Anglo-Saxon Literature. Earle John
language became more and more a vehicle for the reproduction of French literature. This continued to the middle of the fourteenth century, when the plague, which altered so many things, altered also this. The supremacy of the French language was broken, the native language was again heard in legal pleadings, and the poetry of Chaucer laid the permanent foundation of modern English literature.
1 A translation of these writings is given in Clark’s “Ante-Nicene Library,” vol. xvi. Among the “Acts of Pilate” are contained the so called “Gospel of Nicodemus,” which is the fountain of that favourite mediæval subject, “The Harrowing of Hell.”
2 North Pinder, “Less Known Latin Poets,” p. 486.
3 Donatus was Jerome’s teacher. His name grew into a proverb, insomuch that an elementary treatise of any sort might in the fourteenth century be called a “donat.” Priscian was a contemporary of Boethius. His grammar was epitomised by Rabanus Maurus in the ninth century.
4 Other Latin poets who touched this subject are—Ovid, “Metam.,” xv., 402; Martial, “Epigrams,” v., 7; Claudian’s First Idyll, a poem of 110 hexameters, is entirely devoted to it.
5 Clemens Romanus; Tertullian, “De Resurrectione Carnis,” c. 13. See Adolf Ebert, “Christlich-Laternische Literatur,” vol. i., p. 95.
6 Siever’s “Der Heliand,” p. 18, and references: Guizot, “Histoire de la Civilisation en France,” 18e Leçon.
7 For the Latin text, and the bibliography, there is an admirable little edition by Peiper, Lipsiæ, 1871.
8 R. A. Lipsius, “Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden,” Braunschweig, 1883, p. 170.
9 Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History,” iii., 18.
10 It was destroyed by the Calvinists in 1562.
CHAPTER II.
THE MATERIALS.
The material of an early Literature is, above all, to be sought in written Books and documents. But, besides these, there are other available sources, which may be called in one word the Antiquities of the nation; and these are of great value as illustrations, that is to say, though the information they severally give may be uncertain and inexplicit, yet when they are put side by side with the literature, they greatly increase its informing power, and often draw, in return, a flow of light upon themselves. Accordingly the present chapter will fall into two parts: 1, of writings; 2, of subsidiary sources.
I.
There is a famous book that remains in the place where it was deposited in the Saxon period. Leofric, who was the tenth bishop of Crediton, and the first of Exeter, gave to his new cathedral about sixty books, and the list of these books is extant in contemporary writing. One of them is thus described:—“I. mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum thingum on leoth wisan geworht.” = One large English book about various things in lay (song) wise wrought—that is to say, a large volume of miscellaneous poetry in English. This is the valuable, or rather, invaluable, Exeter Song Book, often quoted as “Codex Exoniensis.” It is still where Leofric placed it in or about 1050, and it is in the keeping of his cathedral chapter. The others are dispersed; but many of them are still well known, as the “Leofric Missal,” in the Bodleian; and others are at Cambridge.
The general break-up of monastic institutions between 1530 and 1540 caused the dispersion of many old libraries, whose forgotten treasures were thus restored to air and light. No doubt many valuable books and records were irrecoverably lost; as it is reasonable to suppose that among the parchments then cast upon the world, there existed material for a continuous and complete history of Anglo-Saxon times. This reflection may make us the more sensible of our penury, but it will not diminish the praise of those who saved something from the wreck.
Matthew Parker, the twentieth archbishop of Canterbury, 1559–1576, has been called a mighty collector of books. He gave commissions for searching after books in England and Wales, and presented the choicest of his miscellaneous collections to his own college at Cambridge, namely, Benet College (now Corpus Christi), where it still rests. In this library are some unique books, such as the oldest Saxon chronicle, which has been thought nearly as old as King Alfred’s time. There is also a fine vellum of the laws of King Alfred, with the elder laws of King Ine attached in manner of appendix.
But the most famous book of this great collection is an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels in Latin (No. 286), which Wanley thought to be probably one of the very books that were sent to Augustine by Gregory. Professor Westwood says that the drawings in this manuscript are the most ancient monuments of Roman pictorial art existing in this country, and he further proceeds to say that, excepting a fourth-century manuscript at Vienna, these are the oldest instances of Roman-Christian iconography of which he can find any notice.11
Parker had singular opportunities, by the time in which he lived, by the advantages of his high office and personal character, by his power to command the services of other men, and by their general willingness to serve him. There were three distinguished searchers after books who were of the greatest use to him, viz., Bale, Joscelin, Leland.
John Bale, the antiquary, had been a White Friar in Norwich, then, changing his party, he became bishop of Ossory, but lived at length on a prebend he had in the church of Canterbury, where he followed his studies. Bale, in his preface to Leland’s “New Year’s Gift,”12 says that those who purchased the monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers, and some they sent over sea to the book-binders,13 not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations.
John Leland had a commission under Henry VIII. to travel and collect books; his Itinerary is a chief book for English topography. Of Joscelin we shall have occasion to speak below.
With all his advantages, however, Parker was weighted with the care of the churches, at a time, too, when that care was unusually heavy; and to this, as in duty bound, he gave his first thought. Though his example could not be exceeded, his collections were surpassed, and that by a gleaner who came after him. Of all book collectors the greatest was Robert Bruce Cotton, the founder of the Cottonian Library. He was born at Denton, in Huntingdonshire, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. Cotton’s antiquarian tastes declared themselves early; the formation of a library and museum was his life-long pursuit. Not that his interests were all confined to this. He wrote on the revenue, warned King James against the strained exaction of tonnage and poundage, especially in time of peace; and he counselled the creation of an order of baronets, each to pay the Crown £1,000 for the honour. In this way he became a baronet himself