[1] The immediate authority for these descents, dates, and localities is Sharon Turner. They are nearly the same as those which are noticed in Mr. Kemble's Saxons in England. In the former writer, however, they are given as historical facts; in the latter they are subjected to criticism, and considered as exceptionable.

[2] It is from Beda that the current opinions as to the details of the Anglo-Saxon invasion are taken; especially the threefold division into Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These migrations were so large and numerous that the original country of the Angles was left a desert. The distribution of the three divisions over the different parts of England was also Beda's.

The work of this important writer—the great luminary of early England—is the Historia Ecclesiastica, a title which prepares us for a great preponderance of the ecclesiastical over the secular history.

Now Beda's date was the middle of the eighth century.

And his locality was the monastery of Wearmouth, in the county of Durham.

Both of these facts must be borne in mind when we consider the value of his authority, i.e., his means of knowing, as determined by the conditions of time and place.

Christianity was introduced among the Anglo-Saxons of Kent A.D. 597. For the times between them and A.D. 740, we have in Mr. Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus eighty-five charters, all in Latin, and most of them of uncertain authenticity. They are chiefly grants of different kings of Kent, Wessex, the Hwiccas, Mercia, and Northumberland, a few being of Bishops.

[3] Gildas was a British ecclesiastic, as Beda was an English one. His locality was North Wales: his time earlier than Beda's by perhaps one hundred years.

He states that he was born the year of the pugna Badonica, currently called the Battle of Bath.

Now a chronological table called Annales Cambrenses, places that event within one hundred years of the supposed landing of Hengist.

But there is no reason for believing this to be a cotemporary entry. Hence, all that can be safely said of Gildas is that he was about as far removed from the seat of the Germanic invasions, in locality, as Beda, whilst in point of time he was nearer.

As a writer he is far inferior, being pre-eminently verbose, vague, and indefinite.

Gildas, as far as he states facts at all, gives the British account of the conquest.

No other documents have come down to our time.

Beda's own authorities—as we learn from his introduction—were certain of the most learned bishops and abbots of his cotemporaries, of whom he sought special information as to the antiquities of their own establishments. Of cotemporary writers, in the way of authority, there is no mention.

For the times between the "accredited date of Hengist and Horsa's landing (A.D. 449) and A.D. 597 (a period of about one hundred and fifty years) the only authorities are a few quotations from Solinus, Gildas, and a Legendary Life of St. Germanus."—Saxons in Engl. i. 27.

[4] This account is from Jornandes, who is generally considered as the chief repertory of the traditions respecting the Gothic populations. He lived about A.D. 530. The GepidÆ were said to be the laggards of the migration, and the vessel which carried them to have been left behind: and as gepanta in their language meant slow, their name is taken therefrom.

[5] Widukind was a monk of Corvey in Flanders, who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of his monastery.

[6] Geoffry of Monmouth, like Gildas, is a British authority. His date was the reign of Henry II. The Welsh traditions form the staple of Geoffry's work, for which it is the great repertory.

[7] The date of this was the reign of Marcus Antoninus. Its place, the Danubian provinces of RhÆtia, and Pannonia. It was carried on by the Germans of the frontier or march—from whence the name—in alliance with the Jazyges, who were undoubtedly Slavonic, and the Quadi, who were probably so. Its details are obscure—the chief authority being Dio Cassius.

[8] The reign of Valentinian was from A.D. 365 to A.D. 375.

[9] The date of this has been variously placed in A.D. 438, and between A.D. 395 and A.D. 407. Either is earlier than A.D. 449.

[10] The Saxon Chronicle consists of a series of entries from the earliest times to the reign of King Stephen, each under its year: the year of the Anglo-Saxon invasion being the usual one, i.e., A.D. 449. The value of such a work depends upon the extent to which the chronological entries are cotemporaneous with the events noticed. Where this is the case, the statement is of the highest historical value; where, however, it is merely taken from some earlier authority, or from a tradition, it loses the character of a register, and becomes merely a series of dates—correct or incorrect as the case may be. Where the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle really begins to be a cotemporaneous register is uncertain—all that is certain being that it is so for the latest, and is not so for earliest entries. The notices in question come under the former class. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had been edited by the Master of Trinity College, Oxford (Dr. Ingram), and analyzed by Miss Gurney.

[11] Asserius was a learned Welsh ecclesiastic who was invited by King Alfred into Wessex, and employed by that king as one of his associates and assistants in civilizing and instructing his subjects. Several works are mentioned as having been written by Asserius, but the only one extant is his history of King Alfred, which is a chronicle of various events between the year of Alfred's birth, A.D. 849, to A.D. 889.

Asserius is supposed to have died Bishop of Sherborne, A.D. 910.

[12] The compounds of the Anglo-Saxon word ware = occupants, inhabitants, are too numerous to leave any doubt as to this, and several other, derivations. Cant-ware = Cant-icolÆ = people of Kent: Hwic-ware = Hviccas = the people of parts of Worcestershire,^[67] Glostershire, and (to judge from the name) of War-wickshire also.

[13] The Annales Saxonici, or Saxon Chronicles, embrace the history of Britain, between the landing of CÆsar and the accession of Henry II. They are evidently the work of various and successive writers, who were Saxon ecclesiastics. But nothing certain can be affirmed of the authors of their respective portions.—See Note 10.

[14] See Note 2.

[15] Adam of Bremen was a Minor Canon of the Cathedral of Bremen, about the years 1067-1077. He travelled in Denmark, and was in great favour with King Sweyn of that country. He wrote an Ecclesiastical History of the spread of Christianity in the North, to which he appended a description of the geography, population, and archÆology of Denmark and the neighbouring countries.

[16] Ethelward was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, who wrote a chronicle of events from the creation of the world to the death of King Edgar, A.D. 875.

[17] The following is a specimen of the Frisian of Gysbert Japicx, in metre. It is part of a rustic song, supposed to be sung by a peasant on his return from a wedding feast. Date about A.D. 1650.

Translation of the same from Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. lxxiii.

[18] Of the early constitution of states of East Friesland, we have a remarkable illustration in the old Frisian Laws. These are in the native Frisian tongue, and, except that they represent republican rather than monarchical institutions, are similar in form, in spirit, to the Saxon.

[19] The great blow against the sovereignty of Rome, and the one which probably prevented Germany from becoming a Roman province, was struck by the Cheruscan Arminius against Quintilius Varus, in the reign of Augustus. The date of the organized insurrection of Arminius was A.D. 9; the place, the neighbourhood of Herford, or Engern, in Westphalia. Drawn into an inpracticable part of the country, the troops of Varus were suddenly attacked and cut to pieces—consisting of more than three legions. "Never was victory more decisive, never was the liberation of an oppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany the Roman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and, within a few weeks after Varus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader.

"Had Arminius been supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have been enslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eyder and the Elbe. This island would never have borne the name of England, and we, this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning the earth, from one end of it to the other, would have been utterly cut off from existence."^[68]

[20] Heliand is the gerund from helian = heal, and means the Healer or Saviour. It is the name of an old Saxon poem, in alliterative metre, of the tenth or eleventh century, in the dialect supposed to have belonged to the parts about Essen, Cleves, and Munster in Westphalia. It is a sort of Gospel Harmony, or Life of Christ, taken from the Gospels. It has been edited by Schmeller.

[21] Hildubrand and Hathubrant, father and son, are two legendary heroes belonging to that cycle of German fiction of which Theodoric of Verona is the centre. A fragment containing an account of their hostile meeting, being mutually unknown, in alliterative metre, represents the fictional poetry of the old Saxons in the same way (though not to the same extent) that the Heliand represents their sacred poetry. The "Hildubrand and Hathubrant" have been edited by Grimm.

[22] In a language which for a long time was considered to be the Dutch of Holland in its oldest known form, there is an imperfect translation of the Psalms; referred by the best writers on the subject to the reign of Charlemagne, and thence called the Carolinian Psalms. The best text of this is to be found in a Dutch periodical, the Taalkundig Magazijn.

[23] Beowulf is by far the most considerable poem, not only in Anglo-Saxon, but in any old Gothic tongue. It has been admirably edited and translated by Mr. Kemble. The subject is the account of Beowulf, an Angle hero—Angle but not English, as the scene of the poem is on the Continent. In its present form it shows traces of the revision of some Christian writer: the basis, however, of its subject, and the manners it describes, are essentially Pagan. The most remarkable feature in the poem is the fact that no allusion is made to England—so that, Anglo-Saxon as the work is—it belongs to the Anglo-Saxons of Germany before they became English.

[24] A Gospel Harmony translated from the one of Tatian, exists in a dialect too little purely High German, to pass absolutely as such, yet less Low German than the Dutch of Holland. This belongs to the Middle Rhine, and is called Frank.

[25] The Alemannic is the German of the Upper Rhine; the dialect out of which the Bavarian and Swiss grew. Its chief specimens occur in—

Most of these (along with Tatian), are to be found in Schilter's Thesaurus.

(Original footnotes)