at once, their attachment to the marvellous, or neglect to travel into foreign countries in quest of it: for we find it recorded

"A. D. 797. This year the Romans cut out the tongue of Pope Leo, put out his eyes, and drove him from his see; but soon after, by the assistance of God, he could see and speak, and became Pope as he was before."

Nor was Saxon England, it seems, excluded from its share of miraculous visitations: for to say nothing of prophetic comets, ominous eclipses, and portentous meteors,-and" immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds. and fiery dragons flying across the firmament,”

"A. D. 616. Cadbald [king of Kent] renounced his baptism, and lived in a heathen manner; so that he took to wife the relict of his father. Then Laurentius, who was Archbishop of Kent, meant to depart southward over sea, and abandon every thing. But there came to him in the night the apostle Peter, and severely swinged him, because he would so desert the flock of God. And he charged him to go to the king, and teach him the right belief. And he did so; and the king returned to the right belief."

Probably not without apprehension that the apostle might otherwise pay him a similar visit. It is remarkable, however, that both Bede and Alfred record this matter as a vision, or dream; and the relation of it, as a matter of fact, is to be ascribed to the Norman interpolators of the Saxon annals. We suspect, however, that a Saxon monk could be a little tricksically superstitious sometimes, as well as a Norman or Italian. Even the venerable Bede, though he makes no actual miracle of this adventure, has his mysterious apparitions and supernatural interventions: as may be seen in his account of the conversion of his hero Edwin the Great, of Northumbria.* Be this as it may, the interspersion of a few superstitious passages of this description no more impeaches the general authenticity of these annals, than the prodigies and auguries detailed by Livy detract from the general credibility of the political and military events recorded by that prince of historians.

The Saxon Chronicle, properly speaking, commences at the year 449 in which year

"Hengist and Horsa, invited by Wurtgeorne, King of the Britons,

*It is, however, worthy of remark, that almost all the passages that magnify the power of the clergy and the see of Rome, or seem subservient to the purposes of monastic fraud and usurpation, bear in their very style and language the evident marks of Normo-monastic interpolation.

to his assistance, landed in Britain, in a place that is called Ipwinesfleet; first of all to support the Britons, but they afterwards fought against them. The King directed them to fight against the Picts; and they did so; and obtained the victory wheresoever they came. They then sent to the Angles, and desired them to send more assistance. They described the worthlessness of the Britons, and the richness of the land. Then they sent them greater support. Then came

the men from three powers of Germany; the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the men of Kent, the Wightwarians, (that is, the tribe that now dwelleth in the Isle of Wight,) and that kindred in Wessex that men yet call the kindred of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons came the people of Essex, and Sussex, and Wessex. From Anglia, which has ever since remained waste between the Jutes and the Saxons, came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all of those north of the Humber. Their leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa; who were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils was the son of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden. From this Woden arose all our royal kindred, and that of the South-humbrians also."

This distinction, by the way, between our royal kindred (ure cyne-cynn,) and that (those) of the South-humbrians, (notwithstanding the hypothesis that Bede copied from the Saxon Chroniclers, rather than the Chronicle from him,) seems to reveal the hand of that venerable historian. For he was himself a Northumbrian; and, that principality or kingdom embracing the whole Anglo-Saxon territory, from the Humber to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, it was natural for him to refer to the two denominations of North-humbrians and South-humbrians, as including all the states of the Saxon Heptarchy. And certain it is, that all the genealogies of all the founders of the respective kingdoms agree, in tracing the descents of those respective chieftains from this identical Woden. And it may be observed by the way, that it is an additional argument against the supposition of any part of the Chronicle, as it now stands at least, being assignable to contemporary annalists prior to the conversion of the Saxons, that in none of those genealogies, nor in any part of the existing annals, is there any attempt to confound this universal progenitor of Heptarchic royalty (whoever he was) with the elder, or deified Woden :an ancestral distinction which the Pagan chieftains themselves would inevitably affect, and which no Pagan, scald or genealogist, would probably have failed to insinuate. This want of Pagan record, in one point of view, is particularly to be lamented, as it deprives us of all demonstrable traces of the particular rites and superstitions of our primitive ancestors. Perhaps, however, the darkness resulting from this privation is not impenetrable. Those ancestors were, in fact, a Scandi

VOL. VIII. PART II.

navian people, and brought with them the names, at any rate, of Scandinavian deities; several of which continue yet to be chronicled in our calendar. The presumption is, therefore, pretty strong, that they brought with them also the Scandinavian religion and Scandinavian rites; and that, if we would be acquainted with the superstitions of our Anglo-Saxon progenitors, we must seek them in the Danish and Norwegian Eddas. Thus Sunday is the day of the sun, and Monday of the moon; Tuesday is the day of Tucer, the god of hunting and archery; or, according to some, of Tuisco, the god of justice; Wednesday, the day of Woden, the god of war,-the All-father, or supreme god of the Edda; Thursday, the day of Thor, the god of thunder; Friday, the day of Friga, or Frea, the goddess of love and marriage; Saturday, the day of Satur, the god of fruits. So Easter is the season of the festival of Eoster, the Scandinavian Flora, or goddess of the spring; and Christmas continued for centuries beyond the Saxon era, not only in popular language, but even in parliamentary and judicial record, to be called Yule-tide, (and the twelfth-cake a yule-cake-such coincidence was there between the Christian and the Pagan festivals!)-from its being the season of the festival of Yule, the Scandinavian deity supposed to preside over the extinction and renovation of the sun, or transition of the solar year. The name is not even yet forgotten in some of the northern counties and other instances might be adduced, in which popular and provincial phraseology still continues to illustrate the proposition, that the rude, but sublime superstitions of the northern mythology were once the established religion of England.

But it is time to return to the subject matter of the Chronicle; and give the reader a more particular idea of the style and import of the work itself. For this purpose we shall select a few passages from the time of the Heptarchy, that may illustrate, in some degree, the state of society during that turbulent period; and first in what relates to the assumptions of the Romish church.

We have already noticed the importance given to the endowment and consecration of the Abbey of Medeshamstede (Peterborough.) The passages themselves, curious as they are, are much too long to be given entire; but a portion of the last of them will illustrate, at once, the comparative particularity with which the monkish chroniclers treated the affairs of the church and of the state, and the arrogance of papal assumption over a converted-that is to say, a spiritually subjugated nation.

"A.D. 675. This year Wulf here, [King of Mercia,] the son of Penda, and Escwin, the son of Cenfus, fought at Bedwin. The same

In

year died Wulfhere, and Ethelred succeeded to the government. his time sent he to Rome Bishop Wilfrid to the pope, that then was, called Agatho, and told him by word and by letter, how his brothers, Peada and Wulfhere, and the Abbot Saxulf, had wrought a minster, called Medhamsted; and that they had freed it, against king and against bishop, from every service; and he besought him, that he would confirm it with his writ and with his blessing. And the pope sent then his writ to England, thus saying: 'I, Agatho, Pope of Rome, greet well the worthy Ethelred, King of the Mercians, and the Archbishop Theodorus of Canterbury, and Saxulf, the Bishop of the Mercians, who before was abbot, and all the abbots that are in England; God's greeting and my blessing. I have heard the petition of King Ethelred, and of the Archbishop Theodorus, and of the Bishop Saxulf, and of the Abbot Cuthbald; and I will it, that it in all wise be as you have spoken it. And I ordain, in behalf of God, and of St. Peter, and of all saints, and of every hooded head, that neither king, nor bishop, nor earl, nor any man whatever, have any claim, or gable, or gild, or levy, or take any service of any kind from the Abbey of Medhamsted. I command also, that no shire bishop be so bold as to hold an ordination or consecration within this abbacy, except the abbot intreat him, nor have there any claim to proxies, or synodals, or any thing whatever of any kind. And I will, that the abbot be holden for legate of Rome over all that island; and whatever abbot is there chosen by the monks, that he be consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I will and decree, that whatever man may have made a vow to go to Rome, and cannot perform it, either from infirmity, or for his Lord's need, or from poverty, or from any other necessity of any kind whatever, whereby he cannot come thither, be he of England, or of whatever other island he be, he may come to that Minster of Medhamsted, and have the same forgiveness of Christ and St. Peter, and of the abbot, and of the monks, that he should have if he went to Rome. Now bid I thee, brother Theodorus, that thou let it be proclaimed through all England, that a synod be gathered, and this writ be read and observed. Also I tell thee, Bishop Saxulf, that as thou desirest it, that the minster be free, so I forbid thee, and all the bishops that after thee come, from Christ and from all his saints, that ye have no demand from that minster, except so much as the abbot will. Now will I say in a word, that whoso holdeth this writ and this decree, then be he ever dwelling with God Almighty in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso breaketh it, then be he excommunicated, and thrust down with Judas, and with all the devils in hell, except he come to repentance. Amen!'-This writ sent the Pope Agatho, and a hundred and twenty-five bishops, by Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, to England. This was done after our Lord's nativity, 680, the sixth year of King Ethelred. Then the king commanded the Archbishop Theodorus, that he should appoint a General Wittenmoot at the place called Hatfield. When they were there collected, then he allowed the letter to be read that the pope sent thither; and all ratified and confirmed it. Then said the king: 'All things that my brother Peada, and my brother Wulfhere, and my sisters Kyneburga and Kynes witha, gave and granted to St. Peter and

the abbot, these I will may stand; and I will in my day increase it, for their souls and for my soul. Now give I St. Peter to-day into his minster, Medhamsted, these lands, and all that thereto lyeth; that is, Bredon, Repings, Cadney, Swineshead, Hanbury, Lodeshall, Scuffanhall, Cosford, Stratford, Wattleburn, Lushgard, Ethelhun-island, Bardney. These lands I give St. Peter just as freely as I possessed them myself; and so, that none of my successors take any thing therefrom. Whoso doeth it, have he the curse of the Pope of Rome, and the curse of all bishops, and of all those that are witnesses here. And this I confirm with the token of Christ." "

Then follow the attestations of the bishops, &c. present at the ceremony, the confirmation of Ostritha, Ethelred's queen, with the curses of the abbot, &c. against all who infringe the holy charter.

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In like arrogant manner, under date 694, does another Norman interpolation, in the name of "Wihtred, earthly king, urged on by the heavenly king, and with the spirit of righteousness annealed,”—“ forbid all succeeding kings, and aldermen, and all laymen, ever, any lordship over churches, and over all their appurtenances," and dispose of, and divide all power and prerogative between kings and bishops. Kings," says the interpolator," shall appoint earls and aldermen, sheriffs and judges; but the archbishop shall consult and provide for God's flock; bishops, and abbots, and abbesses, and priests, and deacons, he shall choose and appoint." It is apparent, however, that during the Saxon epoch, some part of the prerogative thus trafficked by the Norman ecclesiastic so absolutely to the king, was asserted and exercised by the people-even after the consolidation of the power of the crown by the union of the entire Heptarchy under one head, and the innovations which had been partially introduced by Danish usurpation, and by Norman intercourse and alliance.

"A.D. 1055. This year died Earl Siward, at York; and his body lies within the minster at Galmanho, (Bootham-bar,) which he had himself ordered to be built and consecrated, in the name of God and St. Olave, to the honour of God and all his saints." [His own son, Osburn, and his sister's son, Sihward, had been slain the year before in Scotland, in the battle against Macbeth; and the earldom, it seems, had become vacant.] "The king (Edward the Confessor) gave 'the earldom, which Earl Siward formerly had, to Tostige, son of Earl Godwin," [i. e. the brother of that Harold, afterwards slain at the battle of Hastings.] This appointment by royal authority, however, seems never to have been quietly recognised by the district; and "A.D. 1065, all the Thanes in Yorkshire and in Northumberland gathered themselves together at York, and outlawed their Earl Tostige, slaying all the men of his clan that they could reach, both Danish and English, and took all his weapons in York, with gold and silver, and all the money that