The Ethnology of the British Islands Part 14

Between the time of Ptolemy and the end of the fourth century, the name grew into importance, and became a name of terror to the Romans, Gauls, and Britons, who applied it to the northern Germans of the sea-board in general.

The spread of the name along the sea-coast began in the fourth century.

Claudian alludes to a naval victory over them

----"maduerunt _Saxone_ fuso Orcades."

This gives them a robbing-ground as far north as the Orkneys.

Ammia.n.u.s notices their descent upon Gaul; and writes that in the reign of Valentinian "Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et _Saxones_ iisdem confines, quo quisque erumpere potuit, terra vel mari, praedis acerbis incendiisque et captivorum funeribus hominum violabant."

Again--"Valentinia.n.u.s Saxones, gentem in Oceani litoribus et paludibus inviis sitam, _virtute et agilitate terribilem_, periculosam Romanis finibus, eruptionem magna mole meditantes, _in ipsis Francorum finibus_ oppressit." Oros. 7, 32.

A victory over the Saxones at Deuso (Deutz, opposite Cologne) is referred by more than one of the later writers to the same reign.

The banks of the Loire are their next quarters, Anjou being their chief locality, and their great captain bearing a name of which the Latin form was _Adovacrius_--"igitur Childericus Aurelianis pugnas egit: _Adovacrius_ vero c.u.m _Saxonibus_ Andegavos venit ... (Aegidio) defuncto Adovacrius de Andegavo et aliis locis obsides accepit ... Veniente vero Adovacrio Andegavis, Childericus rex sequenti die advenit; interemtoque Paulo Comite, civitatem obtinuit." Greg. Tur. 2, 18; "his itaque gestis, inter _Saxones_ atque Romanos bellum gestum est, sed Saxones terga vertentes multos de suis, Romanis insequentibus, gladio reliquerunt: _insulae eorum_ c.u.m multo populo interemto a Francis captae atque subversae sunt ... Adovacrius c.u.m Childerico foedus iniit, Alamannosque subjugarunt." id. 2, 19.

Of Saxons who joined the Lombards in the invasion of Italy we also hear from the same author--"Post haec _Saxones qui c.u.m Langobardis in Italiam venerant_, iterum prorumpunt in Gallias, ... scilicet ut a Sigiberto rege collecti in loco, unde egressi fuerant, stabilirentur ... Hi vero ad Sigibertum regem transeuntes, in loc.u.m, unde prius egressi fuerant, stabiliti sunt." 4, 43.

The best measure, however, of the Saxon piracies is to be found in two terms, each of which has always commanded the attention of investigators--the names _Saxones Bajoca.s.sini_ and _Littus Saxonic.u.m_.

1. _Saxones Bajoca.s.sini_ or the _Saxons of Bayeux_ are mentioned under that name by Gregory of Tours (--. 27. 10. 9); and in a charter of Charles the Bald there is the notice of a _pagus_ in the same district called _Ot linguae_. Zeuss reasonably suggests, as an emended reading, _Otlinga_; in which case we have one of the numerous equivalents of those local names which, in the modern English, end in -_ing_, and in the Anglo-Saxon, in -_ingas_--Palling, Notting, Horbling, Billing--aesclingas, Gillingas, &c., &c. Who were these? When we hear of Bayeux again, _i.e._, in the tenth century, it is alluded to as the most _Scandinavian_ or _Norse_ town of Normandy, the only one indeed where the Norse language and customs were decidedly retained. These Saxons, then, may have been Nors.e.m.e.n. But they may equally easily have been Angles, or Frisians; since a Norse conquest in the tenth is perfectly compatible with a German in the fifth century; and, in Britain, such was actually the case.

2. The _Littus Saxonic.u.m_ is a term in the _Not.i.tia Dignitatum_, which appears in three places. In chapter x.x.xvi, where we have the details of the sea-coast of Gaul, under the denomination of the _Tractus Armorica.n.u.s_, the first officer--

[--. 1.] Sub dispositione viri spectabilis Ducis Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani--

Is--

[A] [1.] Tribunus Cohortis Primae Novae Armoricae Grannona in Littore Saxonico.

_b._ CAP. x.x.xvii. [--. 1.] Sub Dispositione viri spectabilis Ducis Belgicae Secundae--

[1.] Equites Dalmatae Marcis in Littore Saxonico.

_c._ These but give us a _Littus Saxonic.u.m_ in Gaul. The 25th chapter supplies one for Britain, and that with considerable detail--

[--. 1.] Sub dispositione viri spectabilis comitis Littoris Saxonici per Britanniam:

[1.] Praepositus Numeri Fortensium Othonae.

[2.] Praepositus Militum Tungricanorum Dubris, &c.

It is not necessary to go through the detail. It is sufficient to say that we find stations at the following undoubted localities--Brancaster, Yarmouth, Reculvers, Richborough, Dover, Lymne, and the mouth of the Adur. Putting this together it is safe to say that the whole line of coast from the Wash to the Southampton water was, in the reign of Honorius, if not earlier, a _Littus Saxonic.u.m_--whatever may have been the import of that term.

Looking over the preceding details we find how hazardous it would be to predicate concerning the several populations designated as _Saxons_ any single statement beyond that of their having been pirates from the north-German sea-board. Some may have been Angle, some Frisian, some Platt-Deutsch, some Scandinavian. Nay, the name _Adovacrius_=_Odoacer_=_Ottocar_, may have belonged to a Slavonian captain, whatever may have been the country of the crew.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The compound is of the same kind with the English words Dor-_set_, and Somer-_set_, _i.e._, from the Anglo-Saxon _saetan_=_settlers_.

[21] This is so mixed up with Danish as scarcely to be Frisian.

CHAPTER X.

THE ANGLES OF GERMANY--IMPERFECT RECONSTRUCTION OF THEIR HISTORY-- THEIR HEROIC AGE.--BEOWULF.--CONQUEST OF ANGLEN.--ANECDOTE FROM PROCOPIUS.--THEIR REDUCTION UNDER THE CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY.--THE ANGLES OF THURINGIA.

As the previous chapter has shewn that a Saxon population, considered simply as such, and without reference to the particular fact of its date, locality, and similar important circ.u.mstances, may be in any or no ethnological relation to the Angle (_i.e._, absolutely Angle under a Keltic name, or, on the other hand, as little Angle as the Slavonians), the attempt at the reconstruction of the history of all the Germanic conquerors of Britain during the period of their occupation of Germany, although, perhaps, not impracticable as the subject of a special investigation, and as the matter of an elaborate monograph, must, in a sketch like the present, be limited to that of the unequivocal and undoubted Angles--this meaning those who are not only _Angle_ in reality, but whose actions are described under the name of _Angle_. It is only when this is the case that we can be sure of our men. A Saxon, as aforesaid, may be anything, provided he be but a pirate. The greater part, too, of the actions of the _Saxons_ can be shewn to have been effected by the _Old_-Saxons rather than the _Anglo_-Saxons, and even by Franks and Frisians. Indeed, it is not too much to a.s.sert that, with the exception of the invasion of Britain and Sleswick, there is no recorded act of any Saxon population which cannot be more fairly attributed to some of the other allied sections of the Germanic stock than to the Angle. That this was the case with the Saxons of the Gallic frontier--the Saxons that, in the earlier periods of their history, came into collision with Julian, and, in the later ones, with Charlemagne, is undoubted; and, that it was also the case with the earlier Saxon pirates of the coasts of Gaul and Britain is likely--though I do not press this point. What I am considering now is the _unequivocal_ history of the Angles of Germany under their own proper name. I have said that it is fragmentary. It is more than this. The fragments themselves are heterogeneous.

An Englishman, representing as he does the _insular_ Angles, and looking to the part that _they_ have played in the world, may, with either pride or regret, as the case may be, say that on their native soil of Germany, the Angle history is next to a non-ent.i.ty. It is like that of the Majiars of Asia. What our ancestors did at home before they became the Englishmen of Great Britain may have been of any amount of importance, or, of any amount of insignificance. They were deeds without a record.

As to our own collateral relations, they suffered rather than acted.

They have, indeed, a history, but it is a history neither full nor glorious.

The poem of Beowulf, an extract from Beda, and a similar extract from Procopius const.i.tute the notices that continue the history--if so it can be called--of the Angles from the time of Ptolemy to the beginning of the seventh century, and even these are doubtful in their interpretation.

Beowulf is a poem in the Anglo-Saxon language, and, in the alliterative metre of the Anglo-Saxon compositions in general, of unknown date and authors.h.i.+p, of upwards of six thousand lines; a poem which, although preserved in England, and in a form adapted to English hearers subsequent to the conversion of our island to Christianity, is essentially pagan and German--pagan in respect to its superst.i.tions and machinery, and German in respect to the scene of action; for in Germany, and not in England, are all its actions achieved. This being the case, it cannot but tell us _something_ of the ancient Germans; and, as the hero is an _Angle_, the ancient Germans of whom this _something_ is told, are, more or less, the _Angle_ ancestors of the English in their original continental home.

Much more than this it is unsafe to say. The composition itself is a poem--a romance--an epic. This is against the historical value of its subject-matter. Then, it has taken its present form under the hands of a Christian. This is against its value as cotemporaneous evidence.

Thirdly, it has the character, to no small extent, not only of a rhapsody, but of a rhapsody of which the elements are heterogeneous.

This is against its value as a piece of _Anglicism_.

Nick and Grendel--the old Nick of the present English, and Grendel--probably, the Geruthus of Saxo Grammaticus--are the chief supernaturals, demons of the swamp and fen. These best localize the legends in which they appear; for which most parts of Hanover and the Cimbric Chersonesus suit indifferently, the Frisian portions pre-eminently, well. The more exalted mythology of Woden, Thor, and Balder, so generally considered to have been all-pervading in Germany and Scandinavia, finds no place in Beowulf. Our Devil and the Devil's Dam are rough a.n.a.logues of Nick and Grendel.

Heort is the great palatial hall of Hrogar, the kingly personage of the poem, Beowulf being the hero. It stands in some part of the Cimbric Chersonese. Seeing in this, as a _word_, only another form of the name Hartz, I also see in it a proof of the rhapsodical character of the poem, and the heterogeneous character of its elements.

An episode, of which Sigmund is the hero, gives us a narrative in which we have, in an altered form, and an obscure outline, a portion of the Nibelungenlied cycle--an element from the Rhine.

Another gives us an adventure apparently without a hero, or rather an adventure whose hero has no proper name, but only a designating adjective. Considering the indistinct shape which all legends take in Beowulf, I cannot but think that the individual whose name stands in the text as _Stearc heart_, and in the translation as _Strong-heart_, is neither more nor less than the great Danish hero _Starcather_, of a not unlike legend in Saxo.

Danes, Geats, Frisians, and Sweas (Swedes), are the populations with whom the Angles are most brought in contact; and the following extract shews the manner of their mention. The parties, here, are Jutish Danes and Frisians.

1. "Hrogar's poet after the mead-bench must excite joy in the hall, concerning Finn's descendants, when the expedition came upon them; Healfdene's hero, Hnaef the Scylding, was doomed to fall in Friesland. Hildeburh had at least no cause to praise the fidelity of the Jutes; guiltlessly was she deprived at the war-game of her beloved sons and brothers; one after another they fell wounded with javelins; that was a mournful lady. Not in vain did Hoce's daughter mourn their death, after morning came, when she under the heaven might behold the slaughterer of her son, where he before possessed the most of earthly joys: war took away all Finn's thanes, except only a few, so that he might not on the place of meeting gain any thing by fighting against Hengest, nor defend in war his wretched remnant against the king's thane; but they offered him conditions, that they would give up to him entirely a second palace, a hall, and throne, so that they should halve the power with the sons of the Jutes, and at the gifts of treasure every day Folcwalda's son should honour the Danes, the troops of Hengest should serve them with rings, with h.o.a.rded treasures of solid gold, even as much as he would furnish the race of Frisians in the beer-hall. There they confirmed on both sides a fast treaty of peace. Finn strongly, undisputingly, engaged by oath to Hengest, that he would graciously maintain the poor survivors according to the judgment of his Witan, that there no man, either by word or work, should break the peace, nor through hostile machinations ever recall the quarrel, although they, deprived of their prince, must follow the slaughterer of him that gave them rings, since they were so compelled: if, then, any one of the Frisians with insolent speech should make allusion to the deadly feud, that then the edge of the sword should avenge it. The oath was completed, and heaped up gold was borne from the h.o.a.rd of the warlike Scyldings: the best of warriors was ready upon the pile; at the pile was easy to be seen the mail-s.h.i.+rt coloured with gore, the hog of gold, the boar hard as iron, many a n.o.ble crippled with wounds: some fell upon the dead. Then at Hnaef's pile Hildeburh commanded her own son to be involved in flames, to burn his body, and to place him on the pile, wretchedly upon his shoulder the lady mourned; she lamented with songs; the warrior mounted the pile; the greatest of death-fires whirled; the welkin sounded before the mound; the mail-hoods melted; the gates of the wounds burst open; the loathly bite of the body, when the blood sprang forth; the flame, greediest of spirits, devoured all those whom there death took away: of both the people was the glory departed.

"Thence the warriors set out to visit their dwellings, deprived of friends, to see Friesland, their homes and lofty city; Hengest yet, during the deadly-coloured winter, dwelt with Finn, boldly, without casting of lots he cultivated the land, although he might drive upon the sea the s.h.i.+p with the ringed prow; the deep boiled with storms, wan against the wind, winter locked the wave with a chain of ice, until the second year came to the dwellings; so doth yet, that which eternally, happily provideth weather gloriously bright. When the winter was departed, and the bosom of the earth was fair, the wanderer set out to explore, the stranger from his dwellings. He thought the more of vengeance than of his departing over the sea, if he might bring to pa.s.s a hostile meeting, since he inwardly remembered the sons of the Jutes. Thus he avoided not death when Hunlaf's descendant plunged into his bosom the flame of war, the best of swords; therefore were among the Jutes, known by the edge of the sword, what warriors bold of spirit Finn afterwards fell in with, savage sword-slaughter at his own dwelling; since Gulaf and Oslaf after the sea-journey mourned the sorrow, the grim onset: they avenged a part of their loss; nor might the cunning of mood refrain in his bosom, when his hall was surrounded with the men of his foes.

Finn also was slain. The king amidst his band, and the queen was taken; the warriors of the Scyldings bore to their s.h.i.+ps all the household wealth of the mighty king which they could find in Finn's dwelling, the jewels and carved gems; they over the sea carried the lordly lady to the Danes--led her to their people. The lay was sung, the song of the glee-man, the joke rose again, the noise from the benches grew loud, cupbearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels."

Hengist appears here as a Jute. Another English name, that of Offa, occurs in the following:

2. "Haeredh's daughter; she was nevertheless not condescending, nor too liberal of gifts, of h.o.a.rded treasures, to the people of the Geats; the violent queen of the people exercised violence of mood, a terrible crime; no one of the dear comrades dared to venture upon that beast, save her wedded lord, who daily looked upon her with his eyes, but she allotted to him appointed bonds of slaughter,--twisted with hands: soon after, after the clutch of hands, was the matter settled with the knife, so that the excellent sword must apportion the affair, must make known the fatal evil: such is no womanly custom for a lady to accomplish, comely though she be, that the weaver of peace should pursue for his life, should follow with anger a dear man: that indeed disgusted Hemming's kinsman. Others said, while drinking the ale, that she had committed less mighty mischief, less crafty malice, since she was first given, surrounded with gold, to the young warrior, the n.o.ble beast: since by her father's counsel she sought, in a journey over the fallow flood, the palace of Offa, where she afterwards well on her throne in good repute living, enjoyed the living creations, and held high love with the prince of men, the best between two seas of all mankind, of the whole race of men, so far as I have heard: for Offa the spear-bold warrior was far renowned both for his liberalities and his wars, in wisdom he held his native inheritance, when he the sad warrior sprang for the a.s.sistance of men, he the kinsman of Hemming, the nephew of Garmund, mighty in warfare."

Beowulf approaches his end; the ceremonies of his funeral are described in detail, the political complications created by his death are alluded to:--

3. "Now is the joy-giver of the people of the Westerns, the Lord of the Geats, fast on the death-bed, he dwelleth in fatal rest: by him lieth his deadly foe, sick with seax-wounds; with his sword he could not by any means work a wound upon the wretch. Wiglaf, Wihstan's son, sitteth over Beowulf, one warrior over the other deprived of life holdeth sorrowfully ward of good and evil: now may the people expect a time of war, as soon as the fall of the king becomes published among the Franks and Frisians: the feud was established, fierce against the Hugas, after Hygelac came sailing with a fleet to Friesland, where his foes humbled him from his war, boldly they went with a superior force, so that the warrior must bow, he fell in battle, nor did the chieftain give treasure to his valiant comrades: ever since peace with the sea-wicings denied us: nor do I expect peace or fidelity from Sweeden, but it was widely known that Ongentheow deprived of life Haetheyn the Hrethling, beside Hrefna-wood when for their pride the war-Scylfings first sought the people of the Geats. Soon did the prudent father of Ohthere, old and terrible, give him a blow with the hand; he deprived the sea-king of the troop of maidens, the old man took the old virgin, hung round with gold, the mother of Onela and Ohthere, and then pursued the homicides until they escaped with difficulty into Hrefnes-holt, deprived of their Lord: then with a mighty force did he beset those that the sword had left, weary with their wounds: shame did he often threaten to the wretched race, the whole night long: he said that he in the morning would take them with the edges of the sword, some he would hang on the gallowses, for his sport: comfort came again to the sad of mood, with early day, since they perceived the horn and trumpets of Hygelac, when the good prince came upon their track with the power of his people.