for major and juvenis. Quintilian informs us that Cicero even wrote so. " Sciat enim Ciceroni placuisse aiio, Maiiamque geminata i scribere." — Inst. Oral., i, 4, 11. We find liulius for Julius in inscriptions under the em- pire. Those inscriptions and manuscripts which wrote Hiesu, Hiericho, Tra- hiana, for Jesu, Jericho, Trajani, have accurately represented this pronunciation. ' Y was in Old French i, and previous to that written iv, which was the Latin ibi shortened. The permutation of b to v is constant, as liber, livre ; froba, preuve ; faba, five, etc. The word ibi often occurs in Merovingian Latin in the sense of illi, illis. " Ipsum monasterium expoliatum, et omnes cartse, quas de supra dicto loco ibi delegaverunt ablatas." — Diploma of Hlotair III, A. D. 664. " Tradimus ibi terram " and " dono ibi decimas " are found in a Charter of A. D. 883. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 589 LATIN. FRENCH. LATIN. FRENCH, subtus SOUS inde 1 en super susum 3 sur sous quem ego % que 4 ie In this list of words, taken from the classical, popular, ecclesiastical, and mediaeval Latin, the student may have noticed many which have changed their meaning consid- erably in passing from Latin into French. Sometimes the sense is wider, as carpentarius, " a wheelwright," which be- comes charpentier, " a carpenter " ; caballus, " a nag," has risen to nobility in cheval ; minare, which originally meant " to drive a cart or a flock," has the sense of " to lead," in general, in the word mener ; villa was first "a farmstead," then " a hamlet," and in the form ville it is " a city " ; the inhabitant of such a farm, such a hamlet, the villanus, vil- ain, has not fared so well. Indeed, the sense of words is often narrowed, passing from general to particular ; j'u- mentum, for instance, originally " a beast of burden," be- comesjument, " a mare " ; peregrimis, properly " a stranger ; a person who travels," is restricted in pelerin to " travelers to the Holy Land or some other holy place " ; arista, both "a fish-bone and an ear of wheat," has lost its sec- ond meaning in the word arite ; carruca, "a chariot," has become an agricultural cart in charrue, "a plow." Some- times the abstract Latin word becomes concreted in 1 Inde had in popular Latin the sense of ex illo, ab illo : " Cadus erat vini ; inde implevi Cirneam." — Plautus, Amphytr., i, 1. This use of inde was very common in Merovingian Latin, and the documents of the time have many ex- amples of it. Thus, in a formula of the seventh century we find " Si potes inde manducare," si tu peux en manger ; and in a diploma of 543, " Ut mater nostra ecclesia Viennensis inde nostra hseres fiat," etc. In Old French inde becomes int ; in the tenth century it is ent, a form still surviving in the word souvent from subinde ; in the twelfth century it is en, and has remained so. 8 Susum was often used for sursum, and is so found in Plautus, Cato, Ter- tullian, and others. St. Augustine writes Jusum vis facere Deum, et te susum, " you wish to depress God, and exalt yourself." De-susum has produced dessus. 3 The g of ego seems to have been pronounced somewhat like y in the Eng- lish word " year," to judge from the form eo which it takes in the oath of Lud- wig the German, A. D. 842, and io in the oath of his brother's soldiers — a differ- ence like that of leonem and lion. Later on we find the word spelled jeo, jio, jou.jeu — dialectic differences indicating a somewhat broader pronunciation than je has at present. 4 The Latin pronunciation of qu seems to have been very much what it is now in French, since in many words we find the letter c used instead before the vowels or u, as in quotidie, sometimes spelled eotidie ; loquutus, locutus ; quum, cum j quur, cur, and others. This pronunciation of qu, like the English k, is further indicated by the double pun of Cicero, who, being requested to give his vote for the son of a cook, answered " Ego quoque tibe jure favebo," pun- ning on the words quoque and jure. 590 APPENDIX. French, as punctionem, the act of pricking, becomes poincon, "an awl"; tonsionem, the act of shearing, becomes toison, " a fleece " ; morsus, the act of biting, becomes mors, " a bit, a bridle " ; and nutritionem, nutrition, is " a nursling " in nourrisson. A Latin concrete word, on the other hand, occasionally becomes abstract or metaphorical in French. Thus ovicula, a tender diminutive of ovis, " sheep," has produced the word ouailles, which in French ecclesias- tical language is used in reference to a spiritual pastor. It is clear that the French language, having before it many rich and slightly different senses of the Latin word, takes one of its facets, regards it as if it were the only one, and thus gives birth to the modern signification. But these changes of meaning do not merely occur in words passing from Latin into French, nor are they confined to French alone ; they, on the contrary, have occurred at all times, as we have seen already, and are common to all living languages. The principal characteristic of the French language, and that which distinguishes it from all other languages, both ancient and modern, is the logical construction of the sentence. The order in which the words are placed is almost always the same, and this order may be said to be founded on reason. Every proposition names first the person or thing that acts, afterward the action, and then the object upon which the action falls, so that the ideas class themselves, not according to the importance which the imagination gives to each, but in obedience to the order indicated by reason and by the succession of facts. Thus, a French writer, wishing to make the panegyric of a magnanimous sovereign, would express himself thus : " Je ne puis nullement passer sous silence cette admirable douceur, cette cl6mence inouie et sans bornes, cette mode- ration dans l'exercice du pouvoir supreme." Here the person who speaks is expressed first: " Je" ; then follows the action : "Je ne puis nullement passer sous silence " ; and after this the object on which the action falls : the " douceur, climence, and moderation," of the man he wishes to praise. Cicero, from whom this passage is translated, establishes an order directly opposite. " Tantam mansuetudinem tam inusitatam inauditamque clementiam, tantumque in summa potestate rerum omnium modum tacitus nullo modo pree- terire possum." 1 By him, the real motive of the phrase 1 Pro Marcetto, i. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 591 is enounced first, that is, the three virtues which form the object of his eulogy ; the person who acts and the action itself are only mentioned at the end of the sentence. This inverted order of the Latin is certainly more brilliant and more animated, as it expresses the thought exactly in the way it presents itself to the imagination ; but the French, not having preserved the use of these varied terminations which in Latin distinguish the cases of nouns and the tenses of verbs, and by which the relation of words is in- dicated whatever place they occupy in the sentence, is obliged to keep strictly to the direct order to insure clear- ness. In this particular, perhaps, the foreign influence is the most strongly felt. The Teutonic invaders of Gaul, in adopting the Roman language, dropped the Latin case system, and the terminations of the Latin verbs, as alto- gether too intricate to be of any use to them. Harmony of language they cared but little for, and they never dis- turbed themselves to please the imagination by submit- ting words to any particular arrangement. Their sole aim was to express their ideas in the plainest possible manner, and in an order the most easily intelligible. The f>rocess, of course, deeply affected the character of the anguage ; but what it lost in one way it gained in the other, clearness and precision becoming the leading feat- ure of the language which, polished to suit the require- ments of modern thought and modern institutions, pro- claims as its axiom Ce qui nest pas clair nest pas Francais. CHAPTER III. SCRAPS FROM ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS ILLUSTRATING EARLY FRENCH LITERATURE AND THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. Preliminary Remarks. On reading the specimens of Early French, and the extracts from some of the leading authors from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries, collected in this chapter, the student will find that, at a very early epoch, the lan- guage was substantially what it is now, though its authog- raphy resembled but little our present mode of spelling. This difference may even present at first some difficulties, which a few explanations no doubt will readily remove. In the beginning of the twelfth century, Saint Bernard said : " Ne fuir mies ; ne dottier mies. II ne vient mies a ar- mes ; il te requiert ne mies por dampnier, mais por salvier"; which, translated into Modern French, would read : "Ne fuis pas'; ne tremble pas. II {Dieu) ne vient pas avec des ar- mes ; il ne te cherche pas pour te damner, mais pour te sau- ver"; certainly a very slight difference in wording. Nor is it probable that his pronunciation differed much from what we hear at present, making allowance for a dialectic difference, the author being a native of Burgundy. These dialectic differences, however, varying as they did in every feudal division of France, must have necessarily affected in some way the mode of spelling of each author and each copyist, in the absence of any standard authority, and in their endeavors to represent by written signs the various sounds, accents, and intonations of all these dia- lects, of which each person, of course, thought his own the best. In reference to this, a translator of the Psalter, " en laingue lorenne selonc la veriteit commune at selonc lou commun laingaige," in the fourteenth century, remarks : " Pour ceu que nulz ne tient en son parleir ne rigle certenne, mesure ne raison, est laingue romance si corrompue qu'a poinne li uns entent I'aultre, et a poinne peut-on trouveir a jour d'ieu persone qui saiche escrire, anteir ne prononcieir en une meisme FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 593 semblant menieire, mats escript, ante et pronounce li uns en une guise, et li aultre en une aultre." J Comparing this with the remarks made by Caxton, some hundred years later, in reference to English orthography, 3 we shall readily come to the conclusion that this unsettled mode of wording and of spelling must have existed in French, as indeed it has in all languages, until some standard, based on either custom or principle, was considered correct and adopted as such. Old French, it must be remembered, was spoken a long time before it was written, and the words must have undergone thousands of variations before there was any thought of committing them to writing. Mixed up in various ways by ignorant Celts and Romans, the lan- guage in the earlier stages of its formation was only a confused jargon, in which each one put as much as he knew of his own and of each other's language. Fortu- nately the vocabulary of the uneducated is not very extensive, and thus the written Latin was damaged much less than the unwritten Celtic by this process of amalgamation. As time went on, however, and dialects were formed, the first attempts of the clergy to write out their sermons in the language of their district must have been exceedingly embarrassing. Having only the Roman alphabet to represent sounds and articulations, which for generations had been altered, dulled, and flattened in the mouths of Celts, Franks, and others, and differing in utter- ance from one place to another, it was impossible for them to write down the words as they heard them spoken, or to invent new signs for every sound which ignorance had contrived, for every articulation ill use had pervert- ed. The only means at hand to accomplish the task ap- proximately was to reduce the written word to its origi- nal Latin form, as far as was remembered, thereby intro- ducing even a certain uniformity into the language of the pulpit, which tended to diminish considerably the number and variety of the dialects that had sprung up all over the country, century after century. Later on, when Celtic and Teutonic idioms were all absorbed into the Romance language, the written documents that have come down to us exhibit an increasing disposition on the part of their authors to be guided by the sound of words as well as by their etymology, which greatly assists us in deci- 1 Leroux de Lincy, Introduction du Livre des Rois. 1 See pages 361 and 451. 594 APPENDIX. phering ancient manuscripts by reading them aloud. For, whatever be the mode in which the word is written, it makes but little difference in point of its significance ; as indeed we know, from experience, that every relation be- tween sign and sound is conventional and often arbitrary. In English, for instance, we have a multitude of sounds and peculiar intonations, all of which are represented by five vowels only. These, as well as many consonants, are sometimes silent, then again pronounced, and in some in- stances stand one to represent another. Take such words, for instance, as angle and angel, cough and rough, those and whose, hoe and shoe, colonel and kernel, the verb to read, its participle read, and the color red, — and fancy the perplex- ity of Macaulay's South Sea Islander on the ruins of St, Paul's, trying to pronounce English as he finds it written. Still, to-day we find no difficulty in reading from these signs fluently and correctly ; and fluent reading is even one of the first accomplishments acquired by our young people at school. To one who knows a language, its an- tiquated forms can cause but little trouble ; and if he does not know it, no spelling, good or bad, will make him know it better. Considering, then, that modern orthography is only a modification of older forms, which have been changed gradually, partly on etymological considerations, partly on account of their not representing sufficiently well the spoken language according to later notions, we may come to the conclusion, and adopt as a rule, that — " Words were pronounced in former times very much as they are now, however differently written." Thus nies, altre, nepvuld, il donet, cslire, cuer, muete, hues, iex, suer, anme, and the like, look odd and barbarous enough ; but pronounce them as we now would niece, autre, neveu, il donne, dire, cceur, meute, bceufs, yeux, soeur, time, and they are quite familiar. By this single rule, to which we have already adverted in speaking of Early English manu- scripts, we get rid at once of fully half the difficulty in reading texts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, if only we look at them kindly and attentively, not with the passive interest which we would take in a curious fossil or dry Egyptian mummy, but rather in the light of some dear old friend or relative who should happen to look a little quaint in her old-fashioned dress and manners. To this main rule we may add some minor ones, which seem to correspond to the three qualities which, accord- ing to Palsgrave, in his Esclaircissement, the French of his FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 595 time aimed at in their pronunciation — " harmony, con- ciseness, and distinct articulation." Thus, for the sake of harmony of sound, we shall find that every kind of hiatus was carefully avoided ; that only such consonants as were necessary to give distinctness to the word were well ar- ticulated ; and that all others which were retained in the word to show its etymology were usually not pronounced. The following brief review of the French vowels and con- sonants will complete our explanation of the principles of orthography and pronunciation observed in olden times. Before the invention of the circumflex accent, the long a was increased by the duplication of that letter, or by an e preceding or an i following it. Thus, while pro- nouncing Age, they wrote aage, eage, or aige, up to the sev- enteenth century. It is even probable that ai was always pronounced as a long ; such forms as montaigne, saige, raige, langaige, for montagne, sage, rage, langage, seem to prove it. We even now write indifferently j>> vats and j'e vas, which is evidently a remnant of that practice. The vowel e represents three sounds — e mute, /, and eu. It was mute as now at the end of words of more than one syllable, or when preceding an a, to indicate that this a was long, as explained above. Followed by a final r or z it was pronounced /, as it is at present in the words nez, chez, aimer, cordonnier. Anywhere else, as an accented syllable, it sounded eu. Emperere, vendere, vies, diex, were pronounced empereur, vendeur, vieux, dieu. In the word trouvere, modern pronunciation has allowed itself to be guided by ancient orthography ; in the middle ages it was pronounced trouveur, which gave a more distinct idea of its meaning. Before i and u the letter e formed at first a distinct syllable ; but this did not last long, and very early such words as queje feisse began to be pronounced as quej'efisse; 1 meur, tnur ; seur, sur, etc. As long as the letter u represented the sound ou the e preceding it was maintained to indicate that u had the sound which it has at present, as: heurler, eune blesseure, which were pro- nounced then as they are now, hurler and une blessure. From the moment u and ou were made to represent two different sounds the e disappeared before u, except where eu forms part of the conjugation of the verb avoir — eu, nous eilmes, quefeusse — another remnant of the time, which 1 In connection with this, it is interesting to observe that Cicero, in his third book de oratore, corrects Cotta for suppressing the e and only pronouncing the * in words which formerly were written with ei, as leiber, leibertas, etc. 596 APPENDIX. may also be observed in the popular pronunciation of Eugene, Eustache, in which the initial e is not heard. The vowel i before e was not heard, and rockier, cou- chier, vergier, were pronounced rocker, coucher, and verger, as at present. When following another vowel, the office of the letter i seems to have been to impart to the sound thus represented a peculiar modulation ; and even as at stands for d, as we have seen, so ei stands for e ; oi for ; and ui for u. Another detail is to be observed in regard to the letter i. In the same way as the Romans pro- nounced j like ii, so the Early French writers use i for/ in many instances. Thus we find ie iovj'e; but especially is this the case when the pronoun follows its verb, as : vour- roie, aie, pensoie, which contractions must be pronounced as if written voudrais-je, ai-je, pensais-je. The vowel o had the same sound which it has at pres- ent. Followed by an i, it did not then make a diphthong, but was pronounced shorter, as even now is done in oig- non, empoigner. They wrote cigoigne, but they said cigogne. How they pronounced histoire and gloire may be inferred from the derivatives historien, glorieux. The also repre- sented the sound ou. Thus jor was pronounced jour ; por, pour ; Bologne, Boulogne ; forvoyer, fourvoyer, etc. It some- times sounded eu. Dolor, which made douloureux, has also left douleur. Labor has left both labour and labeur. The former sound occurred more in the southern, the latter in the northern dialects. In order to represent the sound of eu, the Normans placed an e before or after the o, as noeve, joene, empereor, jugleor, 1 which were pronounced neuve, jeune, empereur, jougleur, or jongleur. We follow now the same method in the word ceil, where ce repre- sents the sound eu. The vowel u kept for a long time its Latin sound of ou, and amour was spelled amur ; nous, nus ; coutelas, cute- las ; coupe, cupe, etc. Followed by an e, this vowel had exactly the sound which we have given it since by invert- ing their positions ; suer, bues, il puet, were pronounced sceur, bceufs, il peut. Traces of this practice are found in the words cueiller, orgueil, cercueil, which are spelled as in the Middle Ages. Before the present sound of the vowel u was represented by that letter, it was indicated some- times by an e placed before that vowel, as we have seen 1 Joglar, juglar in Langue d'oc ; jugleor, jongleor in Langue d'oil, from the Latin joculater. FRENCH SOURCES- OF MODERN ENGLISH. 597 above, but generally by an i following it, as : ituide, ilbuit, il fuit, which were pronounced ttude, il bilt, il fut. The Latin mode of using u and v indiscriminately was kept up in France until the sixteenth century, and was the cause of much confusion. The future of avoir was first written avrai, and afterward became aurai ; januarius, on the contrary, became janvicr. Deus being written Devs as well, has made Deu and Dev ; x hence the forms deusse, devesse, dcesse. Sometimes a diasresis over the letter v served to indicate that it was to be pronounced as our present u. Two vowels placed in succession were at first pro- nounced separately, as : seur, meur, recalling their origin securus, maturus. In the same way traditor, before becom- ing traltre, was written trattre, and sometimes even tra- hitre, so as to indicate clearly its pronunciation. The latter form has survived in the words trahir and trahison. Aider and aide, derived from adjuvare, were likewise written aider and aide, and are still so pronounced in Picardy. The French consonants are the same as the Latin, and, as in Latin, many were silent in certain positions, though not always following the same rules. A final consonant seems to have imparted sometimes only a peculiar sound to the vowel preceding it, without being itself pronounced. Thus ex was pronounced eux ; iex, yeux ; Diex, Dieu ; in the eleventh century we find Dex for Dieu. The/ in nep- vuld, which remained for a long time in the word nep- veu, now written neveu, indicated its Latin origin, nepos. The intelligent reader must have already noticed several instances where English orthography and traditions of old Norman pronunciation may serve as a key to many old forms now obsolete in French, but in full vigor yet in English. The letter k, which is not used in Modern French, is constantly found in manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and gradually disappeared in the course of the century following. Ke, ki, kel, kar, katre, karacter, etc., found especially in Norman compositions of that time, have since been written que, qui, quel, car, quatre, caractere. Kex, keux, koke, in English " cook," is afterward found in the form of queux, maitre-queux. Chien, chat, chdteau, chanson, charrette, were then written kien, kat, kas- tel, kansoun, karette, and probably so pronounced, as we 1 On the loss of the final s, see note I, page 577. 598 APPENDIX. may infer from the peasant language in Picardy. The word chceur, from the Latin chorus, is still pronounced kceur. The letter /, when following the vowels a, e, or o, had the value of our present u, placed in the same position. Thus altre, cheval, chevel, licol were pronounced autre, che- vau, cheveu, licou. This ancient pronunciation explains the plural form of nouns ending in al; and when we now say cheval, e"gal, it is a return to ancient orthography on etymological considerations, while in writing chevaux, e'gaux, we employ a new orthography to express an an- cient pronunciation. We now write cheveu for what in the Middle Ages they wrote chevel, and derived by the modern pronunciation of the latter form, they have made the words chevelu, chevelure, e'chevele', of which the / disap- pears again in dcheveau. This last word, moreover, shows the close relation between the forms el, eu, and eau, as pellis, peau ; camelus, chameau ; agnellus, agneau ; ramellus, ranteau ; pratellum, pre'au, etc. These variations it is im- portant to observe, as the word may assume different forms in the pen of ancient writers, according to their more or less conformity with the original Latin. The final t was characteristic of the third person sin- gular : il at, il donet, il aimet. It was not pronounced ex- cept before a vowel : at il, donet il, aimet il. Modern or- thography has suppressed this t, but has been obliged to return to it as a euphonic letter, in the interrogative form, third person singular between the verb and the pronoun ; a-t-il, aime-t-il, aimera-t-il. As regards the juxtaposition of consonants, the rule is that, when two or more consonants come together, only one is pronounced. Thus esponge is pronounced e"ponge ; debte, dette ; subject, sujet ; loign, loin. We still follow this rule in the words seign, vingt, corps, temps, etc. The plan of suppressing letters, and other contrivances lately pro- posed for English as well as French and other modern languages, in order to make the written word look exactly as it sounds, on phonetic principles, is of a very doubtful propriety. It may be an advantage perhaps to the un- educated, who will naturally adopt it, and phonographers may favor the idea ; but to the scholar it would be a de- plorable loss, as it would kill the word by stripping it of all its- etymological features, and reduce it to a mere sig- nal, no more or less than the call of a bugle or a soldier's drum. As an instance of the importance of preserving etymological letters we give the word faubourg, which, FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 599 in the thirteenth century, was written forsbourg, that is, that part of the city situated beyond its regular inclosure — the mediseval forisburgus. Deceived by the pronuncia- tion, which kept the rs silent, they first began to write fobourg. Then, in the fifteenth century, in order to give it some sort of sense, they wrote les faux bourgs, whence finally came the word faubourg, which has no sense at all. Every language has some words that have been thus ill- treated, but the mass are full of life with well-defined meanings. To the ignorant these may be conveyed in a vague manner by the means of sound alone, and so they may serve well enough his simple purposes ; but to the scholar the written word presents additional features which reveal its vital principle, and which, once destroyed, would spoil it for him as an instrument of fine thought and clear communication. This digression seemed necessary to show how letters may be missing in the words of some old texts, while in others again they are superabundant, according as either phonetic or etymological considerations were prevailing with their authors. As a general rule, though, in the ab- sence of any accepted authority on orthography, there was in former times but little regularity of spelling, and, in the older specimens especially, every writer seems to have contented himself with putting together such com- bination of letters as he imagined would best express the sound of the word he was using, without at all considering what letters others used, or what he himself had used on former occasions, often on the same page, for exactly the same purpose. This has been so in every language, and by an intelligent reader is easily rectified. Webster, in his " Dictionary of the English Language," says : " A great portion of Saxon words are written with different letters, by different authors, most of them are written two or three different ways, and some of them fifteen or twenty." But this should not astonish us when even such a name as that of William the Conqueror occurs in six different forms on the Tapestry of Bayeux, 1 and when in the time of Shakespeare his name was spelled in fourteen different ways. 2 This, however, did not prevent that name from 1 Nvntii Wilielmi dvcis venervnt ad Widonem. — Vbi nvntii Willelmi. . . . — Hie venit nvntivs ad Wilgelmvm dvcem. — Hie Willielmvs dvx et exercitvs ejvs venervnt ad montem Michaelis. — Hie Willem venit Bagias. — Hie est Wilel. 2 In the council book of the corporation of Stratford, during the period that John Shakspeare, the poet's father, was a member of the municipal body, " The APPENDIX. being pronounced then as it is at present, which will show the importance of the rule that, " in reading ancient docu- ments, we should always give the words their modern pronunciation." By following this advice, and commenc-" ing with authors of the more recent date, and from them back, century by century to the earlier documents, we have no doubt that, with proper application and some linguistic tact, the student will soon be able to read every specimen in the following pages to his entire satisfaction. Oath of Louis the German, a. d. 842. First monument of the French Language. The kings of France of the second race adopted, after the example of Charlemagne, the injudicious practice of dividing their dominions among their children, whose ambition, thus excited, led to a long succession of civil discord. The sons of Louis the Pious, even during his lifetime, were constantly in arms against each other, and often against their father ; and their dissensions after his death produced a dreadful waste of blood during the war which was terminated by the destructive battle of Fontenet, in June, 841. It was there- fore thought necessary that their reconciliation should be marked by the great- est possible degree of solemnity. Their respective armies assembled at Stras- burg, March, 842, as witnesses and parties to the Oath by which they bound themselves to rest satisfied with the division of territory finally adjudged to each ; and, that the terms of this Oath might be perfectly intelligible to all, it was translated into the vulgar tongue of the several nations whom it concerned. Louis the German addressed the French army of Charles the Bald in Ro- mance ; the latter read his oath in Tudesque or Teutonic, and both received the assent of the troops to the agreement in the same languages, respectively. It appears from this document, the original of which is preserved in the Vatican Library, and of which a facsimile copy is found on the plate opposite next page, that the Romance of the year 842, which very nearly resembles the present Provencal, was the general language of France, and not a southern dialect, as, from this resemblance, it has been by some supposed, because the provinces of Aquitaine and Neustria were the original dominions of Charles ; they were anew confirmed to him by the treaty in question, and their inhabi- tants furnished the larger part of his army. It is also remarkable that this document, with the exception of the proper names, does not contain a word of Celtic or German origin. Ergo xvi kalend. marcii Lodhuwicus et Karolus in civitate, quae olim Argentaria vocabatur, nunc autem Strasburg vulgo dicitur, con- venerunt, et sacramenta, quae subter notata sunt, Lodhuwicus romana, Karolus vero teudisca lingua juraverunl. Ac sic ante sacramentum circumfusam plebem alter teudisca, alter romana lingua alloquuti sunt. Lodhuwicus autem, qui major natu, prior exorsus sic coepit : name occurs one hundred and sixty-six times, under fourteen different modes of orthography, viz. : Shackesper, Shackespere, Shacksper, Shakspere, Shake- spere, Shaksper, Shakspare, Shakspeyr, Shakyspere, Shakspire, Shaxpeare, Shaxsper, Shakxpere, Shaxpear." — Litt. Gaz. et Lond. and Par. obs., Jan. 5, 1840. O&tfc of Iojjij-fc^e-Qerm&n. T^rodaojmm* tJtpxp'Anpofelo o^wwcoman (altt^tnent • dift cb fua.u«nr • inqu&nrdV famrdcpodir mcelunat • fi/aluA.>*a4c0 . rift meonfrwlre karlo • mcaJ VituiaLCo/iu. f tc « «m jjdreitfoi* frUoVa. ftLUai- «WV . J no qmd >l n-u&hvr ft tew ■ t TdtfudtAer mil pUidt tiuo«A pruuAmx c|vu m«on ttot eirt • mron/rddrf f^arle in{Umna/(E< PLATE III. O&tfc of" tfce Stoldiepj of Qfc&rief-tfce-g&M uurf flMrrament '<]**£ fonff&dxckArlo xnreec corvfervar • ft \t&.rL\fmt6ffenAvb. d.e(uo p».i-r n Ipfr&ntr • A wrcnM-nat- now Umpotf • ncio ncnwu c»t ffo rerun nan irvtpoxf- \r\ nulla a. mho. contra. loJihu nurvtx w.ver- • Uiv 5 Facsimile of ttje oldest monumcnb extajit of t^eppenc^ I&rcgu&^e.^p.SW.ppeje.Pved inbb/elifePM^/ of fc^e, Vatican in Rome. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 6oi "Quotiens Lodharius me et hunc fratrem meum" etc. Cumque Ret- rains haec eadem verba romana lingua perorasset, Lodhuvicus, quo- mam major natu erat, prior haec deinde se servaturum testatus est : Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo 1 et nostro commun sal- vament, d'ist di en avant, in quant deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit. Quod cum Lodhuvicus explesset, Karolus teudisca lingua sic haec eadem verba testatus est : In godes minna ind in thes christianes folches ind unser bedherd gehaltnissi, fon thesemo dage fram- mordes, s6 fram s6 mir got gewizci indi mahd furgibit, s6 haldih tesan minan bruodher, s6s6 man mit rehtu sinan bruodher seal, in thiu thaz er mig s6 sama duo, indi mit Ludheren in nohheiniu thing ne gegango, th& minan willon imo ce scadhen werdhen. Sacramentum autem quod utrorumque populus quique propria lin- gua testatus est, romana lingua sic se habet : Si Lodhuvigs sagra- ment, que son fradre Karlo 8 jurat, conservat, et Karlus meos sendra de suo part non los tanit, si io returnar non Tint pois, ne io ne neuls, cui eo returnar int pois, 3 in nulla aiudha contra Lodhu- wig nun li iv er. 4 Teudisca autem lingua : Oba Karl then eid, then er sinemo 1 Christian poblo is the complement of salvament, as Deo is the complement of amur. 8 Fradre Karlo is the indirect complement of jurat. 3 Si io returnar non I 'int pois, literally translated is sije ne puis I' en ditour- ner. In Latin compound words the prefix re has two different meanings : First, that of rursus, as in rejuere, relegere ; and, second, that of retro, as in rejiuere, repellere. It has the latter meaning in returnar, " to turn off ; to draw away." Int is the Latin inde; in the tenth century it was written ent. See note I, page 589. 4 These last two words, iv and er, may be somewhat difficult to under- stand, but are readily accounted for by a comparison with the Teutonic version. The form er occurs still in the twelfth century, in the sense of the Latin era ; we find the example of it in the Chronique des dues de Normandie, i, p. 149 : Amis me seiez e aidables. Et j'os er par tut socurables ; Seum mais un en amor fine, Leiaus, durable et enterrine. Iv is an abbreviation of ivi, in Latin ibi. In this sentence the adverb iv performs the same office as the adverb int; both have reference to the same noun, which is not expressed but understood ; and one of these adverbs being expressed, clearness and precision require the other to be expressed likewise. The literal translation, therefore, would be': " Si je ne puis Yen (de ce dessein) detourner, ni moi ni aucun que je puis en (de ce dessein) detoumer, ne Yy (en ce dessein) serai en aucune aide contre Ludhwig." Translation into Modern French of the Oath sworn by Louis the German : " Pour l'amour de Dieu, et pour notre commun salut et celui du peuple Chre- tien, dor6navant, autant que Dieu me donnera savoir et pouvoir, je preserverai mon frere Karle que voili, et par aide et^par toute chose, ainsi qu'on doit, par devoir, preserver son frere, pourvu qu'il en fasse de meme pour moi ; et ne 40 602 APPENDIX. bruodher Ludhuwige gesuor, geleistit, indi Ludhuwig min herro, then er imo gesuor, forbrihchit, ob ih inan es irwenden ne mag, noh ih noh ther6 nohhein, then ih es irwenden mag, widhar Karle imo ce follusti ne wirdhit. Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie. The manuscript of the following poem on the martyrdom of Sainte Eulalie was discovered in 1837 in the library of the ancient abbey of Saint-Amand, whence it has been taken to the library of Valenciennes, where it is now pre- served. The writing of this manuscript bears the character of the tenth cent- ury. This poem, which is the earliest yet found in Langue d'oil, presents the kind of imperfect rhymes called " rhymes of assonance," in which conseilliers is made to rhyme with del ; chielt with christien ; tost with coist ; pagiens with chief ; del with p?eier, etc. In the first two lines, and in the last line, it will be also noticed that feminine substantives and adjectives still terminate in a, as in Latin. Buona pulcella * fut Eulalia ; bel auret corps, bellezour anima. Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi, voldrent la faire diiaule servir. Elle non eskoltet les mals conselliers, qu'elle deo raneiet, chi maent sus en ciel, Ne por or ned argent ne paramenz, por manatee regiel ne preiement. Ni'ule cose non la pouret omque pleier, la polle sempre non amast lo deo menestier. 2 prendrai jamais avec Ludher aucun accommodement qui, par ma volonte, soit au prejudice de mon frere Karle ici present." Translation into Modern French of the Oath swom by the soldiers of Charles the Bald : " Si Ludhwig garde le serment qu'il jure a son frere Karle, et si Karle, mon seigneur, de son cote ne le tient pas, si je ne puis le detourner de cette violation, ni moi ni aucun que je puisse en detourner, nous ne lui serons en cela d'aucun aide contre Ludhwig." 1 Pulcella, in the twelth century pulcele, now pucelle, from the Latin puella, itself a diminutive ofpuer, and which also made polle, found in the tenth line. Notice that in this passage the complement of the verb finer, after being once expressed by the pronoun la is again used as a noun in polle. This term, though not now correct, is still heard in the mouth of the people. ' Prosper Merimee makes a soldier say: "Cela va nous couter bon pour 1'avoir cette fameuse redoute ; " and Moliere : L'une de son galant, en adroite femelle. Fait fausse confidence a son epoux fidele, Qui dort en sfirete sur un pareil appas, Et le plaint, ce galant, des soins qu'il ne prend pas. L'Ecole des femmes, acte I, sc. I. Notice also the suppression of the conjunction que in the same sentence, the full construction of which would be : " Non la pouret omque pleier que sempre non amast lo Deo menestier," — a common ellipsis among the earliest French writers. 2 In other words : Elle ne se fut laisse persuader de renier Dieu par les mauvais conseillers, ni pour or, etc. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 603 E poro fut presentede Maximiien, chi rex eret a eels dis soure pagiens. II li enortet, dont lei nonque chielt, qued elle fuiet lo nom christiien. Ell' ent adunet lo suon element, melz sostendreiet les empedementz, Qu'elle perdesse sa virginitet :* poros furet morte a grand honestet. Enz enl fou la getterent, com arde tost, elle colpes non auret, poro nos coist. A ezo nos voldret concreidre li rex pagiens ; ad une spede li roveret tolir io chief. La domnizelle celle kose non contredist, volt lo seule lazsier, si ruovet Krist. In figure de colomb volat a ciel. tuit oram, que por nos degnet preier, Qued auuisset de nos Christus mercit post la mort et a lui nos laist venir Par souue dementia. TRANSLATION. Eulalie fut une bonne jeune fille ; elle avait beau corps et plus belle ame. Les ennemis de Dieu voulurent triompher d'elle, voulurent lui faire servir le diable. Elle n'eut ecoutd les mauvais conseillers, a/in qu'elle reniat Dieu qui habite la-haut dans le ciel, ni pour or, ni pour argent, ni pour parures ; ni par menace de roi, ni par priere ; et aucune chose ne la put jamais faire flechir la jeune fille, de telle sorte que elle n'aimat pas toujours le ser- vice de Dieu. Aussi fut-elle traduite devant Maximien, qui £tait roi des paiens k cette epoque. II 1'exhorte a ce dont elle ne se soucie jamais, savoir, qu'elle abandonne le nom chr^tien. 8 Avant que d'abandonner ses principes, elle souffrirait plut6t les tortures, Elle souffrirait plutdt de perdre sa virginity. Pour cela elle est morte avec grand honneur. lis la jeterent dans le feu, de facon a la faire bruler vite. 1 Sostendreiet has for its first complement a noun (les empedementz), and for its second an incidental preposition {gu'elle perdessc sa virginitet). Such con- structions are not uncommon yet in plain colloquial language, such as for in- stance : Je desire autant que vous votre manage avec ma cousine et que, tous deux, vous puissiez Stre heureux ensemble. 8 Nom chre'tien is an expression still in use for christianisme : Ce sultan fut le plus redoubtable ennemi du nom chre'tien. 604 APPENDIX. Elle n'avait pas de faute & se reprocher ; c'est pourquoi die ne brula pas. Le roi pai'en ne se voulut fier a cela ; il commanda de lui couper la tete avec une 6p6e. La demoiselle ne sy'opposa point ; elle veut quitter le monde si Christ l'ordonne. Elle s'envola au ciel sous la forme d'une colombe. Tous nous prions qu'elle daigne prier pour nous. Afin que Christ ait pitie' de nous apres la mort, et nous laisse venir a lui par sa cl6mence. The next important monument in the-history of French literature is the " Laws of William the Conqueror," found on pp. 270-273. Chanson de Roland. The most ancient French epopee, and the most remarkable composition of the period, is the famous Chanson de Roland. In its original form it dates back as far as Louis the Pious, whose anonymous biographer imforms us that, even then, the heroes who fell at the battle of Roncevaux were the object of popular songs. The form in which it has come down to us is supposed to be from the pen of Turold, a Norman trouvere, the son of William the Conqueror's precep- tor, and afterward Abbot of Peterborough. The subject of the poem may be outlined as follows : Spain is conquered ; Saragossa alone is still holding out, but the Saracen king proposes to surrender the city, and to receive baptism. Ganelon, a Christian knight, is sent to treat about the terms of surrender ; but he proves traitor, and engages the heathen king to hold out until the retreat of the main army, when he promises to lead Roland and the elite of the Christians, who form the rear guard, into an ambush. Every arrangement is made for the intended assault. Charlemagne has commenced his retreat, and the bulk of his army is already across the mountains, when Roland and his band are suddenly attacked by over- whelming forces. In this strait he might easily have summoned to his aid the main body of the army by a mere blast on his olifant, an ivory horn of marvelous power, the sound of which would surely have reached the emperor and brought the needed assistance, but he disdained this act of prudence, suggested to him by Oliver, his faithful friend and companion, and determined to meet the enemy on his own ground. Impossible it would be to describe the high deeds of valor attributed to Roland, Archbishop Turpin, Oliver, and the small band of Christian soldiers fighting against fearful odds. Every thing here is grand, noble, and homeric — the site, the struggle, and the prowess of the combatants. Thousands of Saracens are slain, and still their numbers are increasing, while Roland's men, falling one after another, leave him with but few to bear the brunt of battle. Overcome at last, he blows his horn, and the emperor, who knows its sound, hastens back to the aid of his heroic nephew. But too late, alas ! all the soldiers have perished. Oliver, too, has fallen after prodigies of valor. Roland and the Archbishop Turpin once more put to flight a furious band of infidels ; but, ut- terly exhausted with fatigue and the loss of blood, they die in their turn, still facing the enemy, at the moment their avenger appears on the scene of battle. The following fragment describes the moment when Roland, exhausted and ready to die, seeks shelter under the shade of a pine-tree near a large rock, against which he tries to break his trusty sword, his famous Durendal, lest it may fall into the hands of the infidels : FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. , 605 Qo sent Rollanz la veue a perdue, met sei sur piez, quanqu'il poet s'esvertilet ; en sun visage sa culur ad perdue, tint Durendal s'espee tute nue. dedevant lui ad une pierre brune : dis colps i fiert par doel e par rancune, cruist li aciers, ne fraint ne ne s'esgruignet. e dist li quens ' sancte Marie, aiiue ! e, Durendal, bone si mare fustes ! quant jo n'ai prud, de vus nen ai mais cure ! tantes batailles en camp en ai vencues e tantes terres larges escumbatues, que Carles tient, ki la barbe ad canue. ne vos ait hum ki pur altre s'en fuiet ! mult bons vassals vus ad lung tens tenue, jamais n'iert tels en France l'asolue.' TRANSLATION. Roland sent qu'il a perdu la vue ; se leve sur ses pieds, tant qu'il peut s'evertue ; en son visage sa couleur a perdue. Son epee Durendal il la tient toute nue. Devant lui se dressait une pierre brune : de d^pit et de facherie il y ddtache dix coups, l'acier grince, sans rompre ni s'^brecher. Ah ! dit le comte, sainte Marie, aidez-moi ! Eh ! bonne Durendal, je plains votre malheur ; vous m'etes inutile a. cette heure , indiff<£rente jamais. J'ai par vous gagn6 tant de batailles, tant de pays, tant de terres conquises, qu' aujourd'hui possede Charles a la barbe chenue. Jamais homme ne soit votre maitre a qui un autre fera peur '. Longtemps vous futes aux mains d'un capitaine dont jamais le pareil ne sera vu en France, pays libre. Admonition. From a Manuscript believed to be from the early fart of the Eleventh Century. Nos jove omne quan dius estam, de grant follia per folledat parlam, quar no nos membra per cui vivri esperam, qui nos soste tanquan per terra nam, e qui nos pais que no murem de fam, per cui salves mes per pur tan quell clamam. 606 APPENDIX. Nos jove omne menam tar mal jovent, queng nono prezasistrada son parent, senor, ne par sill men a malament, ni lus vel laitre sis fais falls sacrament. TRANSLATION. Nous jeunes hommes tous tant que nous sommes, parlons fol- lement des grandes f olies, car il ne nous souvient pas de celui par qui nous espdrons vivre, qui nous soutient tant que nous allons sur terre, et qui nous nourrit de peur que nous ne mourions de faim, lui par qui nous sommes sauv£s, pourvu que nous elevions notre voix vers lui. Nous jeunes hommes menons si mal notre jeunesse, qu'aucun de nous ne prend garde aux voies frayees par ses peres et par les anciens ; si elles menent a mauvaise fin, ni les uns ni les autres ne prennent garde s'ils font un faux serment. From a Sermon of the same Period. Believed to be a Translation of Saint Athanasius. Kikumkes vult salf estre devant totes choses besoing est qu'il tienget la comune foi. Laquele si caskun entiere e neent malmis me ne guarderas sans dotance pardurablement perirat. Iceste est a certes la comune fei que uns deu en trinitet et la trinitet en unitet aorums. . . . TRANSLATION. Quiconque veut etre sauv6, avant toute chose doit tenir la commune foi. Si chacun ne la garde entiere et sans melange, sans aucun doute il penra pour toujours. Cette commune foi est bien certainement que un Dieu en Trinite' et la Trinite' en Unite' nous adorions. . . . Translation of the Psalms, From the end of the Eleventh Century. LIBRI PSALMORUM VERSIO ANTIQUA GALLICS. PSALMUS I. i. Beneurez li huem chi ne alat el conseil des feluns, e en la veie des peccheurs ne st6ut, e en la chaere de pestilence ne sist ; 2. Mais en la lei de nostre seignur Id voluntet de lui, e en la sue FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 607 lei purpenserat par jiirn 6 par nuit. 3. Et fert ensemerit cume le fust qu£d est planted dejuste les decurs des eVes, chi dunrat sun frut en sun tens. 4. Et si fuille ne decurrat, e tiites les coses que il unques ferat seriint fait pr6spres. 5. Nient eissi li felun, nient eissi : mais ensement cume la puldre que li venz getet de la face de terre. 6. Empurice ne resurdent li felun en juise, ne li pecheur el conseil des dreituriers. 7. Kar nostre sire cunuist la v6ie des justes 6 le eire des feliins perirat. TRANSLATION. PSEAUME I. i. Bienheureux est l'homme qui ne marche point selon le con- seil des mdchants, et qui ne s'arrete point dans la voie des p^cheurs, et qui ne s'assied point au banc des moqueurs ; 2. Mais qui prend plaisir en la loi de l'Eternel et qui mddite jour et nuit en sa loi ; 3. Car il sera comme un arbre plantd pres des ruisseaux d'eaux, qui rend son fruit en sa saison, 4. et duquel le feuillage ne se fldtrit point, et ainsi tout ce qu'il fera prosperera. 5 . II n'en sera point ainsi des mediants, mais ils seront comme la poudre que le vent chasse au loin. 6. C'est pourquoi les mediants ne subsisteront point en juge- ment, ni les p6cheurs dans l'assembtee des justes. 7. Car Dieu connait la voie des justes ; mais la voie des mediants pema. Extract from the Four Books of Kings, From the beginning of the Twelfth Century. LI SECUND LIVRES DES REJS. Sathanas se eslevad encuntre Israel et entichad David qu'il feist anumbred ces de Israel e ces de Juda. Et li reis cumendad a Joab ki esteit maistre cunestables de la chevalerye le rei qe il alast par tutes les ligndes de Israel des Dan jesqe Bersabee e anumbrast le pople. translation. LE SECOND LIVRE DES ROIS. Satan s'eleva contre Israel et suggdra a David de faire d6nom- brer ceux d'Israel et ceux de Juda. Et le roi command a a Joab, qui dtait maitre connetable de la chevalerie du roi, qu'il allat par toutes les families d'Israel, depuis»Dan jusqu' a Bersabee, et qu'il d^nombrat le peuple. 6o8 APPENDIX. Saint Bernard. Saint Bernard was born in logl, in the village of Fontaine, in Burgundy, and died the 20th of April, 1153. Having become illustrious in the Church, and being endowed with a strong and powerful eloquence, he shook Europe to its very foundations when he preached the Crusades ; but, tired of so stormy » life, he retired to his abbey of Clairvaux, to finish his days there. The follow- ing extract is taken from a sermon for the Twelfth-night (Epiphany) : Hui vinrent li troi Roi querre lo soloil de justise que neiz estoit, de cui il est escrit : Cy ke vos tins bers vient, et Orianz en ses nonz. II ensevirent hui lo conduit de la novele estoil, et si aorerent le novel enfant de la Virgine. Ne prenons nos assi granz solaiz ci, sy cum en celei parole del Apostle, dont nos la davant avons parleit ? Cil apelet Deu, et cist lo dient assi, mais par oyvre et ne mies par voix. — Ke faites-vos, signor Roi, ke faites-vos ? Aoreiz-vos dons un alaitant enfant en une vil maison, et enveloppeit en vilz draz ? Est dons cist enfes Deus ? — Deus est en son saint temple, et en ciel, en ses sieges, et vos en un vil estaule lo quareiz, et en les cors d'une femme ! — Ke faites-vos, ke vos or li offrez assi ? Est il dons Rois ? Ou est li royals sale, et li sieges royals, ou sunt li cours et li royals frequence ? — Est dons sale li estaules, siege li maingevre, cors li frequence de Joseph et de Marie ? Coment sunt devenuit si sots si saiges hom ki un petit enfant aorent, ki despeitaules est et por son aige et.por la poverteit des siens ? Certes, chier freire, bien faisoit a dotteir ke cist ne fussent escandaliziet, et k'il ne se tenussent por escharniz quant il si grant vilteit, et si grant poverteit vireint ? — Des la royal citeit ou il cuidarent troveir lo Roi, furent tramis en Betl^em, petite vilate ; en un estaule entr^rent et lai atroverent un enfancegnon envelo- peit en povres draz. Nul de totes ces choses ne lor furent a gre- vance. Li estaules ne lor fut onkes encontre cuer, n'en onkes ne furent ahurteit de povres draz, ne escandaliziet de l'enfance del laitant ; anz misent lor genoz a terre, si l'onorarent si cum Roi, et aorerent si cum Deu. Mais cil mismes les ensaigniavet ki amenes les avoit, et cil mismes les ensaigniavet par dedens en or cuer, ki par l'estoile les semonoit par deforz. Ceste appari- cions nostre Signor clarifiet vi cest jor, et li devocions et li hono- remenz des Rois lo fait deVot et honoravle. TRANSLATION. A pareil jour, les trois Rois se mirent a la recherche du Soleil de justice qui venait de naitre, et dont il est ecrit : " Un Rois vous est ne" du c6U de V Orient." lis suivirent la route que leur indiqua l'^toile nouvelle, et ils adorerent l'enfant nouveau-n6 de la vierge. Ne nous herons-nous pas autant a cette parole qu'a celle de l'Apdtre dont nous avons parl£ tout a l'heure ? L'Apdtre appela l'enfant Dieu, et les trois Rois l'appelerent de meme ; mais ce fut FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 609 par lews oeuvres et non par leurs paroles. — Que faites-vous, seig- neurs Rois, que faites-vous ? Vous adorez un enfant a la ma- melle, dans une vile Stable, et enveloppe" de vils langes. Cet en- fant est-il done un Dieu ? — Dieu est dans son saint temple et dans le ciel, sur son trdne, et vous le cherchez dans une vile Stable et dans le corps d'une femme ! — Que faites-vous, vous qui lui offrez ainsi de l'or ? Est-il done Roi ? Ou est alors l'appartement royal, le si6ge royal? oil est la cour, oh est l'entourage royal? — L'6table est-elle done une salle de reception, la mangeoire un trdne, et la presence de Joseph et de Marie une cour ? Comment des hommes sages sont-ils devenus insensds au point d'adorer un petit enfant m£prisable par son age et par la pauvret^ des siens ? Certes, chers freres, on devait s'attendre a ce que les Mages seraient scandalises, et qu'ils se regarderaient comme raill^s en voyant un si grand abaissement et une pauvret6 si grande. — Au lieu de la cite" royale, ou ils pensaient trouver le Roi, ils furent conduits a Bethl^em, petite bourgade. La, entrds dans une Stable, ils y trouverent un tout petit enfant au maillot, enveloppe' de pauvres draps. Rien de tout cela ne rdussit a les ^branler ; l'dtable ne leur vint point a contre-cceur, ils ne furent point cho- qu6s de la pauvrete' des langes, ni scandalises de l'age de cet en- fant a la mamelle ; mais ils mirent les genoux en terre, honorerent J£sus comme leur Roi, et l'adorerent comme leur Dieu ; car celui- la meme les enseignait, qui les avait amends, et celui-la qui au dehors les avait conduits par une 6toile, les guidait aussi au fond de leur cceur. Ce fut le jour ou nous sommes qui vit glorifier de la sorte Notre Seigneur. La devotion et l'hommage des rois rend done ce jour honorable et le consacre a la devotion. Maurice de Sully. Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, was born of very poor parents in the village of Sully, on the banks of the Loire, and studied at Paris, where he afterward taught theology. In 1 165 he baptized Philip Augustus. At this period he had commenced building the cathedral of Notre Dame, the corner-stone of which was laid in 1163 by Pope Alexander III. He died the nth of Sep- tember, 1 196. The following extract from an explanation of the Lord's Prayer, as well as the preceding, both delivered before the people, afford good speci- mens of the spoken language of that time, and illustrate, moreover, the differ- ence of idiom in the different parts of the country. Both sermons are of the same epoch ; but that of Saint Bernard offers an instance of the provincial Ro- man dialect, while that of Maurice de Sully represents the language of Paris, principal center of the Langue d'oil : En trestotes les paroles et les orisons qui furent onques esta- blies ne dites en terre, si est li plus sainte et li plus haute la Patre nostre. Quar ceste nome^ment establit Deus meismes, et commanda a ses Apostres ; et par ses Apostres le commanda a dire a tos ceus qui lui croient. Por ce est-elle plus dite et plus 610 APPENDIX. doit 6tre en sainte eglise que nule autre orisons ; mais ce sacids, por voir, que tels pods vos estre que plus demanded vos mal que bien a vostre ues quant vos dites la Patre nostre j et porce que vos sarins que vos dites et que vos demanded a Deu quant vos dites la Patre nostre, si vos dirons et demosterrons en romans ce que la latre a en soi, et ce que ele nos ensegne, etc. TRANSLATION. De toutes les paroles et les prieres qui jamais ont etd recities et dites sur la terre, la plus sainte et la plus haute est le Pater noster j car Dieu lui-meme l'dtablit spdcialement, et il commanda a ses Apdtres de la dire, et par eux il enjoignit la m£me chose a tous ceux qui croient en lui. Aussi le Pater est-il et doit-il etre recitd en sainte figlise plus qu'aucune autre priere ; mais appre- nez, en verity, que vous pouvez etre tels qu'il arrive que vous de- mandiez plus de mal que de bien, sans le savoir, quand vous dites le Pater noster. Done, pour que vous sachiez ce que vous dites et ce que vous demandez a Dieu quand vous recitez le Pater noster, nous vous dirons ici et demontrerons en langue romane ce que la lettre a en elle-meme et ce qu'elle nous enseigne, etc. While the sermons of Saint Bernard, especially those in which he preaches the Crusades, are more stirring and of a higher order of pulpit eloquence, those of Maurice de Sully are the types of popular religious teaching of the same epoch. His method is always simple and effective. Generally it is the gospel of the day, of which he first gives a version or a paraphrase in the popular idiom, and which he then uses as a text for further development and practical edification, always within reach of his humble hearers. It is thus that his sermons obtained, far and wide, a popularity which has seldom been surpassed. Copied and re- copied by the many theological students who then frequented the University of Paris, there is hardly a library of any note which does not possess some manu- script copy of the homilies of this prelate. Trinity College, Dublin, has a well-preserved copy ; Oxford has another, dating back as far as the year 1 197 ; while a manuscript copy of five short sermons, translated into the Kentish dialect, together with their originals in French, is preserved in the Bodleyan Library, and this may even be found printed in " An Old English Miscellany," pages 26-36, As specimens of the style and method of this distinguished ora- tor, we give the following extracts, which will be readily understood without other explanation than a reference to the originals on which they are founded ; DOMINICA XI POST PENTECOSTE. Saint Luke, xviii, v. 10-14. " Si lor dist ceste samblance : Doi home aloient al temple orer. Le uns estoit phariseus, le autres publicanus. Phariseu estoient apelez cil qui par religion estoient desevrd del poeple et se faisoient juste ne mie por ce quil le fussent, mais il en faisoient le samblant. Tublican estoient apelez cil qui par les reches et par les marches demandoient les rentes a l'empdreor, si faisoient pluisors mais a la gent, et por ce estoient forment pecheor. Le FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 611 phariseu sarestoit et si disoit quant il oroit : Dieu toi rent graces que je ne sui mie tels comme cil robeor, ne torconnier, ne encore tels comme cil publicans est. Le publicans estoit loing et ne valt ses iex lever vers le ciel ains les tint vers terre et feroit son pis devant et si disoit : Deus esto propitius tnihi peccatori ; Dieu, dist- il, pitoiables soi6s a moi pecheor. Et comme N. S. D. ot dite ceste samblance si dist : Amen dico vobis, voirement dije, dist-il, que cist cest publicans sen ala plus iustes que li phariseus." DOMINICA XIII POST PENTECOSTE. Saint Luke, x, v. 25-36. " Si li dist uns sages de loy : Maistres que feroi-je que puisse avoir la vie perdurable. Et N. S. D. li respondi: Tu ameras Dieu de tot ton cuer, de tote ta force, de tote ta pensde, et ton proisme com toi meisme ; ice si fai si auras la vie perdurable. Dont velt cil glorifier soi meisme, et si dist a N. S. : Et qui est mes proismes ? Et N. S. esgarda amont, et si dist : Uns hom descendi de Iherusalem en Jhericho et chai en la voie as larrons, et il le despoillierent et navrerent, et sen alerent et le laissierent demi mort. Ore avint que uns prestres passe par cele voie et si le vit et si le trespassa, et ne li dist noient. Au daerrain si vint uns hom de la cit6 qui est apel^s Saumarie, en laquelle estoient paien ; et com il le vit si en ot pitie - et si aproisma de lui et li oinst ses plaies et si mist oile et vin et le lia et le mist sor sa jument et Ten mena en une estable et si en prist garde. Et l'autre ior prist 11. d. et si les dona a lestablier si li dist : Tien ces 11. d. pren garde de cest hom navrd, et quant je revenrai si tu vels rien del mien jel te saudrai. Et quant N. S. ot dite ceste sam- blance, ensi li demanda lequels, dist-il, te samble qui fu plus pro- chain a celui qui chai as larrons." DOMINICA VI POST PENTECOSTE. Saint Luke, xvi, v. 19-25. " Nostres sires Dieu nos aparole en l'Evangile dhui par r ex- ample. Si dist qu'il fu 1 riches hom qui se vestoit molt riche- ment de chiers draps de soie et de porpre, et mangoit chascun ior molt richement. Si estoit 1 chaitis povres et mendis, 1 ma- lades qui estoit apelds ladres ; si gisoit devant la porte au riche hom et estoit molt covoiteux quil peut soi saoler des mies qui charroient de la table al rice hom, et li chien venoient a lui et li lechoient ses mains. Apres ce si morut cil riches hom et fu em- port6s en ynfer, et li ladres morut si lenporterent li angele en paradis, el saim S. Abraham. Li rices hom qui estoit 6s tormens dynfer leva ses iex, si vit le ladre qui estoit el saim S. Abraham, si sescria et li dist : Fater Abraham, miserere met, Pere Abraham, 6l2 APPENDIX. aies merci de moi ; envoie moi le ladre qu'il moillette meniel en laigue et le degoutete sor ma langue, quia crucior in hac flamma, car je suis crucefii^s ens tormens dynfer et en ceste flambe. Abraham li repondi et si li dist : Fiex, dist-il, ramembre toi que tu receus molt de bien en ta vie, et le ladres molt de mals." The Lord's Prayer, From a Manuscript of the Eleventh Century. Sire Pere que es es Ciaux, sanctifiez soit li tuens Nons ; avigne li tuens Regnes ; soit faite ta volante, si comme ele est faite el Ciel, si soit ele faite en Terre. Nostre Pain de chascus Jor nos done hui ; et pardone nos nos Meffais, si come nos pardonons a cos qui meffait nos ont ; Sire ne soffre que nos soions tempts par mauvesse Temptacion, mes sire deliure nos de Mai. Compare the above with the Lord's Prayer from the psalter of Will- iam the Conqueror, page 270. Regnault de Coucy, More generally known under the name of Chdtelain de Coucy, is one of the celebrated men of the Middle Ages, with whose life we are but little acquainted. All that we know about him is, that in 1 190 he accompanied Richard Coeur-de- Lion to Palestine, where he was killed in 1192, in an encounter with the Sara- cens, when they endeavored to carry away the English king. He has left us twenty-four songs, which are nearly all models of simplicity, grace, and good taste. One of them commences with the following stanza : Bele dame me prie de chanter, si est bien drois que je face chancon ; je ne m'en sai ne m'en puis destorner, car n'ai povoir de moi, se par li non. Ele a mon cuer, que ja n'en quier oster, et sai de voir qu'il n'i trait se mal non. Or le doinst Dex a droit port ariver : car il s'est mis en mer sans aviron. TRANSLATION. Belle dame me prie de chanter ; il est bien juste que je fasse une chanson : je ne sais ni ne puis m'en tirer autrement ; car je n'ai pouvoir sur moi-meme que par cette dame. Elle a mon cceur, et je ne cherche pas a le lui dter, sachant, de vrai, qu'il ne FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 613 peut que lui arriver du raal ; aussi, que Dieu lui donne d'arriver a bon port, car il s'est mis en mer sans aviron. JOFFROI DE VlLLE-HARDOUIN. Joffroi de Ville-Hardouin was born about the year 1167. He was present at the taking of Constantinople in 1204. The Emperor Baudouin gave him the post of marshal of Romania. He died in Thessalia about the year 1213. The only work he produced is a history of the conquest of Constantinople, which comprises a space of nine years, from 1198 to 1207. His work does not possess the fascination and simplicity of Joinville (see page 619), but Ville-Hardouin writes with vigorous eloquence, and relates many interesting facts which give to the reader a better idea of chivalry and feudalism at their best than any other work. Speaking of the arrival of the Crusaders before Constantinople, he says : Or poez savoir que mult esgarderent Constantinople cil qui onques mais ne l'avoient veue ; que il ne povient mie cuidier que si riche vile peust estre en tot le mond. Cum il virent ces halz murs, et ces riches tours dont ere close tot entor a la ronde, et ces riches palais, et ces haltes yglises dont il i avait tant que nuls ne poist croire se il ne le veist a Toil, et le lone et le 1^ de la vile que de totes les autres ere souveraine. Et sachiez que il n'i ot. si hardi, cui le cuer ne fremist ; et ce ne fut mie merveille, que on- ques si grant affaires ne fu empris de tant de gent puis que li monz fu estord. TRANSLATION. Or vous pouvez penser qu'ils regarderent beaucoup Constanti- nople, ceux qui ne l'avaient jamais vue ; car ils ne pouvaient croire que dans tout le monde il se trouvat une ville aussi riche. Comme ils virent ces hauts murs, et ces riches tours dont la ville 6tait entourde, et ces riches palais, et ces hautes eglises dont il y avait tant que nul ne pourrait le croire s'il ne l'eut vu de ses yeux, et le long et le large de la ville qui de toutes les autres 6tait souve- raine. Et sachez qu'il n'y eut de si hardi a qui le cocur ne bat- tit ; et ce ne fut point merveille, car jamais de si grandes affaires ne furent enterprises par tant de gens, depuis le commencement du monde. Thibaut IV, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne. Thibaut IV, son of Thibaut III, Count of Champagne and Brie, was born in 1201. In 1234 he succeeded his maternal uncle, Sanche-le-Fort, King of Na- varre, and shortly after joined the Crusaders. On his return he applied him- self to the government of his states, and made himself beloved by his people. He cultivated literature, and, having a love for poetry, covered with honors those who distinguished themselves in this art. He died at Pampeluna, in June, 1253. Thibaut was the first who mingled masculine and feminine rhymes, 6 14 APPENDIX. and as such created an era in the history of French poetry. There is much grace and naivety in his compositions. The following stanzas are from a song written to excite the Crusaders : ORIGINAL TEXT. Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira en cele terre, u Diex fu mors et vis, et ki la crois d'outre mer ne prendra, a paines mais ira en paradis. Ki a en soi piti6 et ramembrance au haut seignor, doit querre sa venjance, et delivrer sa terre et son pais. Diex se laissa por nos en crois pener, et nous dira au jour oil tuit venront : " Vos, qui ma crois m'aidites a porter, vos en irez la, oil li angele sont ; la me verrez, et ma mere Marie. Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aie, descendez tuit en enfer le parfont." Douce dame, roine coronee, proiez por nos, virge bien euree, et puis apres ne nos puit mescheoir. TRANSLATION. Seigneur, sachez que celui qui ne s'en ira en cette terre oil Dieu mourut et vecut, et ne prendra pas la croix d'outre-mer, aura grande peine a gagner le paradis. Qui en soi a pitie et sou- venir du Haut Seigneur doit chercher a le venger, et a delivrer sa terre et son pays. Dieu se laissa martyriser en croix pour nous, et il nous dira au jour oil tous viendront devant lui : " Vous qui m'aidates a porter ma croix, allez oil sont les anges : la vous me verrez avec ma mere Marie. Et vous par qui je n'eus jamais aucun aide, de- scendez tous en profond enfer." Douce dame, reine couronnee, priez pour nous, Vierge bien- heureuse, et qu'apres la mort il ne nous arrive point de mal. GUILLAUME DE LORRIS. This poet flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, and died about the year 1262. It was he who first undertook the " Roman de la Rose" of which, however, he only composed the first part. He was endowed with a brilliant and fertile imagination, his versification is always easy, and his style natural. His poems abound in rich descriptions, pictures of manners and maxims of FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 615 morality. Clement Marot called him " the French Ennius.'' The following ex- tract, portraying " Time," is a fair specimen of the author's style : Li tens s'en va nuit et jor sans repos prendre et sans sejor, et de nous se part et emble si celeement, qu'il nous semble qu'il s'arreste ades en ung point, et il ne s'i arreste point ; Ains ne fine de trespasser, que nus ne puet ndis penser quex tens ce est qui est pr^sens Sel' demanded as clers lisans, aincois que Ten l'etist pens6, seroit-il ja le tens passe. TRANSLATION. Le temps marche nuit et jour, sans prendre de repos et sans sejour ; il se separe de nous et nous quitte si doucement qu'il nous semble qu'il s'arrete en un point, tandis qu'il ne s'y arrete pas ; il ne cesse, au contraire, de passer outre, tellement que per- sonne ne peut dire quel est le temps present. Si vous le demandez aux clercs qui savent lire, avant que ceux-ci n'aient repondu, ce temps sera deja le temps passe. Jehan de Meung. Jehan de Meung, who continued the work of Lorris, was born in 1260, and died in 1320. Though possessed of less warmth and imagination, he was not the less a poet of great merit, and passed for one of the most learned men of his time. The numerous beauties of the " Roman de la Rose " excited his admira- tion, and induced him to continue the work. He succeeded so well that this poem, so renowned in former ages, is still relished by those who understand its antiquated language. " This poem," says Warton, " is esteemed by the French the most valuable piece of their old poetry. It is far beyond the rude efforts of all their preceding romancers ; and they have nothing equal to it before the reign of Francis I, who died in the year 1547. But there is a considerable dif- ference in the merit of the two authors. William of Lorris, who wrote not one quarter of the poem, is remarkable for his elegance and luxuriance of descrip- tion, and is a beautiful painter of allegorical personages. John of Meung is a writer of another cast. He possesses but little of his predecessor's invent- ive and poetical vein ; and in that respect he was not properly qualified to finish a poem begun by William of Lorris. But he has strong satire and great liveliness. He was one of the wits of the court of Charles le Bel. The diffi- culties and dangers of a lover in pursuing and obtaining the object of his desires are the literal argument of this poem. This design is couched under the argu- ment of a rose, which our lover, after frequent obstacles, gathers in a delicious garden. He traverses vast ditches, scales lofty walls, and forces the gates of adamantine, and almost impregnable castles. These enchanted fortresses are all inhabited by various divinities ; some of which assist, and some oppose, the lover's progress." The entire poem consists of no fewer than 22,734 verses, of 616 APPENDIX. which only 4,149 are the composition of William of Lords. All this portion has been translated by Chaucer, and also about half of the 18,588 lines written by De Meung ; his version comprehends 13,105 lines of the French poem. These, however, he has managed to comprehend in 7,701 (Warton says 7, 699) English verses : this is effected by a great compression and curtailment of De Meung's part ; for, while the 4,149 French verses of De Lorris are fully and faithfully rendered in 4,432 English verses, the 8,956 that follow by De Meung are reduced in the translation to 3,269. The following extract, in which the author describes an ideal beauty, will give an idea of the general style of his work: Icele dame ot nom Biaut^s. El ne fu obscure, ne brune, ains fu clere comme la lune, envers qui les autres estoiles ressemblent petites chandoiles. Tendre ot la char comme rousee, simple fu cum une espoused, et blanche comme flor de lis. Si ot le vis cler et alis, et fu greslete et alignie. Ne fu fard^e ne guignie, car el n'avoit mie mestier de soi tifer ne d'afetier. Les cheveus ot blons et si Ions qu'il li batoient as talons ; Nez ot bien fait, et yelx et bouche. Moult grant doucor au cuer me touche, si m'ai'st Diex, quant il me membre de la facon de chascun membre, qu'il n'ot si bele fame oil monde. Bri£ment el fu jonete et blonde, sade, plaisant, aperte et cointe, grassete et gresle, gente et jointe. TRANSLATION. Cette dame s'appelait Beautd. Elle n'dtait ni noire ni brune, mais claire comme la lune, a l'dgard de laquelle les autres 6toiles semblent de petites lumieres. Elle eut la chair tendre comme de la rosde ; elle fut simple comme une fiance'e et blanche comme une fleur de lys. Elle .eut le visage clair et joyeux ; elle fut frele et r^guliere. Elle n'avait ni fard ni autres appas trompeurs, car elle n'avait pas besoin de s'attifer ni de s'arranger. Ses cheveux 6taient blonds et si longs qu'ils lui tombaient jusqu'aux talons. Son nez 6tait bien fait, ainsi que ses yeux et sa bouche. II me vient une grande joie au cceur quand, avec l'aide de Dieu, je me rappelle ses traits en detail. II n'y eut jamais plus belle femme au monde. En un mot, elle £tait jeunette et blonde, gracieuse, agrdable, ouverte et polie, grasse et grele, jolie et bien mise. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 617 Translation of the Stabat Mater. From the first half of the Thirteenth Century. Deles la croix moult doloreuse estoit la mere glorieuse, plourant quant son doulx filz pandoit.;; le glague de sa mort criieuse son ame digne et precieuse a grant doleur par my passoit. O benoiste vierge Marie, comment tu fus triste et marie, quant tu veiz ton cher enffant,, de duels et de pleurs si rempKe et de grant torment amortie, pendre en la croiz villainemenfc Qui est celuy, tres dousce mere, qui te vei'st ainsi amere et en si doloreux torment,, qui n'eust pitie' de la misere du filz et de toy, vierge mere,, et ne plorast amerement? En ta presence, vierge pure^, tu veois a si grant laidure ^ mourir ton doulx filz debonnaite pour le pech6 et forfaieture de toute humaine- creature r ce te fist rage d'amour faire. O mere, fontaine d'amour, fay moy sentir ta grant dolour, et qu'avec toy pttisse plorer ; fay que mon cuer par grant ardour puisse Jesus son doulx seignour servir, aymer et honorer. O saincte mere vierge et gente, fay que mon cueur endure' sente les playes que ton filz souffrit en la crois davant toy dolente pour mon ame vile et ptiante et si honteusement mourit. original text. Stabat Mater dolorosa, Juxta crucem lacrymosa, Dum pendebat Filius. 41 618 APPENDIX. Cujus animam gementem, Contristatam et dolentem, Pertransivit gladius. O quam tristis et afflicta, Fuit ilia benedicta, Mater Unigeniti ! Quae mcerebat et dolebat, Pia Mater dum videbat Nati pcenas inclyti. Quis est homo qui non fleret, Matrem Christi si videret In tanto supplicio ? Quis non posset contristari, Christi Matrem contemplari Dolentem cum Filio ? Pro peccatis suae gentis, Vidit Jesum in tormentis Et flagellis subditum. Vidit suum dulcem natum, Moriendo desolatum, Dum emisit spirtum. Eia Mater, fons amoris, Me sentire vim doloris Fac ut tecum lugeam. Fac ut ardeat cor meum In amando Christum Deum, Ut sibi complaceam. Sancta Mater istud agas Crucifixi fige plagas Cordi meo valide. Tui nati vulnerati, Tam dignati pro me pati, Pcenas mecum divide. Fac me tecum pie flere Crucifixo condolere Donee ego vixero. Juxta crucem tecum stare, Et me tibi sociare In planctu desidero. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 619 Jehan de Joinville. Jehan, sire de Joinville was born in 1223, and died in 1317. He passed his youth at the elegant court of Thibault, King of Navarre, where he early acquired the habits of fine speaking and narrating with that charming simplicity which particularly distinguish his style. In 1248 he set out for the holy land with King Louis IX, to whom he was devotedly attached, and whose life he after- ward wrote. With an almost saintly piety, an affectionate and devoted charac- ter, a mind as candid and as pure as that of a child, Joinville is one of the writers of the Middle Ages whom we always read with renewed pleasure.- He surprises us much by the solidity of his good sense, as he charms by his touch- ing language, when he relates the beautiful actions of his royal friend whose reputation for holiness, justice, and virtue he establishes with a rare eloquence, by means of which he, more than any other author, has contributed to bestow on this prince the surname of saint, by which he is generally distinguished in French history. He thus describes the ready and unostentatious mode of the king's dispatching business : Maintes foiz avint que en estd, il aloit seoir au boiz de Vin- ciennes apres sa messe, et se acostoioit a un chesne et nous fesoit seoir entour li ; et tous ceulz qui avoient a faire venoient parler a li ; sans destourbier de huissier ne d'autre. Et lors il leur de- mandoit de sa bouche : A yl ci nullui qui ait partie ? Et cil se levoient qui partie avoient ; et lors il disoit : Taisiez vous tous, et on vous deliverra l'un apres l'autre. Et lors il appeloit mon- seigneur Pierre de Fontainnes et monseigneur Geoffroy de Vil- lette, et disoit a l'un d'eulz : DeJivrez moi ceste partie. Et quant il v6oit aucune chose a amender en la parole de ceulz qui par- loient pour autrui, il meisme l'amendoit de sa bouche. Je le vi aucune fois en esti, que pour delivrer sa gent, il venoit ou jardin de Paris, une cote de chamelot vestue, un seurcot de tyreteinne sanz manches, un mentel de cendal noir entour son col, moult bien pign6 et sanz coife, et un chapel de paon blanc sur sa teste, et fesoit estendre tapis pour nous seoir entour li. Et tout le peuple qui avoit a faire par devant li, estoit entour li en estant, et lors il les fesoit deJivrer, en la maniere que je vous ai dit devant du bois de Vinciennes. TRANSLATION. Mainte fois il advint qu'en €t€, il allait s'asseoir au bois de Vincennes apres la messe, et s'appuyait a un chene et nous faisait asseoir autour de lui, et tous ceux qui avaient affaire venaient lui parler, sans empechement d'huissier ni d'autres. Alors, il leur demandait de sa bouche: "Y a-t-il quelqu'un qui ait partie ? " Et ceux qui avaient partie se levaient, et il leur disait : Taisez- vous tous, et on vous exp^diera l'un apres l'autre." Et alors il appelait monseigneur Pierre de Fontaines et monseigneur Geoffroy de Villette, et disait a l'un d'eux: "Exp^diez moi cette partie." Et quand il voyait quelque chose a amender dans le discours de ceux qui parlaient pour autrui, lui-meme il l'amendait de sa bouche. 620 APPENDIX. Je le vis quelquefois, en 6t6, venir pour exp^dier ses gens au jardin de Paris, vetu d'une cotte de camelot, d'un surtout de tire- taine sans manche, d'un manteau de taffas noir, autour du col, bien peignd et sans coiffe, et un chapel de paon blanc sur la tete : il faisait etendre un tapis pour nous faire asseoir autour de lui, et tous ceux qui avaient affaire a lui se tenaient debout devant lui, et alors il les faisait exp^dier de la maniere que je vous ai dit qu'il faisait au bois de Vincennes. Jehan Froissart. Jehan Froissart was born at Valenciennes about the year 1338. Destined at first for the clergy, he was educated accordingly ; but his tastes withdrew him from the priesthood. He early felt a desire to learn, and knew but one way to satisfy it, which was to travel, so a great part of his life was spent on horse- back. He first went to Spain, where he followed the Black Prince ; then to Italy in company with the Duke of Clarence ; afterward he remained a long time with Richard II, who received him as his father's old friend. After the frightful catastrophe which precipitated the English monarch from his throne, Froissart was so much afflicted at so horrible a scene that he returned to Flan- ders, where it is believed he died in 1401. His Chronicle is certainly the truest and most lively picture that any writer has bequeathed to us of the spirit of a particular era ; it shows " the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure." Chivalry was the object of his most profound admiration. Brilliant tournaments, and high deeds of arms he celebrates with transport ; but above all he excels in portraying the disorders, ravages, and cruelties which rendered the state of society of this epoch a curse to the middle and lower classes. Candor, integrity, and vivacity form the principal traits of this author, and give an inestimable value to his writings. A remarkably pure translation of Froissart's Chronicles was made by Lord Bemers, and published in 1523. The language of his time was exceedingly well suited to render the chivalrous pages of Froissart with picturesque effect, and his translation from this point of view is preferable to the modern one by Mr. Johnes. Mr. Marsh says : " This trans- lation is doubtless the best English prose style which had yet appeared, and, as a specimen of picturesque narrative, it is excelled by no production of later periods." The following extract describes the touching scene of the burghers of Calais bringing the keys of the city to King Edward III : Comment les six bourgeois se partirent de Palais, tous nuds en leurs chemises, la hart au col, et les clefs de la ville en leurs mains ; et comment la roine d'Angleterre leur sauva les vies. . . . . Le roy £toit a cette heure en sa chambre, a grand' compagnie de comtes, de barons et de chevaliers. Si 8 entendit que ceux 3 de Calais venoient en l'arroy 4 qu'il avoit devise' et ordonn£ ; et se mit hors, et s'en vint en la place devant son h6tel, et tous ces seigneurs apres lui, et encore grand' foison qui y sur- vinrent pour voir ceux de Calais, ni comment lis fineroient ; et memement la roine d'Angleterre, qui moult etoit enceinte, suivit le roy son seigneur. Si vint messire Gautier de Mauny et les bourgeois de-lez 5 lui qui le suivoient, et descendit en la place, et puis s'envint devers le roy et lui dit: "Sire, vecy 6 la repr^senta- FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 62 1 tion de la ville de Calais a votre ordonnance." Le roy se tint tout coi et les regarda moult fellement,* car moult heoit 8 les habitans de Calais, pour les grands dommages et contraires que au temps pass£ sur mer lui avoient faits. Ces six bourgeois se mirent tantdt 9 a genoux pardevant le roy, et dirent ainsi en joig- nant leurs mains : " Gen til sire et gentil roy, veez 10 -nous cy six, qui avous 6t6 d'anciennetd bourgeois de Calais et grands mar- chands : si u vous apportons les clefs de la ville et du chatel de Calais et les vous rendons a votre plaisir, et nous mettons en tel point que vous nous v6ez, en votre pure volont£, pour sauver le demeurant 13 du peuple de Calais, qui a souffert moult de gri6- vet£s. Si veuillez avoir de nous piti6 et mercy par votre tres haute noblesse." Certes il n'y eut adonc en la place seigneur, chevalier, ni vaillant homme, qui se put abstenir de pleurer de droite pitie, ni qui put de grand' piece parler. Et vraiment ce n'dtoit pas merveille ; car c'est grand'-piti£ de voir hommes de- cheoir et estre en tel estat et danger. Le roy les regarda tres ireusement, 13 car il avait le coeur si dur et si epris de grand cour- roux qu'il ne put parler. Et quand il parla, il commanda qu'on leur coupat tant6t les tetes. Pour les barons et les chevaliers qui la etoient, en pleurant prioient si acertes u que faire pouvoit au roy qu'il en voulut avoir piti£ et mercy; mais il n'y vouloit entendre. Adonc parla messire de Mauny et dit : " Ha ! gehtil sire, veuillez refreher votre courage : vous avez le nom et la re- nommee de souveraine gentillesse et noblesse ; or ne veuillez done faire chose par quoi elle soit amenrie, 15 ni que on puisse parler sur vous en nulle vilenie. Si vous n'avez piti6 de ces gens, toutes autres gens diront que ce sera grand' cruantd, si vous etes si dur que vous fassiez mourir ces honnestes bourgeois, qui de leur propre volente se sont mis en votre mercy pour les autres sauver." A ce point gringna le roy les dents 16 et dit : " Messire Gautier, souffrez vous ; 17 il n'en sera autrement, mais on fasse venir le coupe-teste. 18 Ceux de Calais ont fait mourir tant de mes hommes, que il convient ceux-cy mourir aussi." ' Adonc fit la noble roine d'Angleterre grand' humility, qui etoit durement enceinte, et pleuroit si tendrement de piti£ que elle ne se pouvoit soutenir. Si se jeta a genoux pardevant le roy son seigneur et dit ainsi : " Ha ! gentil sire, depuis que je repassai la mer en grand p6ril, si comme vous savez, ne vous ai rein requis ni demande ; or 3 vous prid-je humblement et requiers en propre don, que pour le fils Sainte Marie, et pour l'amour de moi vous veuillez avoir de ces six hommes mercy. Le roy at- tendit un petit 80 a parler, et regarda la bonne dame sa femme, qui pleuroit a genoux moult tendrement ; si lui amollia le cceur, car envis, 81 l'eut couroucee au point ou elle etoit ; si dit : " Ha ! dame, j'aimasse trop mieux que vous fussiez autre part que cy. Vous me priez si acertes que je ne le vous ose escondire; 88 et combien que je le fasse envis, tenez, je vous les donne ; si en 622 APPENDIX. faites votre plaisir." La bonne dame dit : " Monseigneur, tres grands mercis " ! Lors se leva la roine et fit lever les six bour- geois et leur 6ter les chevestres 23 d'entour leur cou, et les emmena avec li ** en sa chambre, et les fit revetir et donner a diner tout aise, et puis donna a chacun six nobles, et les fit conduire hors de l'ost^ 5 a sauvet6 ; et s'en allerent hab.iter et demeurer en plu- sieurs villes de Picardie. I, La corde dont en etranglait les criminels. 2, il. 3, les gens. 4, etat. 5, aprds. 6, void. 7, durement. 8, haissait. 9, tout de suite. 10, voyez. II, nous. 12, reste. 13, encolere. 14, serieusement. 15, amoindrie, diminuee. 16, grinca des dents. 17, permettez. 18, bourreau. 19, maintenant, anjourd'hui. 20, un peu. 21, malgre soi. 22, refuser. 23, cordes. 24, elle. 25, armee. Charles d'Orleans. Charles d'Orleans, father of Louis XII, and uncle of Francis I, King of France, was born at Paris in 1391. From childhood he applied himself to let- ters, whence he derived great consolation afterward amid the misfortunes which assailed his long and stormy life. Vanquished twice in the space of a few years, he was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and carried to Eng- land, where he remained twenty-five years. In the year 1440, Philippe-le-Bon, Duke of Burgundy, brought him back to France, where he died the 8th of January, 1467. His compositions display that elegance of tone and aristocratic diction which seem to belong only to very cultivated eras. His style is always fine and graceful ; but he is a poet in heart when he speaks of France and of the numerous friends whom he left there. SUR LE BRUIT QU'ON AVAIT REPANDU DE SA MORT. Nouvelles ont couru en France par maints lieux que j'estoye mort, dont avoient peu desplaisance aucuns qui me hayent a tort. Aultres en ont eu disconfort, qui m'ayment de loyal vouloir, comme mes bons et vrays amis. Si fais a toutes gens scavoir qu'encore est vive la souris. Je n'ay eu ne mal, ne grevance, Dieu mercy ! mais suis sain et fort : et passe temps en esp^rance que paix, qui trop longuement dort, s'esveillera et par accort, a tous fera liesse avoir. Pour ce, de Dieu soient maudis ceux qui sont dolents de veoir, qu'encore est vive la souris. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 623 Jeunesse sur moy a puissance, mais veillesse fait son effort de m'avoir en sa gouvernance. A present faillira son sort ? Je suis assez loing de son port, de ploures vueil garder mon hoir. Loud soit Dieu de paradis qui m'a donnd force et povoir qu'encore est vive la souris. Nul ne porte pour moy le noir. On vent meillieur marchie' drap gris. Or tiengne chascun pour tout voir qu'encore est vive la souris. Olivier Basselin, A mighty drinker and a good singer ; was bom in 1350, in the district of Vire, near Vaux, where he had a fulling-mill. Tradition points to his wife as the working partner of the firm, which suffered from his inattention to business to such an extent as finally to cause his relations to interfere and to sequestrate, alienate, or put in safe keeping the mill, if not the person of Basselin himself. Though we have no detailed particulars about his life, we gather from certain of his songs some which relate to his habits and preferences. Thus we learn that he preferred wine of Orleans to any other when he could get it ; that he drank cider when he could not get wine, and perry when he could not get cider. His songs, which were especially drinking songs, were called vaux-de-vire, prob- ably because they were first sung in or about his native place. These songs, sixty-two of which are still extant, were the origin of the French vaudeville, a sort of play whose dialogue is intermingled with light or comic songs. Our poet, as we have said, was fond of his cup, and his countenance showed it. One day, some of his friends having remarked on the color of his nose, he wrote the following lines : Beau nez dont les rubis ont couste mainte pipe de vin blanc et clairet, et duquel la couleur richement participe du rouge et violet ; Gros nez ! qui te regarde a travers un grand verre te juge encore plus beau : tu ne ressemble point au nez de quelque here qui ne boit que de l'eau. Un coq d'Inde sa gorge a toy semblable porte. Combien de riches gens n'ont pas si riche nez ! Pour te peindre en la sorte, il faut beaucoup de temps. Le verre est le pinceau duquel on t'enlumine ; Le vin est la couleur 624 APPENDIX. dont on t'a peint ainsi plus rouge qu'une guisne en beuvant du meilleur. On dit qu'il nuit aux yeux : mais seront ils les maistres ? Le vin est guairison de mes maux ; j'aime mieux perdre les deux fenestres que toute la maison. FRANgois Villon. Francois Corbueil, called Villon, was born at Paris in the year 1431. Little is known of the circumstances of his life from his contemporaries. He himself relates that, born of poor parents, and associating with young men of dissolute habits, he soon became a knave and robber, and at the age of twenty-five had been imprisoned several times. At length an important robbery caused him, with several others, to be condemned to be hanged. It was then that he com- posed the following ballad on the approaching exposition of their bodies on the gallows of Montfaucon. However, by the intercession of Louis XI, who ap- preciated his talent, the parliament commuted his sentence of death to that of perpetual banishment, when he crossed over to England, where, according to Rabelais, he also knew how to gain the good graces of Edward IV. The verses of Villon are generally well turned, his rhyme is rich, and his works are full of wit. If at a first reading he is more difficult to comprehend than Charles of Orleans, it is because he is more true, more local, and more French. The lan- guage of Charles of Orleans is the idiom used among the higher classes in France, and at the court of Henry V of England, where the courtiers affected to speak nothing but French. Villon, on the contrary, wrote the French of the people of Paris, and took his language from the places where his ideas origi- nated. He is the first French poet who has emancipated himself from chivalric gallantry, metaphysical abstractions, insipid allegories, and the confused and unintelligible learning of his predecessors, and has made national poetry come from its true source, the people. La pluye nous a ddbuez et lavez, et le soleil dessdchez et noirciz, pies, corbeaux, nous ont les yeux cavez, et arrache' la barbe et les sourcilz. Jamais nul temps nous ne sommes rassiz, puis pa, puis la, comme le vent varie, a son plaisir sans cesse nous charie, plus becquetez d'oyseaulx que des a couldre. Hommes, ici n'usez de mocquerie, mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absouldre. When he arose above the trivial, his language often reached the sublime. The following lines remind us of Shakespeare's scene of the grave-diggers : Quand je considere ces tetes entassdes en ces charniers, tous furent maitres des requetes, ou tous de la chambre aux deniers, ou tous furent porte-paniers (porte-faix). FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 62$ autant puis 1'un que l'autre dire : car d'eveques ou lanterniers je n'y connais rien a redire. Et icelles qui s'inclinaient une contre autres en leurs vies ; desquelles les unes r^gnaient, des autres craintes et servies ; la les vois, toutes assouvies ensemble en un tas pele-mele. seigneuries leur sont ravies : clerc ni maitre ne s'y appelle. Philippe de Comines. Philippe de Comines was born in 1445, of one of the most illustrious fami- lies in Flanders, and died the 16th of August, 1509. It is extremely difficult to class the chroniclers of different centuries by their order of merit. However, general opinion places Comines at the head of the French authors, previous to Montaigne, his great admirer. His style is elegant and nervous, equally free from harshness and affectation. Comines was a skillful observer of human nature, which enabled him to draw his characters with truth and accuracy. He has written with a rare talent the history of the memorable reign of Louis XI ; unfortunately the mind of the author was too much in accordance with that of the monarch, the most despotic that has ever reigned, not to affect his impar- tiality as a historian. Comment le Roy Lays XI feist /aire plusieurs cages de fer donl en Pvne fust mis Vautheur de ce liure Vespace de huit mois. II est vrai qu'il auoit fait de rigoureuses prisons, comme cages de fer et d'autres de bois, couuertes da pates de fer par le dehors et par le dedans, auec terribles fermures, de huit pieds de large, de la hauteur d'vn homme, et un pied plus. Le premier qui les deuisa fust l'euesque de Verdun, qui, en la premiere qui fust faite, fust mis incontinent, et y a couchd quatorze ans. Plusieurs depuis l'ont maudit, et moy aussi qui en ay tast6 soubs le Roy de present huit mois. Autres fois auoit fait faire a des Allemans, des fers trespesans et terribles pour mettre aux pieds. Et y res- toit vn anneau pour mettre au pied fort mal ais£ a ouurir, comme a vn carquant, la chaine grosse et pesante : et vne grosse boulle de fer au bout beaucoup plus pesante que n'estoit de raison, et les appeloit on les fillettes du Roy. Clement Marot. Clement Marot, son of Jean Marot, a poet of some note himself, was born at Cahors, in 1497, and came very young to Paris. His father destined him for the magistracy, but Marot, who already felt in himself the genius of poetry, very 626 APPENDIX. soon abandoned the dry study of law, and found himself a situation in the household of Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francis I. At the age of seventeen he distinguished himself by some charming compositions, which gained him the favor of this prince. Without ceasing to be as popular as Villon, Marot rather succeeds Thibault and Charles of Orleans, as he gained from the delicate and witty conversations of men of taste and noble ladies a certain elegance and a peculiar euphony, only to be acquired in the company of well-bred women, and of which advantage Villon had been utterly deprived. In other respects Marot entirely resembles the latter. Poets of the same family, chance left the elder in the mire of the streets, and raised the younger to the service of the court. Hence the difference in the tone of their writings. Each, however, remained true to his origin, natural, and frank, and kept free from all the sentimental affecta- tion of the old school. Marot has not so much changed as improved the rules of French poetry, by giving it a more easy turn, and especially by infusing more grace, spirit, and amiable satire through his verses than had been done before. His compositions abound in wit and good humor. Once, when he wanted to borrow money from the king, he addressed him the following ipitre : On dit bien vray, la mauvaise fortune ne vient jamais qu'elle n'en apporte une ou deux ou trois avecques elle, sire ; Votre coeur noble en scauroit bien que dire : Et moy, ch6tif, qui ne suis roy, ni rien, l'ay eprouv6 ; et vous conteray bien, si vous voulez, comment vint la besogne. J'avois un jour un valet de Gascogne, gourmand, ivrogne, et assur6 menteur, pipeur, 1 larron, jureur, blasphemateur, sentant la hart de cent pas a la ronde, au demeurant le meilleur fils du monde. Ce venerable ilot 2 fut averti de quelque argent que m'aviez departi, et que ma bourse avoit grosse apostume. Si se leva plut6t que de coutume, et me va prendre en tapinois ycelle ; puis la vous met tres-bien sous son esselle, argent et tout (cela ce doit entendre) ; et ne crois point que ce fut pour la rendre, car oncques puis n'en ay ouy parler. Bref, le vilain ne s'en voulut aller pour si petit, mais encore il me happe saye, 3 bonnets, chausses, pourpoint et cappe ; de mes habits, en effet, il pilla tous les plus beaux ; et puis s'en habilla si justement, qu'a le voir ainsi estre, vous l'eussiez pris, en plein jour, pour son maistre. Finalement, de ma chambre il s'en va droit a l'etable, oh deux chevaux trouva ; FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 627 laisse le pire, et sur le meilleur monte, pique et s'en va. Pour abreger le conte, soyez certain qu'au partir dudit lieu n'oublia rien, fors a me dire adieu. Ainsi s'en va, chatouilleux de la gorge, 4 ledit valet, monte 1 comme un saint George ; et vous laissa monsieur dormir son saoul, qui au reveil n'eust scu finer 6 d'un soul. Ce monsieur-la, sire, c'6toit moi-meme, qui, sans mentir, fus au matin bien blesme, quand je me vis sans honneste vesture, et fort fache' de perdre ma monture : mais de l'argent que vous m'aviez donn£, je ne fus point de le perdre £tonn6 , car votre argent tres-deb>onnaire prince, sans point de faute, est sujet a la pince. 5 Bientost apres cette fortune-la, une autre pire encore se mesla de m'a'ssaillir, et chacun jour m'assaut, me menacant de me donner le saut, et de ce saut m'envoyer a l'envers, rimer sous terre, et y faire des vers. C'est une longue et lourde maladye de trois bons mois, qui m'a toute 6tourdye la pauvre teste, et ne veut terminer ; ains me contraint d'apprendre a cheminer, tant foible suis. Bref, a ce triste corps, dont je vous parle, il n'est demeure, fors le pauvre esprit, qui lamente et soupire, et en pleurant tasche a vous faire rire. Voila comment, depuis neuf mois en ca je suis traict6. Or ce que me laissa mon larronneau, long-temps a l'ay vendu ; et en sirops et juleps despendu : Ce ndantmoins, ce que je vous en mande, n'est pour vous faire ou requeste ou demande : Je ne veux point tant de gens ressembler, qui n'ont soucy autre que d'assembler. 7 Tant qu'ils vivront, ils demanderont, eux ; mais je commence a devenir honteux, et ne veux plus a vos dons m'arrester. Je ne dis pas, si voulez rien prester, que ne le prenne. II n'est point de presteur s'il veut prester, qui ne fasse un debteur 628 APPENDIX. Et scavez-vous, sire, comment je paye ? Nul ne le scait, si premier ne 1'essaye. Vous me devrez, si je puis, du retour ; et vous feray encores un bon tour. A cette fin qu'il n'y ait faute nulle, je vous feray une belle s^dulle, a vous payer (sans usure s'entend) quand on verra tout le monde content ; ou, si voulez, a payer ce sera quand votre los° et renom cessera. Voila le point principal de ma lettre : Vous scavez tout, il n'y faut plus rien mettre. Rien mettre, las ! certes et si feray, et ce faisant, mon style j'enfleray, disant : O roy amoureux des neuf muses ! Roy en qui sont leurs sciences infuses, Roy, plus que Mars, d'honneur environne^ Roy, le plus roy qui fut one couronne' ; Dieu tout puissant te doint, pour t'^trenner, les quatre coins du monde a gouverner, tant pour le bien de la ronde machine, que pour autant que sur tous en es digne. I, fripon au jeu. 2, name which the Spartans gave to their slaves. 3, overcoat. 4, craignant la corde, craignant d'etre pendu. 5, financer. 6, sujet a etre vole. 7, amasser et entasser ecus sur ecus. 8, votre louange, votre gloire (in Latin laus). Francois Rabelais. Francois Rabelais was born in the year 1495, near Chinon in Touraine. His early education was much neglected ; he formed evil connections, contract- ed licentious habits, and led a life of vice and dissipation. He assumed, cast off, and reassumed religious orders, which he disgraced by his conduct and writings. Never will he be pardoned for having dipped his pen into the mire of debauchery, and for the manner in which he attacked religion by his raillery. Yet amid the most licentious pages, there are some stamped with enlightened reason and noble eloquence. His " Gargantua" has exercised a great influence on French literature. La Fontaine copied his language, which he has not im- proved, while Moli&re has appropriated his characters and dialogues as his own. The following letter, from Gargantua to his son, will give an idea of Rabelais' style, and of the system of education which then appeared the best. It will show that he was not at heart an infidel, as has been sometimes asserted : Par quoy, mon fils, je t'admoneste qu'employe ta jeunesse a bien proufiter en estude et en vertus. Tu es a, Paris, tu as ton pr^cepteur Epistemon, dont l'un par vives et vocables instruc- tions, l'autre par louables exemples te peut endoctriner. J'entens et veulx que tu apprennes les langues parfaitement. Premiere- FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 629 ment la grecque comme le veult Quintilian, secondement la latine et puis 1'hebrai'que pour les saintes lettres et la chaldai'que et ara- bique pareillement, et que tu formes ton style quant a la grecque, a l'imitation de Platon ; quant a la latine, de Cic^ron : qu'il n'y ait histoire que tu ne tiennes en memoire prdsente, a quoi t'ayde- ra la cosmographie de ceulx qui en ont escript. Des arts \\b€- raulx, ge'om^trie, arithm6tique et musique, et t'en donnay quelque goust quand tu estois encore petit en l'aage de cinq ou six ans ; poursuys le reste, et d'astronomie saches en tous les canons. Laisse moy l'astrologie divinatrice et l'art de Lullius comme abuz et vanitez. Du droit civil je veux que tu scaiches par cueur les beaux textes et me les confere avecques philosophic. Et quant a la cognoissance des faictz de nature, je veux que tu t'y adonnes curieusement, qu'il n'y ait mer, riviere, ni fontaine dont tu ne cognoisses les poissoris; tous les oyseaulx de l'air; tous les arbres, arbustes et frutices des forests, toutes les herbes de la terre, tous les metaulx caches au ventre des abymes, les pierreries de tout orient et midi, rien ne te soit incongneu. Mais parceque, selon le sage Salomon, sa science n'entre point en ame malivole, et science sans conscience n'est que ruyne de l'ame, il te convient servir, aimer et craindre Dieu et en lui mettre toutes les pens^es et tout ton espoir, et par foy formed de charit6, estre a lui adjoint, en sorte que jamais n'en soys d^sempare' par p6ch£, aye suspectz les abus du monde, ne metz ton cueur a vanit6 : car cette vie est transitoire ; mais la parolle de Dieu de- meure £ternellement. Sois serviable a. tous tes prochains et les ayme comme toy mesme. Rivere tes pr^cepteurs, fuy les com- paignies des gens esquelz tu ne veulx point ressembler, et les graces que Dieu t'ha donnees, icelles ne recois en vain. Et quand tu congnoistras que tu auras tout le scavoir de par de la acquis, retourne vers moi, afin que je te voye et donne ma bene- diction devant que mourir. Pierre de Ronsard. Pierre de Ronsard was born the 10th of September, 1524, inVendome, and sent quite young to Paris, where he entered college when hardly nine years old. But soon feeling a distaste for study, he entered as page the service of the Duke of Orleans, and, at the marriage of James Stuart with Mary of Lorraine, fol- lowed the latter to Scotland, where he remained about three years. Afterward, while traveling in divers parts of Europe, he became suddenly deaf, and it was only then, at the age of twenty, that he seriously applied himself to letters. No author has ever found more enthusiastic admirers during his lifetime, nor has any been more severely criticised by posterity. Deeply versed in the ancient lan- guages, his learning, added to his genius, might have gained him an imperish- able fame, were it not that, by his injudicious endeavors to improve the lan- guage by words and phrases borrowed from the Greek, his real merits have been eclipsed by his rash attempts at coining new words, in which, it must be said, he was not always fortunate. It must, however, be remembered that this was 630 APPENDIX. the tendency of the age. At his time all minds were turned toward antiquity. The last expeditions into Italy had given access to the most valuable manuscripts. Already numerous but inferior translations had endeavored to reveal to the French public the genius of the Greek and Latin languages, but they were of no avail in the progress of the vernacular. Ronsard was the first who made any real effort. Thoroughly imbued with the beauties of antique eloquence, the national poetry seemed to him poor, timid, feeble, and without dignity ; he de- sired to impart to it the majesty, strength, and brilliancy of his favorite lan- guage, the Greek. But, perhaps, through want of taste or a proper sense of euphony, arising from his deafness, or else an inordinate desire for innovation, or, perhaps, through all these combined, he proceeded in his imitations without discrimination, and often with entire disregard for the genius of the French lan- guage. He has left us numerous works which are all subject to criticism on this account, and this is why sufficient credit has not been given to him for the notable benefit French poetry derived in other respects from his incessant la- bors. The following is a speech addressed by him to Charles IX during the minority of the latter : Sire, ce n'est pas tout que d'estre roi de France, il faut que la vertu hOnore votre enfance. Un roi, sans la vertu, porte le sceptre en vain, qui ne lui sert sinon d'un fardeau dans la main. On conte que The'tis, la femme de Pelee, apres avoir la peau de son enfant brusl^e, pour le rendre immortel, le prit en son giron, et de nuit l'emporta dans l'antre de Chiron ; Chiron, noble centaure, afin de lui apprendre les plus rares vertus, des sa jeunesse tendre, et de science et d'art son Achille honorer. Un roi, pour estre grand, ne doit rien ignorer. II ne doit seulement scavoir l'art de la guerre, de garder les cit£s ou les ruer par terre ; car les princes mieux n£s n'estiment leur vertu proc^der ni de sang ni de glaive pointu, ni de harnois ferret qui les peuples etonnent, mais par les beaux metiers que les Muses nous donnent. Quand les Muses, qui sont filles de Jupiter, dont les rois sont issus, les rois daignent chanter, elles les font marcher en toute reverence, loin de leur majeste' bannissant l'ignorance ; et leur sage lecon leur apprend a scavoir juger de leurs sujets seulement a les voir. Connoissez l'honneste homme humblement revetu, et discernez le vice, imitant la vertu ; puis sondez votre cceur, pour en vertu accroistre, II faut, dit Apollon, soi-mesme se connoistre ; celui qui se connoist est seul maistre de soi, et sans avoir royaume il est vraiment un roi. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 631 Commencez done ainsi ; puis sitost que par l'age vous serez homme fait de corps et de courage, il faudra de vous-meme apprendre a commander, a oui'r vos sujets, les voir et demander, les connoistre par nom et leur faire justice, honorer la vertu et corriger le vice. Malheureux sont les rois qui fondent leur appui sur l'aide d'un commis ; qui, par les yeux d'autrui voyant l'etat du peuple, entendent par l'oreille d'un flatteur mensonger qui leur conte merveille. Aussi, pour estre roi, vous ne devez penser vouloir, comme un tyran, vos sujets offenser. Ainsi que notre corps, votre corps est de boue. Des petits et des grands la fortune se joue. Tous les regrets mondains se font et se deiont, et, au grd de fortune, ils viennent et s'en vont, et ne durent non plus qu'une flamme allumde, qui soudain est eprise et soudain consumee. Or, sire, imitez Dieu, lequel vous a donn6 le sceptre, et vous a fait un grand roi couronn6. Faites misericorde a celui qui supplie ; punissez l'orgueilleux qui s'arme en sa folie. Ne soyez point moqueur ni trop haut a la main, vous souvenant toujours que vous estes humain. Ayez autour de vous personnes venerables, et les oyez parler volontiers a vos tables : soyez leur auditeur, comme fut votre ayeul, ce grand Francois, qui vit encores au cercueil. Ne souffrez que les grands blessent le populaire ; Ne souffrez que le peuple aux grands puisse deplaire ; Gouvernez votre argent par sagesse et raison. Le prince qui ne peut gouverner sa maison, sa femme, ses enfants et son bien domestique, ne scauroit gouverner une grand' republique. Or, sire, pour autant que nul n'a le pouvoir de chastier les rois qui font mal leur devoir, punissez-vous vous-meme, afin que la justice de Dieu, qui est plus grand, vos fautes ne punisse. Je dis ce puissant Dieu, dont l'empire est sans bout, qui de son trosne assis en la terre voit tout, et fait k un chacun ses justices egales, autant aux laboureurs qu'aux personnes royales. 1 The word republique is here employed in the sense of empire, state. 632 APPENDIX. Le Loyal Serviteur. It is only under this name that the author of the chronicle of Chevalier Bayard is known. His work was printed for the first time in 1527, three years only after Bayard's death. This chronicle is one of the best written works of the time. Its style is elegant and delicate, its narration clear and precise, and its reflections brilliant and just. It is evident that the author lived on terms of close intimacy with his hero, and was imbued with his chivalrous spirit. The following fragment is especially interesting by its recording a tender mother's parting advice to her son Bayard on his leaving the parental roof to join the army of Duke Charles of Savoy : Fragment de la tres joyeuse et tres plaisante histoire compose'e par Le Loyal Serviteur des faits, gestes, triomphes et prouesses du bon chevalier sans paour et sans reprouche, Le Gentil Seigneur de Bayarl. .... La povre dame de mere estoit en une tour du chasteau, qui tendrement plorait ; car combien qu'elle fut joyeuse dont son fils estoit en voye de parvenir, amour de mere l'admonestoit de larmoyer. Toutefois, apres qu'on luy fust venu dire : " Madame, si vous voulez venir voir votre fils, il est tout a cheval prest k partir," la bonne gentille femme sortit par le derriere de la tour et fist venir son fils vers elle, auquel elle dist ces parolles : " Pierre, mon amy, vous allez au service d'un gentil prince. D'autant que mere peult commander k son enfant, je vous commande trois choses tant que je puis ; et si vous les faites, soyez assure 1 que vous vivrez triomphamment en ce monde : la premiere, c'est que, devant toutes choses, vous aymez, craignez et servez Dieu, sans aucunement l'offenser s'il vous est possible, car c'est celluy qui tous nous a cre^s, et qui nous fait vivre ; c'est celluy qui nous saulvera: et sans luy et sa grace ne saurions faire une seulle bonne ceuvre en ce monde; tous les soirs et tous les matins, recommandez-vous k luy, et il vous aydera. La seconde, c'est que vous soyez doulx et courtois a tout gentilhomme, en ostant de vous tout orgueil. Soyez humble et serviable a toutes gens ; ne soyez maldisant ne menteur ; maintenez-vous sobrement quant au boire et au manger. Fuyez envie, car c'est un vilain vice. Ne soyez flatteur ne rapporteur ; car telles manieres de gens ne viennent pas voulentiers a grande perfection. Soyez loyal en faicts et diets ; tenez votre parolle. Soyez secourable aux povres veufves et aux orphelins, et Dieu vous le guerdonnera. La tierce, que des biens que Dieu vous donnera vous soyez charita- ble aux povres n^cessiteux; car donner pour l'honneur de luy n'apovrit oncques hommes ; et sachez de moy, mon enfant, que telle aumosne que vous puissiez faire grandement vous prouffitera au corps et a l'ame. Vele tout ce que je vous en charge. Je crois bien que vostre pere et moy ne vivrons plus gueres, Dieu nous face la grace, k tout le moins tant que serons en vye, que toujours puissions avoir bon rapport de vous." FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 633 Alors le bon chevalier quelque jeune age qu'il eust, lui re- spondit : " Madame ma mere, de vostre bon enseignement, tant humblement qu'il m'est possible, vous remercie ; et espere si bien l'ensuivre que, moyennant la grace de celluy en la garde duquel me recommandez, en aurez contentement. Et au demourant, apres m'estre tres humblement recommande" a vostre bonne grace ; je vais prendre conge 1 de vous." Alors la bonne dame tira hors de sa manche une petite bour- cette, en laquelle avoit seulement six escus en or et ung en mon- noye qu'elle donna a son fils ; et appella ung des serviteurs de 1'eVesque de Grenoble, son frere, auquel elle bailla une petite malette en laquelle avoit quelque linge pour la n£cessit£ de son fils, le priant que, quand il seroit pr£sent6 a monseigneur de Savoye, il voulust prier le serviteur de l'escuyer, soubs la garde duquel il seroit, qu'il en prist un peu soing jusqu'e ce qu'il fust en plus grand age ; et luy bailla deux escus pour luy donner. Sur ce propos print l'evesque de Grenoble conge" de la compaignie et appela son nepveu, qui, pour se trouver sur son gentil roussin, pensoit estre en ung paradis. Si commencerent a marcher le chemin droit k Chambery, ou pour lors estoit le due Charles de Savoye. Pierre de Brant6me. Pierre de Bourdeilles, better known as Brantome, was born in Perigord in the year 1540, and died the 5th of July, 1614. He is one of the authors of that epoch whose writings possess, perhaps, the greatest charms. As a skillful nar- rator, as an indefatigable observer, and actor in nearly all the scenes that he narrates, he knows how to arouse his readers, and make them interested in his recitals by his peculiar way of introducing them among the personages whose life he is relating. Although rather a lax moralist, he often finds eloquent words for great and noble actions. The following extract, narrating the death of Bayard, is a good specimen of his style : En cette mesme retraite fut tue" aussi ce gentil et brave mon- sieur de Bayard, a qui ce jour monsieur de Bonnivet, qui avoit est6 bless6 en un bras d'une heureuse harquebuzade et pour ce se faisoit porter en litiere, luy donna toute la charge et le soin de l'armie et de toute la retraite, et luy avoit recommande" l'honneur de France. Monsieur de Bayard qui avoit eu quelque pique au- paravant avec luy, respondit : " J'eusse fort voulu et qu'il eust ainsi plu a Dieu, que vous m'eussiez donnd cette charge honor- able, en fortune plus favorable a nous autres qu'a cette heure ; toutefois, de quelle maniere que la fortune traitte avec moy, je ferai en sorte que tant que je vivray rien ne tombera entre les mains de l'ennemy, que je ne le deffende valeureusement." Ainsi qu'il le promit, il le tint ; mais les Espagnols et le marquis de Pescayre, usans de l'occasion, furent trop importuns a chasser les Francois, qu'ainsi que monsieur de Bayard les faisoit retirer tou- 42 634 APPENDIX. jours peu a peu, voicy une grande mousquetade qui donna a monsieur de Bayard, qui lui fracassa tous les reins. Aussitost qu'il se sentit frapp6, il s'escria : " Ah, mon Dieu ! je suis mort." Si prit son esp^e par la poign^e et en baisa la crois^e, en signe de la croix de nostre Seigneur, et dit tout haut : Miserere mei Deus ; puis, comme f ailly des esprits, il cuida tomber de cheval, mais encore eut-il le cceur de prendre Tarpon de la selle, et demeura ainsi jusques a ce qu'un gentilhomme, son mais- tre d'hostel, survmt, qui luy ayda a descendre et l'appuyer contre un arbre. Soudain voile une rumeur entre les deux armies, que mon- sieur de Bayard estoit mort. Voyez comme la renomm6e sou- dain publie le mal, comme le bien. Les nostres s'en effrayerent grandement ; si bien que le d^sordre fut grand parmy eux, et les Imp^riaux furent promps a les chasser. Si n'y eust-il galant homme parmy eux, qui ne le regrettoit ; et le venoit voir qui pou- voit, comme une belle relique, en passant et chassant tousjours ; car il avoit cette coustume de leur faire la guerre la plus honneste du monde et la plus courtoise ; et y en eut aucuns qui furent si courtois et bons, qu'ils le voulurent emporter en quelque logis la-pres ; mais il les pria qu'ils le laissassent dans le camp mesme qu'il avoit combattu, ainsi qu'il convenoit a un homme de guerre et qui avoit tousjours desire' de mourir arme\ Sur ce arriva monsieur le marquis de Pescayre qui luy dit : " Je voudrois de bon cceur, monsieur de Bayard, avoir donnd la moitie' de mon vaillant, et que je vous tinsse mon prisonnier, bien sain et bien sauve, afin que vous puissiez ressentir par les cour- toisies que recevriez de moy, combien j'estime vostre valeur et haute prouesse. Je me souviens qu'estant bien jeune, le premier los que vous donnerent ceux de ma nation, ce fut qu'ils disoient : muchos grisonnes, y pocos Bayardos} Aussi, depuis que j'ai eu connoissance des armes, je n'ay point ouy parler d'un chevalier qui approchast de vous. Et puisqu'il n'y a remede de la mort, je prie Dieu qu'il retire vostre belle dme aupres de luy, comme je croy qu'il le fera." Incontinent monsieur le marquis de Pescayre d£puta gardes aupres dudit sieur de Bayard, et leur commanda qu'elles ne bou- geassent d'aupres de luy, et, sur la vie, ne l'abandonnassent qu'il ne fust mort, et qu'il ne luy fust fait aucun outrage, ainsi qu'est la coustume d'aucune racaille de soldats qui ne scavent encore les courtoisies de la guerre, ou bien des grands marauts de goujats qui sont encore pires. Cela se voit souvent aux armies. II fut done tendu a monsieur de Bayard un beau pavilion, pour se reposer ; et puis, ayant demeure' en cet estat deux ou trois heures, il mourut ; et les Espagnols enleverent son corps avec tous les honneurs du monde en l'dglise, et par l'espace de 1 Beaucoup de grisons et peu de Bayards. FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 635 deux jours luy fut fait service tres-solemnel ; et puis les Espag- nols le rendirent a ses serviteurs qui l'emmenerent en Dauphine, a Grenoble ; et le, receu par la cour de Parlement et une infinite de monde, qui l'allerent recueillir et luy firent de beaux et grands services en la grande eglise de Nostre-Dame, et puis fut portd en terre a deux lieues de la, chez les Minimes. Michel de Montaigne. Michel de Montaigne was born in Perigord, the 28th of February, 1533, of a family originally English. Brought up during his younger years with village children, and among persons of the most humble condition, in order that he might become familiar with the class which bears the heaviest burden of society, Montaigne afterward received, under the paternal roof, a thorough and judicious education, which enabled his mind to follow the dictates of his nature. With the eye of a profound observer he saw the progress of the religious revolution made by Calvin and Luther at the moment that Copernicus overthrew all former notions in the system of the universe. He witnessed the last years of Francis I, and the severities of the latter and son against the Protestants. The reign of Charles IX, the intrigues of Catharine de' Medici, the massacre of Saint Bartholo- mew, the League, the assassination of Henry III, the rise and fall of the Guises, and the thirty years of civil war, hardly extinguished by the accession of Henry IV, had all passed before him. Rome itself never offered to the observing mind of Tacitus anything so instructive as the manners, opinions, and events of France contemporary with Montaigne. Neither can the writings of Tacitus, nor of any other, be compared with his Essays in the knowledge of man which he has por- trayed with the utmost truth and exactitude. Montaigne taught us to doubt before Descartes ; he endeavored to reform the human understanding before Bacon, and may, with these great men, be considered the restorer of philosophy in Europe. He died the 13th of September, 1592. MEPRIS DE LA MORT. Notre religion n'a point eu de plus asseure' fondement humain, que le mepris de la vie. Non seulement le discours de la raison nous y appelle, car pourquoy craindrions-nous de perdre une chose, laquelle perdue ne peult estre regrettde ? Mais aussi puisque nous sommes menacez de tant de facons de mort, n'y a-il pas plus de mal a les craindre toutes qu'a en soutenir une ? Que chault il quand ce soit, puisqu'elle est inevitable ? A celui qui disoit h. Socrates : Les trente tyrans t'ont condemn^ a la mort ; " Et nature, eulx," respondit il. Quelle sottise de nous peiner, sur le poinct du passage a l'exemption de toute peine ! Comme notre naissance nous apporta la naissance de toutes choses ; aussi nous apportera la mort de toutes choses, nostre mort. Parquoy c'est pareille folie de pleurer de ce que d'icy a cent ans nous ne vivrons pas, que de pleurer de ce que nous ne vivions pas il y a cent ans. La mort est origine d'une aultre vie ; ainsi pleurasmes nous, ainsi nous cousta il d'entrer en cette cy, ainsi nous despouillasmes nous de nostre ancien voile en y entrant. Rien ne peult estre grief, qui n'est qu'une fois. Est-ce raison de craindre si longtemps 636 APPENDIX. chose de si brief temps ? Le long temps vivre et le peu de temps vivre, est rendu tout un par la mort : car le long et le court n'est point aux choses qui ne sont plus. Aristote diet qu'il y a des petites bestes sur la riviere de Hypanis, qui ne vivent qu'un jour; celle qui meurt a. huict heures du matin, elle meurt en ieunesse ; celle qui meurt a cinq heures du soir, meurt en sa decrepitude. Qui de nous ne se mocque de veoir mettre en consideration d'heur ou de malheur ce moment de durde ? Le plus et le moins en la nostre si nous la comparons a l'6ternit£, ou encores a la duree des montaignes, des rivieres, des estoiles, des arbres, et mesme d'aul- cuns animaulx, n'est pas moins ridicule. We here close the list of specimens of Early French which, like those we have seen of Early English, include every class of literature of the time, from the middle of the ninth to the end of the sixteenth century, arranged in chronological order, that the student, in comparing them with the specimens of Anglo-Norman French found in another chapter, may notice the steady progress of the former and the gradual decline of the latter. The differ- ent forms which words assume in both — the result of dia- lectic differences at various times and in various localities — will likewise account for the difference of form we find in many words which French and English have in com- mon, and which, in some instances, is such as to disguise, though never obliterate entirely, the features which mark their real origin. Words, on the other hand, which Modern English and French have retained alike, or nearly so, often present different shades of meaning, owing to causes and circumstances sometimes involving nice his- torical questions, for which the study of these words gen- erally offers the best solution. Language, being ever in flux and flow, and, for nations to which letters are still strange, existing only as a sound, we might be induced to believe would prove the least trustworthy of all vehicles whereby the knowledge of the past has reached our present. In actual fact, however, it has not proved so at all. It is the main, oftentimes the only, connecting link between the two — an ark riding above the waternoods that have swept away or submerged every other landmark and memorial of bygone ages and vanished generations of men. We have had, elsewhere, occasion to notice the marvellous vitality of local names, and their great value in historical investigations ; equally FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 637 conservative are the powers of common names ; and so well is history in most of them imbedded, that we may continually trace in speech the record of customs and states of society which have now passed so entirely away as to survive in words alone. Seeing, then, that language contains so faithful a record of the past, we shall not err if we regard it as the instrument which, better than any other, marks permanently the rise and fall of a nation's life. To study a people's language, especially in its pecu- liarities, the form of its words, their modified meanings, will be to study the people themselves, and to study them to best advantage — there where they present themselves to us under fewest disguises — not only as they are, but even as they have been. Applied to the English people and to the English lan- guage, we can not better conclude our remarks than by quoting here the words of one of England's ripe scholars who, in a few brilliant sentences, has eloquently summed up the leading features of a subject the details of which we have endeavored, in this work, at some length to ex- plain : " You know," he says, 1 " how the geologist is able from the different strata and deposits, primary, secondary, or tertiary, succeeding one another, which he meets, to arrive at a knowledge of the successive physical changes through which a region has passed ; how he is, so to say, in a con- dition to preside at those past changes, to measure the forces that were at work to produce them, and almost to indicate their date. Now, with such a language as the English before us, bearing as it does the marks and foot- prints of great revolutions profoundly impressed upon it, we may carry on moral and historical researches precisely analogous to his. Here, too, are strata and deposits, not of gravel and chalk, sandstone and limestone, but of Celt- ic, Latin, Low German, Danish, Norman words, and then once more Latin and French, with slighter intrusions from many other quarters : and any one with skill to analyze the language might, up to a certain point, re-create for himself the history of the people speaking that language, might with tolerable accuracy appreciate the divers ele- ments out of which that people was made up, in what pro- portion these were mingled, and in what succession they followed, one upon the other. 1 R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words, 638 APPENDIX. " Would he trace, for example, the relation in which the English and Norman occupants of this land stood to one another? An account of this, in the main as accurate as it would be certainly instructive, might be drawn from an intelligent study of the contributions which they have severally made to the English language, as bequeathed to us jointly by them both. Supposing all other records to have perished, we might still work out and almost recon- struct the history by these aids ; even as now, when so many documents, so many institutions survive, this must still be accounted the most important, and that of which the study will introduce us, as no other can, into the in- nermost heart and life of large periods of our history. " Nor, indeed, is it hard to see why the language must contain such instruction as this, when we a little realize to ourselves the stages by which it has reached us in its present shape. There was a time when the languages which the English and the Norman severally spoke, existed each by the side of, but unmingled with, the other ; one that of the small dominant class, the other that of the great body of the people. By degrees, however, with the recon- ciliation and partial fusion of the two races, the two lan- guages effected a transaction ; one indeed prevailed over the other, but at the same time received a multitude of the words of that other into its own bosom. At once there would exist duplicates for many things. But as in popular speech two words will not long exist side by side to designate the same thing, it became a question how the relative claims of the English and Norman word should adjust themselves, which should remain, which should be dropped ; or, if not dropped, should be transferred to some other object, or express some other relation. It is not, of course, meant that this was ever, formally proposed, or as something to be settled by agreement; but practically one was to be taken and one left. Which was it that should maintain its ground? Evidently, where a word was often on the lips of one race, its equivalent seldom on those of the other, where it intimately cohered with the whole manner of life of one, was only remotely in con- tact with that of the other, where it laid strong hold on one, and only slight on the other, the issue could not be doubtful. In several cases the matter was simpler still : it was not that one word expelled the other, or that rival claims had to be adjusted ; but that there never had ex- isted more than one word, the thing which that word FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 639 noted having been quite strange to the other section of the nation. " Here is the explanation of the assertion made just now — namely, that we might almost reconstruct our history, so far as it turns upon the- Norman conquest, by an analy- sis of our present language, a mustering of its words in groups, and a close observation of the nature and charac- ter of those which the two races have severally contribu- ted to it. Thus we should confidently conclude that the Norman was the ruling race, from the noticeable fact that all the words of dignity, state, honor, and pre-eminence, with one remarkable exception (to be adduced presently), descend to us from them — ' sovereign,' ' sceptre,' ' throne,' ' realm,' ' royalty,' ' homage,' ' prince,' ' duke,' ' count ' (' earl ' indeed is Scandinavian, though he must borrow his ' countess ' from the Norman), ' chancellor,' ' treasurer,' 'palace,' 'castle,' 'hall,' 'dome,' and a multitude more. At the same time the one remarkable exception of ' king ' would make us, even did we know nothing of the actual facts, suspect that the chieftain of this ruling race came in not upon a new title, not as overthrowing a former dy- nasty, but claiming to be in the rightful line of its succes- sion; that the true continuity of the nation had not, in fact, any more than in word, been entirely broken, but survived, in due time to assert itself anew. " And yet, while the statelier superstructure of the language, almost all articles of luxury, all having to do with the chase, with chivalry, with personal adornment, are Norman throughout ; with the broad basis of the lan- guage, and therefore of the life, it is otherwise. The great features of nature, sun, moon, and stars, earth, water, and fire ; the divisions of time ; three out of the four seasons, spring, summer, and winter ; the features of natural scenery ; the words used in earliest childhood ; the simpler emotions of the mind ; all the prime social relations, father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister — these are of native growth and unborrowed. ' Palace ' and ' castle ' may have reached us from the Norman, but to the Saxon we owe far dearer names, the ' house,' the ' roof,' the ' home,' the ' hearth.' His ' board,' too, and often proba- bly it was no more, has a more hospitable sound than the ' table ' of his lord. His sturdy arms turn the soil ; he is the ' boor,' the ' hind,' the ' churl ' ; or, if his Norman mas- ter has a name for him, it is one which on his lips becomes more and more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the 640 APPENDIX, ' villain.' The instruments used in cultivating the earth, the ' flail,' the 'plow,' the ' share,' the ' rake,' the ' scythe,' the ' harrow,' the ' wain,' the ' sickle,' the ' spade,' the ' sheaf,' the ' barn,' are expressed in his language ; so, too, the main products of the earth, as wheat, rye, oats, bere, grass, flax, hay, straw, weeds ; and no less the names of domestic animals. You will remember, no doubt, how in the matter of these Wamba, the Saxon jester in Ivanhoe, plays the philologer, having noted that the names of al- most all animals, so long as they are alive, are Saxon, but when dressed and prepared for food become Norman — a fact, he would intimate, not very wonderful ; for the Saxon hind had the charge and labor of tending and feeding them, but only that they might appear on the table of his Norman lord. Thus ' ox,' ' steer,' ' cow,' are Saxon, but ' beef ' Norman ; ' calf ' is Saxon, but ' veal ' Norman ; ' sheep ' is Saxon, but ' mutton ' Norman ; so it is severally with ' swine ' and ' pork,' ' deer ' and ' venison,' ' fowl ' and ' pullet.' ' Bacon,' the only flesh which perhaps ever came within the hind's reach, is the single exception. Putting all this together, with much more of the same kind, which has only been indicated here, we should certainly gather, that while there are manifest tokens preserved in our lan- guage of the Saxon having been for a season an inferior and even an oppressed race, the stable elements of Eng- lish life, however overlaid for a while, had still made good their claim to be the solid groundwork of the after nation as of the after language ; and to the justice of this conclu- sion all other historic records, and the present social con- dition of England, consent in bearing witness." INDEX a. Norse root in local names, meaning " an island," 177. Abbaye de la Bataille, 229. Abelard, 502. Academie Francaise, 514-516 ; a simi- lar institution for England proposed by Swift, 367. Adam Davie, 336. Adenet le Roy, 501. afen. See avon. Addison, 367, 368. Agricola, 39 ; his military skill, and beneficial government of Britain, 41 ; his endeavors to introduce Roman civilization among the Britons, 55. Agriculture among the Gauls in Brit- ain, 10 ; among the Anglo-Saxons, 102. Alamanni, 72, 548. Alani, 53, 54, 85. Alben, 3. Albion, 4. Alcuin, 138, 141, 142, 159, 162, 163, 246. Aldhelm, 115, 116. Alfred, 152 ; his struggle with the Danes, 153-155 ; his endeavors to rescue his dominions from illiteracy and ignorance, 156—158. all, Gaelic root in English river names, meaning " white," 122. Allectus, 46. Allemand, 548. Alphabet, Roman, 137 ; Runic, 133 ; Ogham, 135 ; Mceso - Gothic, 133 ; Irish, 138, 139 ; Anglo-Saxon, 139 ; black-letter, 139 ; Old English, 378- 3 So. am. See ham. Ambrosius Aurelius, 58. Ancren Riwle, 397-402. Anderida, sack of, 100. Aneurin, 31, 61. Angles, 81 ; only incidentally men- tioned by Tacitus, 81 ; placed by 41 Ptolemy on the middle Elbe, 81 ; the name not derived from the An- gulus in Sleswick, 82. Anglo-Norman French, 252 ; its growth and decline, 253-268 ; specimens of, 269-291. Anglo-Norman local and patronymic names, 301, 306, 307, 312, 313, 317- 320. Anglo-Saxon, the name of, 371—373 ; the language a conglomerate of va- rious Teutonic dialects, 167; its gram- mar, 168, 350, 353-356 ; its litera- ture, TO9-117, 168, 169; its alpha- bet, 139. Specimens of Anglo-Saxon language, 64, 157, 170, 171,383, 386. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 60, 64, 65, 99, 100, 298, 381-384. Anglo-Saxon roots in English local names, 185, 196. Anglo-Saxons. See Saxons. Angrivari, 79. Animals, sacred, 30 ; restrictions as to the killing or eating certain class of, 31 ; worship of, 32 ; surnames de- rived from, 308, 309. Anselm, 210, 247. Aries, 552, 553. Arminius, 79. ard, Gaelic root in English local names, meaning "high, great," 124. Armorica, 458, 532 ; dialect of, see Bas-Breton. Arthur, 59. ap, Welsh prefix in family names, 191. Aquitaine, 457, 458, 484, 552. Art of printing, 360, 365. Arts, 524 ; arts schools, 330. Asega-boc, 68. Asser, the biographer of King Alfred, 128, 150, 156, 204, 330, 382. Athelstan III, song on his victory at Brunanburh, ill, 112. Atrebates, 35. Attacotti, 51, 52. 642 INDEX. Attuarii, 75, 76. Aubigny, Agrippa d', 365. Augustin, 105 ; his mission to England, 106 ; his conversion to Christianity of King Ethelbert and followers, 107. Augustine friars, 425. Augustus, 34, 460. avon, Welsh root in English river names, meaning " water," 120 ; in French river names, 540. ay, Norse root in English local names, meaning " an island," 177. Aymon de Varennes, 496. Baccalarius, 519-522. Baccalaureus, 526. Bachelette, 525. Bachelier, 521. Bachelor, 519-526. Bacon, 327, 366. Badon (Mons Badonicus), siege of, 61. bal, balla, bally, Erse and Gaelic roots, meaning " an inclosure," 187, 317. Balzac, Jean de, 512^ ban, Erse and Gaelic root in English river names, meaning " white," 122. Banquet, 114. Baodicea, revolt of, 39. Barbarian, 461, 472. Barbour, John, 361, 440-442. Bards, 2, 15, 25, 26, 59, 535. Baron, 485. Barrows, of Neolithic tribes, 18 ; of Bronze Age, 19. Bartas, Guillaume du, 365, 509. Bartun, 102, 186. Bas-Breton or Brezonec, 21, 464, 543 ; similarity to the Welsh, 23, 24, 532 ; specimen of, 543. Basques, 15. Basselin, Olivier, 623. Batavi, 36, 43 ; their bravery and faith as Roman allies, 75. Battle of Hastings, 226-228. Battel Abbey, 229 ; Great Roll of, 306. Baxter, 367. Bayeux, 80 ; Saxon settlement near, 80, 207, 208, 549 ; tapestry of, 207, 229, 549. bee, beck, beek, Norse and Dutch roots in English and French river names, meaning " a stream," 122, 177, 550. Bede, 63, 64, 103, 106, 109, 138, 140, 382. Belga:, 2, 5, 8, 35, 458. Bellay, du, 365, 505. Beltain fires, 29. ben, Gaelic root in English mountain names, meaning " head," 123. Benedictines, 159, 330, 486. Beneoit de Sainte-More, 208, 271. Beowulf, epic poem of, 92. Bersekir, 149. Bigot, 481. Bill of dinner-fare, A. D. 1452, 446. Birds, surnames derived from, 308, 309. bceuf, beuf, bue, Norman roots in French local names, derived from the Danish by, which see, 549, 550. Boniface, 159. Boomerang, 9. Boor, 466. Borough. See burgh. bosc, Dutch and Norse root in French local names, meaning " a grove, a wood, a forest," 551. Bourgeois, 528. Bourges, 459. Bragi, the Norse god of song, 185. Brant6me, Pierre de, 633-635. Brennus, 457. Bretons, 18, 63, 540-543 ; their gradual retrocession westward, 541. Brezonec, or Breyzad. See Bas-Breton. Brigantes, 14, 41. Britain, origin of the name, 3 ; pre- historic, 15-20 ; Gaulish settlements in, see Gauls ; Gaelic settlements in, see Gaels ; Roman conquest of, 34 ; end of Roman rule, 54 ; Britain full of Teutonic settlements, 57, 71 ; its wealth and commerce attract the continental pirates, 72 ; early Saxon colonization of, 73, 96 ; engagement of foreign soldiers as auxiliaries in its wars against the Picts and Scots, 59 ; time of the commencement of Saxon hostilities uncertain, 95 ; par- ticipation of foreign residents in hos- tile enterprises of the Saxons, 97 ; the invasion slow and gradual, 97 ; condition of the British natives under Saxon rule, 98. British tribes, 1-20 ; dialects, 23; dwell- ings, 6 ; farming, 10 ; a, homestead, 10 ; commerce, 6, 35, 71 ; religion, 26 ; Druidism, 27, 32. Brittany, 21, 532, 540-543 ; British exiles in, 63 ; its language resembles the Welsh, 23, 464, 540, 542 ; Celtic literature in, 541 ; specimen of the dialect of, 543 ; old superstitions sur- viving in, 18, 30, 533, 534. Bronze Age, 16 ; tribes in Britain, 19. Browne, Sir Thomas, 367, 369. brougk. .See burgh. Bructeri, 75, 76. Brunetto Latini, 502. INDEX. 643 bin. See beta/. Burgess, 528. burgh, Teutonic root in local names, meaning " a small fortified height," 187, 466, 528. Burgundians, 72, 196, 467, 468, 493, 495. 49§- Burgundy, 484. bury. See burgh. by, Danish root in English local names, meaning " 1 dwelling, a farm, a vil- lage, a town," 178, 179, 180, 192 ; in French local names, 550. Caedmon, 109 ; character of his poetry, no, 113. caer. See caster. Caesar, his conquest of Gaul, 458 ; his description of the Gaulish tribes in Britain, 5 ; of British ships, 12 ; of the Gaulish religion, 27 ; his pretext for invading Britain, 12 ; his con- quest of the island underrated by the leading Romans, 34 ; its results, 35. Caledonia, 3. Caledonians, 15, 42, 43. Calvin, 365, 508. cam, Welsh root in English river names, meaning "crooked," 122. Cambria, 3. Cambrians, 2, 4, 42, 57, 59. Cambridge University, 330, 331, 392, 502, 579. Camps, Roman, the origin of many English cities, 44 ; ancient local names derived from them, see cas- ter. Camulodunum, capture of, 36. Cannenefati, 78. Cantii, 5. Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie, 500, 602- 604. Capellani, 6. car. See caster. Caracalla, 46, 461. Caractacus, 36. Carausius, revolt of, 46. Carmelite friars, 425. Carolinian psalms, 93. Cartismandua, 14, 41. caster, caer, car, cester, Chester, Latin roots in English local names, 130, 131. Catechism, the maister of Oxford's, 444-446. Catherine de Medicis, 511, 556. Catigern, 60, 69. Catti. See Chatti. Cattle, British, 10. Catuvellaunian confederacy, 6. Catyeuchlany, 6. Causativeness, changes of words aris- ing from, 344, 345. Cave-men, 2, 17. Caxton, William, 340, 361, 450-452. cefn, Welsh root in English mountain names, meaning " back, ridge," 123. Celtic, migration into the British Isles, I ; language and dialects, 20-24, 530-543 ; their gradual extinction in England, 20 ; in France, 541 ; mythol- ogy, 25-30 ; common names in the English vocabulary, 105, 117, 118 ; in the French vocabulary, 530-539 ; local names in England, 118-125 ; in France, 540, 541 ; names of rivers, ng, 540, 541; of mountains, 123; of valleys, 125 ; of dwellings, 124 ; of inclosures, 125 ; of churches, 125 ; of hill fortresses, 124, 541. Celtic literature, 21-24, 54 1 ; Celtic spirit largely diffused into English poetry, 117 ; traces of Celtic influ- ence on French grammar, 542 ; Celt- ic population in England, 126, 127 ; in France, 541, 542. Celtomania, 543. Celts, in Britain, see British ; in Gaul, 458, etc. ; gradual retroces- sion of the Celts in England, 126 ; in France, 542. cenn, Gaelic root in English mountain names, meaning "head," 123. Centena, 103. cester. See caster. Changes, phonetic, of words among unlettered people, 344, 345. Chanson de Roland, 69, 479, 500, 501, 604, 605. Chariots, scythed, 9. Charlemagne, 81, 141, 145, 159, 160, 161, 482, 486, 553. Charles the Bald, 480, 482, 486. Charles the Simple, 481. Chatti, 75, 81, 175. Chattuari, 75, 76. Chaucer, Jeffrey, 263, 266, 339-342, _ O61, 4 39 -433- Chauci, 71, 79, 80. Chester. See caster. Chevalier, 218. Chivalry, 490, 491. Christian, church in Britain, 50, 51 ; hymns crowding out heathen songs, 110. Christianity in Britain, tolerated by Hadrian, protected by Constantius, and recognized as the religion of 644 INDEX. state by Constantine, 50 ; not preached to the Saxons before the mission of Augustin, 106 ; first preached in Kent, 107 ; conversion of Ethelbert and followers, 108 ; Christianity the cradle of English literature, 116 ; Christianity in Gaul, 464 ; conversion of Clovis and fol- lowers, 469, 470. Christians, in Britain, classed by Ha- drian as worshipers of Serapis, 50. Churl, 466, 572. Circus, games in the Roman, 37 ; in- troduced into Gaul, 461. Claims of descent from animals, 31. Clan, 118, 191. Claudius, 36, 37, 460, 461. clith, Gaelic root in English river names, meaning *' strong," 122. Clochans, Irish, 18. Cloth, Gaulish, 7. Clothilda, queen of Clovis, 469. Clovis, or Hlodowig, 76, 77, 469, 470. Cockney, 336. Codex Argenteus, go. Coins, ancient British, 56 ; ancient Gaulish, 552. College degrees, 524, 525. College studies in the Middle Ages, 524-. Colonia, 130. Colonies, Friesian, in Denmark, 78 ; in Britain, 96 ; Saxon, in Britain, 96, 185-196; in Gaul, 80 ; Norse, in England, 174-185 ; in France, 201-213, 549-551 ; Flemish, in Pem- brokeshire, 182. Colonization, character of the Teu- tonic, in Britain, 191 ; of the Scan- dinavian, in England, 192. combe, Celtic and Saxon root in Eng- lish local names, meaning "a cup- shaped depression among the hills," 189. Comines, Philippe de, 625. Commerce between Gaul and Britain, 12, 36, 71 ; between Gaul and Rome, 459, 4°°- Commius, 36. Condition of the Britons under Ro- man rule, 38, 39 ; under Saxon rule, 97 -106 ; of the Saxons under Danish rule, 152, 156 ; of the English peo- ple during the century preceding the Norman Conquest, 197-199 ; af- ter the Norman Conquest, 231-243. Conquest, Roman, of Gaul, 459 ; of Britain, 34 ; Saxon, of Britain, 57 ; Danish, of England, 143 ; Norman, of Neustria, 201 ; of England, 204 ; various conquests compared, 243- 245- Constantine the Great, 48, 72. Constantine (the soldier), 54. Constantius Chlorus, 47, 48, 72. Construction of Roman walls, 44. Coral, ancient use of, for ornaments, 35- Coranians, or Coritani, 5, 72. Cornavii, 13. Cornish dialect, extinct, 21. Corruption of words from mistakes or misconception, 344, 345. Cotgrave, French-English dictionary (1611), 267, 514. Count of the Saxon shore, 49, 52, 73, 80, 96. Court of Dens, 188. Covini, 9. craig, Cymric root, meaning " a rock," 118. Crests and emblems, 31, 69. Crocus, or Hrocus, 48, 72. Cromlechs, 16, 25. Cruithnigh, 42. Culdees, their ecclesiastic establish- ments in Scotland and Ireland, 117. Cunobelin, 55. Curraghs, 13. Cymry, meaning of the name, 3 ; their settlements in Wales, 3 ; in Scot- land, 123, 317. Cynewulf, 101, 115. Cyttiau y Gwyddelad, 3. dal, dol, Celtic roots in English local names, meaning " a plain," 124. dal, jiael, dale, Dutch and Norse roots in English local names, meaning " a valley," 124, 177, 551. Damnonians, 11 ; their civilization and commerce, 12 ; their alliance with the Veneti the immediate cause or pretext of Caesar's invasion of Britain, 12 ; Caesar's description of their ships, 12. Danelagh, 179, 180. Danes, known by various names, 143 ; their origin and continental homes, 143 ; their national character and piratical associations, 144-149 ; their early expeditions against England, 150 ; nearly all England at one time overran by Danish armies, 152 ; their constant wars and permanent settlements in England prejudicial to the formations of national charac- ter, 155, 196. INDEX. 645 Danish influence on the national lan- guage, 156, 173, 174. 343, 349, 351 ; specimen of Danish language, 94 ; English local names indicating ' original Danish settlements, 174- 1S3 ; Danish surnames in England, 314 ; Danish settlements in France, 549- Dark prehistoric races, 15 ; traces of, in the British Isles, 16. Dean Colet, 364. del, old Friesian suffix in local names, meaning ""a valley," 177. Demetse, 13. Difference between written and spoken language, 167, 347, 559"5°3 ; be- tween classical and popular Latin, see Latin. den, Celto-Saxon root in English local names, meaning " a deep-wooded ra- vine, a swine pasture," 188. Descartes, Rene, 513. Deuce, origin of the name, 1S4. Devil, legends attaching to places named after him, 1S4. dhu, Welsh and Gaelic root in Eng- lish river names, meaning " black," 122. Dialect as distinguished from " patois," 496, 497. Dialectic differences among the an- cient Greeks, 497, 498 ; among the ancient Romans, 559, 560, 562, 563 ; among the Celtic nations, 21-24, 458, 542 ; among the Teutonic and Scandinavian nations, 89-95, 167 ; among the Anglo-Saxons, 89, 164, 348, 351, 352 ; in mediaeval Eng- land, 126, 196, 266, 325, 335, 341, 343. 348, 353, 361, 363, 377 ; in mediaeval France, 492, 495, 497. Dieppe, 550. din, dinas, dins, Welsh root, meaning " a hill fortress," 124. Diocletian, 47 ; his scheme of govern- ment, 47 ; amended by Constantine the Great, 48. Dismemberment of the empire of Charlemagne, 484. Division of Roman Britain into five provinces, 4S. Divitiacus, 5, 27. Dobuni, 13. dol. See da/. Dolmens, 17. Domestic life in ancient Britain, 10. Domesday-book, 186, 241, 250, 274, 306. Dominican friars, 425. don, Saxon corruption of the Celtic dun, which see. Donder. See Tlwr. dour. See dur. Druidism, in Britain, 25 ; in Gaul, 26 ; in Scotland and Ireland, 28 ; origin of, 27 ; theories about, 27 ; doctrines of, 29 ; its influence on the literature of romance, 25 ; relics of the old creed, 29. Druids{ 17, 23, 530; the British, 28; their ceremonies and human sacri- fices, 29 ; the Gaulish, 28, 530 ; their acquaintance with the doctrines of Pythagoras, and their belief in an Elysium, 30 ; Roman opinions of them, 30. Dryden, 367. dun, Celtic root in English local names, meaning " a height, a fortified height," 124, 187, 291, 541. Dunelm. See Durham. dunum, Celto-Latin root in the name of British and Gaulish forts, 124, 541- Dunholm. See Durham. dur. See dwr. Durham, 191. Durotriges, n ; their commerce and general civilization, 12. Dutch, origin of the name, 67 ; Low Dutch, 91, 92, 93, 167 ; the ancient Low Dutch the national speech of the Salian Franks and of the people of Kent, 68, 107 ; specimens of Modern Dutch, 94, 165 ; Dutch and English compared, 165, 166 ; words which Dutch and English have in common, 398-400, 430-440 ; High Dutch, Old High Dutch, 91. Dwellings, ancient British, 6. dwr, Celtic root in English and French river names, meaning " water," 120, 541- Dykes, in Holland, 74, 189 ; English local names derived from, 190. Easter, 109. Eating crow, 31. Eburacum (York), 44. Eburones, 75. Edda, the poetic-and the prose, 93. Education, 55, 117, 137, 138, 157-164, 198, 210, 246-249, 330, 486-490, 5:3, 524. 525- Edward the Confessor, 20 ; his long residence among the Normans, 199, 213 ; his election to the English throne, 214 ; his re-establishment of 646 INDEX. the Old English laws, 215 ; his Nor- man favorites, 216 ; his reception of Duke William of Normandy, 217 ; his apprehensions as regard the lat- ter's ambitious designs, 221 ; his death, 222. Edward III, 260, 286. Egbert, 140, 142. Eginhard, 486. Elizabethan Age, 365, 366. em, en. See ham. Enameling, art of, known among the Ancient Britons, 35. England. See Btitain, Gaels, Gauls, Roman Conquest of Btitain, Angh- Saxons. All tribal denominations abolished by Egbert, and the names of England and English for the country and its inhabitants pro- claimed by royal decree, 140, 141 ; probable reasons for the measure, 142 ; Danish invasions of, see Danes; Norman conquest of, 214-251. English language, the, 366, 376 ; classified as a member of the Low- Dutch division of the Teutonic languages, 370 ; reasons for this classification, 370, 371 ; character of the language in its earliest form, 347 ; difference between the spoken and written languages in the seventh and eighth centuries, 347, 348 ; the written language an anti- quated conglomerate of various Teu- tonic dialects, 167 ; dialectic differ- ences involving grammatical inaccu- racies, 348, 352 ; great license of lan- guage and of spelling found in Anglo- Saxon writings, 352 ; Anglo-Saxon grammar, 168, 350, 353-356 ; Anglo- Saxon literature, 169 ; specimens of Anglo-Saxon language, 64, 157, 170, I7 1 , 383-386 ; origin and meaning of the term Anglo-Saxon, 371-373 ; Cel- tic influences, 118, 126, 127, 137, 138, 139 ; they are more literary than lexi- cal, 117 ; Danish influences, 151, 152, 155, 170, 196. 348, 349, 351 I infu- sion of Danish words and phrases, 174, 349 ; the intermingling of English and Scandinavian dialects destruc- tive to the ancient forms of grammar, 348 ; the Danish mode of laying the accent on or near the initial syllable causes the concluding syllable to fall into obscurity, and involves the loss of inflections, 349 ; the use of prepo- sitions in combination with inflec- tions a common practice found even in writing before the Norman con- quest, 35c ; Norman influences, 252- 268 ; the infusion of French words and phrases begins immediately after the Norman conquest, 296 ; a smattering of French becomes a ne- cessity to all in direct contact with the Normans, 255, 296 ; the teach- ers are all French monks and clergy- men, and the only languages taught are French and Latin, 247, 253, 254, 298 ; widespread disintegration of the native language after the genera- tion who had seen the arrival of the Normans had died out, 321 ; the his- tory of the vernacular English al- most a blank for a century and a half after the Norman conquest, 292 ; changes in the language when it reappears in written form, 294 ; the ancient style of writing English is lost and obsolete, and the new language represents the various dia- lects as spoken in different parts of the country, 351, 352 ; French words begin more and more to obtrude themselves, 336-339 ; after the loss of Normandy, the blending of fami- lies and interests leads to the blend- ing of idioms, 322 ; influences which tend to that result, 324 ; business and fashion, 325 ; the clergy, 326- 329 ; the university, 330, 331 ; the knight, 332 ; the lawyer, 332 ; the literature of translation especially introduces many French words and phrases, 334, 335 ; during the four- teenth century the mixed language becomes of general use, 336-339 ; in 1362 Edward III authorizes the use of English as then current in the trial of civil suits, 260 ; the new lan- guage begins to be taught in the schools, 263, 342 ; the language of Chaucer, 339-342 ; difference be- tween words of Norman origin and French words of later introduction, 346 ; changes which mark the trans- formation of the old speech of Eng- land into Modern English, 353-356; diversity of speech corresponding to differences of race and of locality, 126, 197, 266, 325, 335, 343, 348, 358 ; the introduction of the art of printing leads to a greater uniform- ity of language, 360 ; influence of the Renaissance and the Reforma- tion, 362-365 ; Frerch controversial INDEX. 647 pamphlets, translated into English, lead to an increased use of foreign terms, 366 ; the excessive use of French and Latin terms condemned by the best English writers, 367, 368 ; the Teutonic character of the English language but little affected by the vast number of foreign terms in its vocabulary, 371-376. English local and family names. See Names. English and French verses mixed, 283 ; English, French, and Latin verses mixed, 284, 285 ; English and Latin verses mixed, 428. Eostre, Anglican goddess, log. Erasmus, 364. Erigena (Scotus), 138, 246. Erin, 4. Erroneous use of the term "Anglo- Saxon " to designate Modem Eng- lish, 371, 372 ; of the term " Latin " to designate Anglo-Norman-French, 373. 374- esk, Celtic root in English and French river names, meaning " water," 121, 541- Ethnological map of the British Isles, opposite 196. Etruscans, 457. Estienne, Henri, 510, 512. etan, Euskarian suffix in local names, meaning " a district, a country," 2. Ethelbert, king of Kent, 107 ; con- verted to Christianity, 108. Etymology, philology, linguistics, 517- 519- Etymological dictionaries, 166, 455, 526. Euskarian origin of the name of " Brit- ain," 2. Evrard, 277. ey, Norse root in English and French local names, meaning "an island," 177, 55o. Fac-simile of the first page of a manu- script of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle preserved in the British Museum, 383- Fac-simile of a manuscript of the Oaths at Strasburg, A. D. 842, preserved in the Vatican Library at Rome, 601. Fair and dark races in Ireland and Scotland, 15, 16. Farming among the British Gauls, 10 ; among the Anglo-Saxons, 102. Fens, 5, 189. Feru-Bolg. See Fir-Bolgs. field, Teutonic suffix in English local names, 188. Filial and original Anglo-Saxon set- tlements, 192. Finn Mac Cumhal, Irish stories of, 26. Finnish tribes in Britain, 16 ; their physical appearance, 19 ; their peace- ful relations and incorporation with the earlier occupants of the island, 19 ; probable influence of their lan- guage upon the British Celtic, 20. Fir-Bolgs, 15, 315. Fish, local names and surnames de- rived from, 309. Flanders, emigrants from, into Britain, 5, 71. Flemish dialect, 92 ; colony in Pem- brokeshire, 182. fleet, suffix in English local names, in Dutch, vliet, in Norse, fliot, mean- ing "a flow of water, a small stream," 550. fleur, French suffix in local names, 550. fold, Teutonic suffix in English local names, meaning " a stall," 187. force, Norse suffix in English local names, meaning " a waterfall," 178. Fords, English local names derived from, 130, 175, 182. Forest, 319. France, Roman conquest of Gaul, 459 ; Gaul under Roman rule, 460-462, 473 ; foreign military colonies in the north of Gaul, 466 ; Burgundian, Frankish, and Visigothic invasions, 467 ; the Frankish conquest of Gaul, 470 ; the name of Franks gradually supersedes that of Gauls, or Gallo- Romans, and the name of France that of Gaul, 481 ; dismemberment of the empire of Charlemagne, 484 ; the new kingdom of France, 484, 485. Francis I, 5x1 Franciscans, 326, 327, 425. Franconia, 194. Franks, 467 ; not known to either Caesar or Tacitus, 76 ; first heard of in 241 A. D., 76 ; their physical ap- pearance, 77 ; their institutions and equipments of war, 77 ; Salian Franks, 76, 79, 80, 193, 194, 470 ; Ripuarian Franks, 76, 470 ; Ostra- sian Franks, 470, 477, 481, 482 ; their expeditions with the Saxons against Britain and down the coasts of Gaul, 76 ; Franks in Roman Britain, 46, 47. 5 2 > 77. J 93 i their conquest of 648 INDEX. Gaul, 76, 469-471 ; they gradually take the manners and language of the conquered Gauls, 470 ; Latin Franks and Teutonic Franks, 481 ; the name of Franks gradually su- persedes that of Gauls throughout all their dominions, 481 ; Franks and Romans compared, 472, 473. French language, the, 457 ; it origi- nates in the Roman Conquest of Gaul, which see ; Gaul becomes a Roman province, 459 ; spread of Latin throughout Gaul, 460-463 ; Latin schools and Gallic-Latin au- thors, 462 ; the establishment of Christianity assists in spreading the Latin language, 464 ; difference be- tween spoken and written Latin, see Latin j the former, in its vari- ous dialects, becomes still more mixed among the Celts of Gaul, 463-466 ; the Teutonic invasions, 467-473 ; the mixture of Teutonic dialects with those current in Gaul produces a jargon of which Latin is the base, and which, variously com- bined in various localities, becomes the popular speech of Gaul under the name of Lingua Romana Rus- tica, 474, 475 ; the Church sees its importance and prescribes its use in the pulpit, 475, 476 ; the term Ro- mance, 477 ; fragments of early ro- mance, 478, 479 ; Oath of Louis the German, 480, 600-602 ; it represents the language of Neustria in 842 A. D., 480 ; the Langue d"oil and the Lan- gue d'oc, 493, 494 ; principal dialects of the Langue d'oil, 495 ; the dialect of the He de France prevails as the national idiom, 496-498 ; Mediaeval French, 500 ; the revival of learn- ing, 504-508 ; the exclusive use of French in public and private trans- actions prescribed by royal decree, 1539 A. D., 506; the Renaissance, 508 ; the Reformation, 509 ; the Academic Ftancaise, 514, 515. Foreign influences in the formation of the French vocabulary : The Celtic influence, 462-466, 54 2 I common names of Celtic origin, 532-539 ; Celtic local names, 540-542 ; the Teutonic influence, 466-476, 543 ; common names of Teutonic origin, 545, 546 ; Teutonic local names, 193, 195, 548 ; Scandinavian local names, 549-551 ; the Italian influence, 511 ; common names of Italian origin, 556, 557 ; the Spanish influence, 512 ; common names of Spanish origin, 557 ; Greek words and phrases, 551-555 ; words of Semitic origin, 555, 556 ; words borrowed from mod- ern German, 547, 548 ; words from English sources, 557, 558 ; tendency of the French language not to retain words of modern foreign origin in its vocabulary, 559 ; the main bulk of its vocabulary and its leading features derived from the Latin, 559, 563-566 ; gradual changes which mark the transformation of Latin into French, 565-577 ; the article, 566, 567 ; the noun, 567 ; the ad- jective, 568; the verb, 569, 570; the adverb, 571 ; the prepositions a and de, 569 ; quantity and accent, 573—576 ; list of words illustrating the transformation of Latin terms into French, 578-589 ; principal characteristics of the French lan- guage, 590, 591. Friars, Augustine, Carmelite, Domini- can, Franciscan, 425. Friesians, 74, 75, 77-83 ; they origi- nally occupy the entire coast from the Scheldt to Denmark, 77, 78 ; in the third century they form a con- federacy with the Chauci, and yield the southern part of Holland to the Franks, 79 ; their love of independ- ence, 78 ; their dialect, 92, 164, 165 ; their early settlements in Yorkshire, 96, 190. Frisia minor, 78. Frisiavoni, 78. Froissart, Jehan, 532, 620-622. Frontinus, 41. Fruit, surnames derived from, 308. Futhorc, 132. Gaels, Gadhels, Gwyddyls, I, 4, 11 ; their settlements in western and northern Britain, 13-16 ; their lan- guage, 21 ; their religion, 26, 27 ; their human sacrifices, 29. Gaimar, Geoffroi, 274, 323, 382. Galatia, Celtic idiom of, 21, 457, 464. Gastronomy, old English, 447. Gaul, Roman conquest of, 459-463 ; Frankish conquest of, 469-475. Gauls, 457-459; their early settle- ments in Britain, 4 ; their state of civilization, 6 ; their dwellings, 6 ; a chief's house, 6 ; their physical ap- pearance, dress, and ornaments, 7 ; equipment in war and in peace, 8, INDEX. 649 9 ; agriculture, horses, cattle, 10 ; domestic life, 10 ; their mode of reckoning time, 27 ; their religion and human sacrifices, 27-29 ; their arts, 35 ; their commerce and silver coinage, 36 ; their condition under Roman rule, 38-49; their final in- dependence, 54 ; later dissensions between Gauls and Cambrians, 57. garth, Norse root in English and French local names, meaning " an inclosure," 186, 549. garw, Welsh root in English river names, meaning "rough," 122. Gauter de Bibblesworfhe, his Anglo- Norman grammar, 282. Genesis and Exodus, version of, 403. Geoffrey of Monmouth, his fabulous account of the origin of the English conquest, 70. Gerefa, 77, 103. German auxiliaries in the Roman ar- mies, 36, 43, 48. German, 91, 94 ; modem German words in the French vocabulary to be distinguished from the old Teu- tonic of the Franks, 546-548. Gerontius, treason of, 54. Gibbon, the vast amount of foreign terms used by, 368, 369. Gildas, 59 ; his account of the Saxon invasions of Britain, 61-63. gill, Norse roots in English local names, meaning " a ravine," 178. Godwin, father of Edith, queen of Ed- ward the Confessor, 214, 217. Gothic stock of languages, 91. Goths, 8g, 468. Gower, John, 288,339, 4 2 &> 4 2 9- Grammar, Anglo-Saxon, 168, 350, 353- 356 ; as taught in the Middle Ages, 161, 486-490 ; grammar schools, 163. Gratian, 53, 552. Gregory the Great, Pope, 105 ; sends Augustin as a missionary to Britain, 106 ; his curious letter of introduc- tion to the Frankish kings Theode- bert and Theodoric, 106 ; his views on Latin grammar, 478. Gossamer, 185. Greek colony of Massilia (Marseille), 457. 459. 55 1 ! ancient Greek dia- lects, 497, 498 ; French words and phrases derived from the Greek, 551- 555- Guanacum, 7. Guichard de Beaulieu, 278. Guienne, 484. Guillaume Herman, 277. 43 Guorteyrn, British Chief of Chiefs, 58 ; his enlistment of foreign soldiers as auxiliaries, 59, 97. Guthrum, 154, 180. gwy or wy, Welsh root in English river names, meaning " water," 121. Hadrian, summoned to Britain, 42 ; his campaigns, 43, 44. Hadrian's wall, 45 ; its course still traceable by local names, 131. Halleluia victory, 58. ham, Teutonic root in English, French, West-German, Friesian, Dutch, and Belgian local names, meaning "an inclosure," 190 ; its modified forms are hem, heem, heim, home, han, hen, am, em, en, am, um, 190, 191, 193, 474. 548. Hame, Hameau, Hamel, Hamelet, 190, 474. Hampole, Richard, 337, 407-409. Harald Harfager, 147, 201. Hares, superstition about, 30. Harold, son of Godwin, and brother- in-law to King Edward the Con- fessor, 217 ; his visit to Normandy, 218 ; honor paidjiim by Duke Will- iam, 218 ; he accedes to the duke's request as regards the English suc- cession, 219 ; he promises to assist him in his claim, and swears his oath on sacred relics, 220 ; his account of the occurrence causes great uneasi- ness to King Edward, 221 ; on the king's death, Harold is elected and anointed King of England, 222 ; he repudiates his promise and his oath, 223 ; Duke William declares war, 224 ; battle of Hastings, 226- 228 ; death of Harold, 228. Hastings, the sea-king, 484. Hastings, battle of, 226-228. haugh, haughr, Norse root in English and French local names, meaning " a sepulchral mound," 178, 551. hausen, Westphalian suffix in local and patronymic names, 194, 195. Havelock, the Dane, 404, 405. Hayward, 188. Heathen songs crowded out by stirring Christian hymns, log. Heathen survivals in Brittany, Scot- land, and Ireland, 18, 27, 29, 209, 533. 534- Hedging and fining, 185. heem. See ham. Hel, Anglo-Saxon deity, 112. Heliand, 93. 6$o INDEX. hem, hen. See ham. Hengist and Horsa, 60 ; legends of, 68-70. ■ Henry I, 247, 273. Henry the Fowler, 481. Henry VIII, 126, 266. Hermanduri, 81, 82. Heruli, 83. Hibernia, called indifferently " Scotia " by the Romans, 43. High Dutch, 91-93. Highlands, Scottish, traces of pre-his- toric tribes in the, 16 ; relics of the Old Druidic creed in the, 29 ; sur- names, 317. Hills, Celtic names of, in England, 123, 124. Historical information derived from local names, 119. Hlodowig. See Clovis. Holdemess, Friesian settlement in, 96. Holland, 73-75. holm, Swedish root in English and French local names, meaning " an island," 177, 550. holt, Norse root in English and French local names, meaning "wood, for- ests," 178, 551. Home. See ham. Honorians, 52. Honorius releases the British from their allegiance, 54. Hooker, 366. Horses, British, 10. Howard. See Hayward. hurst, Anglo-Saxon root in English local names, meaning "the depths of the forest," 188. Hrocus. See Crocus. Hrolf. See Rollo. Hugh Capet, 491, 498. Hugh the Mighty, legend of, 25, 26. Hume, 368. Hundred, hundred court, 103. Hustings, 183. Hygden, 253, 263, 266, 358. Hymn to the Virgin, in French and Latin mixed, 284. Iberians, 2, 15, 457. Iceni, the revolt of the, 39. Identity of local and patronymic names in England and the opposite shores of Continental Europe, showing iden- tity of race, 193-195. 551- igny, French suffix in local and patro- nymic names, corresponding to the English ingham, ington, 195. He de France, 495 ; dialect of the, 496. Immigration into Britain, Saxon, an immigration of clans and tribes, 191 ; Scandinavian, an immigration of soldiers of fortune, 192. Immutability of local names, 119. Inclosures, Celtic names denoting, 125 ; Saxon names denoting, 186, 187. Inflections, 347-350, 568. Influence of Druidism on the litera- ture of romance, 25. ing, Teutonic suffix indicating family relation, 191, 192, 468, 548. ingem, ingen, ingham, inghem, ing- heim, Teutonic suffixes composed of ing and ham, which see. Institutions, Frankish, 76, 77 ; Anglo- Saxon, 102, 105. Insula Batavorum, 75, 78. Iona, Culdees of, 117. Ireland, dark-complexioned races in, 15 ; traces of ancient paganism in, 29 ; once the chief seat of learning in Christian Europe, 137 ; Celtic local names in, 119-125 ; Norse local names in, 182. Irish language, 21 ; alphabet, 139 ; early Anglo-Saxon writing formed after the Irish model, 138, 139 ; missionaries, 108, 125 ; schools, 137 ; scholars, 138 ; legends, 15, 25, 32 ; bards, 15 ; family names, 315— 317- Iron Age, 16. Isis, worship of, 50. Isle of Thanet, 61, 107. Isle of Thorney, 177. Isle of Wight, 5, 47, 121. Isurium, 44. Italian, words of, origin in the French vocabulary, 556, 557. Jack and Jill, origin of the legend of, 185. Jeffroi de Villehardouin, 618. Johnson, Samuel, 366. Joinville, Jehan de, 522, 619, 620. Judith, Anglo-Saxon poem, 114. Jutes, 65 ; doubtful origin of the name, 66, 68. Jutland, various names of, 86. Kent, Gaulish kingdom of, 5 ; Franks in, 47, 77 ; ancient laws of, 68 ; Ethelbert, king of, 107 ; Christianity preached first in, 108, 117 ; Weald of, 188. INDEX. 651 kil, Gaelic root in Irish and Scotch local names, meaning " » hermit's cell, a church," 125. kirk, Norse root, meaning " a church," 178, 179, iSS. Knave, 466, 572. Knight, 218. Lseti, Roman colonists in northern Germany, 194, 207, 466. Lai de Aveloc, le, 404. Lake district, the, peopled by Celts and Norwegians, 181. Lake-dwellers, 2. Land of Cockaigne, 336. Lanfranc, 210, 247. Lang-barta, 196. Langland, William, 337, 358, 412-415. Langtoft, Peter, 289. Langue d'oc, 2S0, 492, 493. Langue d'oil, 492, 493 ; principal dia- lects of the, 495. Latin language, the, 559-578; its uni- versality and vitality, 465, 500 ; early monuments of the, 500 ; di- versity of speech among the ancient Romans, 562, 563 ; difference be- tween classical and popular Latin, 559, 561, 565, 566, 529. Remarks on Latin pronunciation by ancient and modem writers, 564, 565 ; a, 560 ; au, 578 ; H, 595 ; 548 ! French common names of, origin, 545-548- Thanet, Isle of, 61, 107. Theodebert and Theodoric, kings of the Franks, 106 ; they hospitably re- ceive Augustin, and assist him in his mission to England, 107. Theodore of Tarsus, 138. Theodosius, 50 ; victories of, 52, 53. Theodulf, 486. Thibaut de Navarre, 613. Thing, name of the Scandinavian Par- liament, 183 ; the root of names of English localities once occupied by the Northmen, 183. Thong Castle, legend of, 70. Thor, thunor, no, 189, 209. Thoringi, Toringi, Thuringi, 82. thorpe, Danish suffix in English and French local names, meaning " a village," 176, 180, 550. Thrace, Celtic idioms of, 21. thicn, Dutch suffix in French local names, 193, corresponding to the English ton, which see. Thunor. See Thor. Thuringi. See Thoringi. thwaite, Norse suffix in English local names, meaning " a forest-clearing," 176, 1 80, 549. Tiw, Norse demon, 184. toft, Danish suffix in English and French local names, meaning an " inclosure, a homestead," 176, 180, 549- Tombs of the Neolithic Age, 18 ; of the Bronze Age, 19. ton, toun, tun, Anglo-Saxon suffixes in English local names, meaning " an inclosure," 102, 185, 186 ; sur- names exhibiting this suffix indicate Saxon descent, 182. Totemism ; extent of this superstition in ancient and modern times, 32. tourp, thorp, torp, tourbe, Dutch and Danish roots in French local names, meaning "a village," 550. See thorpe. Traveler's Song, the, 82, 92. ire, Cymric root, meaning "a town, a dwelling," 124. Trees, local and surnames derived from, 308. Trevisa, John de, 253, 263, 266, 358, 418, 419. Triads, 2 ; no authority in Celtic mythology, 25. Trinobantes, 5. Trivium and quadrivium, 161, 490, 524- Tuatha De Danann, 42. Turf, 189. Ugrian tribes. See Finnish. uisge, Celtic root in English and French river-names, meaning " water," 120, 541- Ulphilas, 69; his translation of the Bible into Mceso-Gothic, 90 ; Mceso- Gothic alphabet of, 133, 136. urn, Friesian suffix in local names, meaning "an inclosure," 96, Igo. See ham. Universality of the Latin language, 465. University : of Cambridge, 330, 392, 502, 579 ; of Oxford, 331, 502, 524, 579 ! ° f Paris 330, 331, 502, 524. Usipetes, 75. Usquebaugh, 121. Uxellodunum, 459. Valens, 89. Valentianus, 80. Vandals, 54, 72. Vannes, 12, 62, 459. Varini, 66, 81. Varus, 81. 658 INDEX. Vaudeville, 623. Veneti, 12. Venta Belgarum (Winchester), 35. Version of Genesis and Exodus, 403. Version of St. Luke, chapter vii, verses 11-17, in Scotch Gaelic, 21 ; in Irish, 21 ; in Welsh, 22 ; in Manx, 22 ; in Mceso-Gothic, 90 ; in Anglo- Saxon, 170 ; in Northumbrian, 171 ; in German, 94 ; in Dutch, 94 ; in Danish, 95 ; in Swedish, 95 ; in Old English, 338 ; in Brezonec, 543 ; in Francic, 547 ; in French, 527 ; in Latin, 171, 527. Verulam, destruction of, 40. Vespasian, 41. Vikingr, their origin and piracies, 149, 176. Villain, 240, 273, 485, 572, 589. Ville-Hardouin, Joffroi de, 613. Villon, Francois, 624, 625. Visigoths, 467, 468, 493. Vitality of local names, 119. vliet, Dutch suffix in local names, mean- ing " a flow of water." See fleet. Wace, Robert, 148, 177, 201, 205, 209, 220, 225-227, 275, 393, 482. Wales, Celtic local names in, 120-125 ! surnames, 314, 315. Wall, Hadrian's, 44, 45, 131. Wallachia, 20. Wallis, 20. Walloon, 20. Walsh, 20. Wansbeckwater, curious agglomeration of the name, 122. Wantonness of Roman tyranny, in Britain, 37-41, 49 ; in Gaul, 473. ware, were, Anglo-Saxon roots, mean- ing " inhabitants," 64, 96. War-vessels, British, 12 ; Saxon, 68. Water-pimpernel (samolus), supersti- tion as to the medicinal virtues of, 533- Watling Street (Waethlinga-street), 129, 155, 181. Waylandsmith, legend of, 183. Weald of Kent, 188. Weapons, prehistoric, 17-19 ; British, 8, 9 ; Frankish, 77, 196 ; Saxon, 79, 196 ; Lombard, 196 ; Norman, 227. Welsh, the name of, 20, 208, 484, 485 ; dialect, 22 ; triads, 2, 25, 31 ; bards, 2, 25, 26, 31, 53, 59 ; missionaries, 117 ; surnames, 314, 315. Wends, 83. Westminster, 230. Whisky, 118. wich, Anglo-Saxon root in English local names, meaning " a district, " 175- wick, Norse root in English local names, meaning " a bay, a creek," 176, 180. Wight, Isle of, 5, 47, 121. Will of a gentleman at the end of the fourteenth century, 291. William, Duke of Normandy, 216 ; proclaimed King of England, 230 ; English opinion as regards the jus- tice of his claim, 245. See Edward the Confessor; Harold; Norman Con- quest of England. Wilson, " Art of Rhetorique," 364. Winchester, 35, 250, 382. Winifreth. See Boniface. Woad, 13. Woden, 145. worth, worthig, Anglo-Saxon suffixes, meaning " a homestead," 187. wy. See gwy. Wyclif, John, 185, 338, 358, 420, 421. Wymbleton, Thomas, 427. Wynton, 361. wysg, Welsh root in river-names, mean- ing "a current," 121. yard, Anglo-Saxon root, meaning "a place fenced in, or guarded," 186. See garth. ye and yat, old English spelling for " the " and " that," 136 ; y s , y*, yis, for " the," " that," " this," 379. York (Eburacum), 44. Yorkshire, Friesian settlements in, 96. THE END. EDUCATIONAL WORKS BY J. ROEMER, LLD, PROFESSOR OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE COLLEGE OP THE OUT OP NEW YORK. Principles Of General Grammar. 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THE SENSES AND THE INTELLECT. New edi- tion. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. Third edition. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. (Forming a volume of " The International Scientific Series.") 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. ENGLISH COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC. 12mo. $1.50. ENGLISH COMPOSITION' AND RHETORIC. En- larged edition. Part I. Intellectual Elements of Style. 12mo. $1.50. ON TEACHING ENGLISH, with Detailed Examples and an Inquiry into the Definition of Poetry. 12mo. $1.25. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. - - SEP 189? NOV If