there that I cannot think of so much as a single one south of Thames when I took to the realm. God Almighty be thanked that we have now any teachers in office. Alfred's Code of Laws gives him legislative as well as literary honor. And to him England owes it that, alone among nations, she possesses a history of her own people in their own tongue from the beginning of their national existence. He lived but fifty-two years, and in his arduous life there could have been small room for leisure. In one of his notebooks occurs this passage:-"Desirest thou peace? But thou shalt never get it without sorrows, both from strange folk, and yet keener from thine own kin.-Hardship and sorrow! Not a king but would fain lack them; but I know he cannot." Again, before his death in 901, he wrote,-"So long as I have lived I have striven to live worthily. I desire to leave to the men who come after me a remembrance of me in good works." The historian Freeman says of him, “No other man on record has ever so thoroughly united all the virtues both of ruler and private man." THE PEACE OF WEDMORE. (This Treaty between Alfred and Guthrum the Dane, in 878, may in a sense be considered the starting-point of English History.) THIS is the peace that King ALFRED and King GUTHRUM and the counselors of all the Anglecynn (English nation) and all the people that are in East Anglia have all decreed and with oaths confirmed for themselves and for their children, both for the born and for the unborn, all who value God's favor or ours. CAP. I.-First about our Land-boundaries.-Up the Thames, then up the Lea, and along the Lea to her source, then straight to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street. CAP. II. Then there is this:-if a man be slain we reckon all of equal value, the Englishman and the Dane, at eight half-marks of pure gold, except the churl who dwells on gravel land, and the Danish leisings, those also are equally dear, either at 200 shillings. CAP. III. And if a king's thane be charged with killing a man, if he dare to clear himself, let him do it before twelve kings' thanes. If the accused man be of less degree than the king's thane, let him clear himself with eleven of his equals and one king's thane. And so in every suit that may be of more than four mancuses. [A mancus was 150 cents.] And if he dare not, let him pay threefold, according as it may be valued. CAP. IV.--And that every man may know his warrantor for men and for horses and for oxen. CAP. V.-And we all said on that day when the oaths were sworn, that neither bond nor free should be at liberty to go to the host [the Danish camp] without leave, nor of them any one, by the same rule, to us. If, however, it happen that for business any one of them desires to have dealings with us or we with them, about cattle and about goods, that is to be granted on this wise, that hostages be given for a pledge of peace, and for evidence whereby it may be known that the party has a clean back [meaning a back unladen with stolen goods]. ALFRED'S PREFACE TO GREGORY'S DIALOGUES. I, ALFRED, by the grace of Christ dignified with the honor of royalty, have distinctly understood, and through the reading of holy books have often heard, that from us to whom God hath given so much eminence of worldly distinction, it is specially required that we from time to time should subdue and bend our minds to the divine and spiritual Law, in the midst of this earthly anxiety; and I accordingly sought and requested of my trusty friends they should transcribe for me out of pious books about the conversation and miracles of holy men the instruction that hereafter followeth; so that I, being strengthened in my mind through the admonition and love, may now and then contemplate heavenly things in the midst of earthly troubles. Now we can plainly hear how the blessed and apostolic man, St. Gregory, spake to his deacon, whose name was Peter, about the manners and life of holy men for instruction and for example to all who are working the will of God. THE NUN AND THE LETTUCE. (From Gregory's Dialogues.) A NUN walking in the convent garden took a fancy to eat a leaf of lettuce, and she ate, without first making the sign of the cross over it. Presently she was found to be possessed with an evil spirit. The abbot was called and questioned the fiend. But the fiend protested that what had happened was not his fault. He said, "I was harmlessly sitting on a lettuce, and then came she and ate me." ST. BENEDICT'S VISION. (From Gregory's Dialogues.) IT happened that there came to visit the venerable Benedict, as his custom was, Servandus, the deacon and abbot of the monastery that Liberius the patrician had built in South Lombardy. Indeed, he used to visit Benedict's monastery frequently that in each other's company they might be mutually refreshed with the sweet words of life and the delectable food of the heavenly country, which they could not as yet with perfect bliss enjoy, but did at least in aspiration taste it, insomuch that the said Servandus was likewise abounding in the lore of the heavenly grace. When at length the time was come for their rest and repose, the venerable Benedict was lodged in the upper floor of a tower, and Servandus, the deacon, rested on the lower floor of the same tower. There was a solid staircase with plain steps from the nether floor to the upper floor. There was also in front of the tower a spacious house in which slept the disciples of them both. When now Benedict, the man of God, was keeping the time of his nightly prayer during his brethren's rest, then stood he all vigilant at a window praying to the Almighty Lord. Then suddenly in that time of nightly stillness, as he looked out, he saw a light sent from on high disperse all the darkness of the night, and shine with a brightness so great that the light which then gleamed in the midst of the darkness was brighter than the light of day. Lo, then in this sight a wonderful thing followed next, as he himself afterwards related;-that even all the world, as if placed under one ray of the sun, was displayed before his eyes. When now the venerable father had fastened his attention on the brightness of that shining light, he saw angels conveying in a fiery group into heaven the soul of Germanus, who was bishop of the city of Capua. He desired then to secure to himself a witness of so great a wonder, and called Servandus the deacon twice and thrice, and repeatedly named his name with loud exclamation. Servandus was disturbed at the unusual outcry of the honored man, and he mounted the stairs and looked as directed, and saw verily a small portion of that light. As the deacon was then amazed for so great a wonder, the man of God related to him in order the things that there had happened; and forthwith he sent orders to the faithful man Theoprobus in Casinum, the chief house, that he in the same night should send a man to the city of Capua, and should ascertain and report to him what had happened about Germanus the bishop. Then it came to pass that he who was sent thither found that the venerable Bishop Germanus had indeed died; and carefully inquiring, he found that his departure was at that very time that the man of God had witnessed his ascent to Heaven. THE SAXON CHRONICLE. ONE of the chief authorities for the early history of England is the Saxon Chronicle, a record written by various authors, who commenced this work by the order of King Alfred. Copies were prepared for the principal monasteries, and seven of these have been preserved, varying in several respects. The history extends from Cæsar's invasion to the year 855 in the earliest copy, and to the year 1154 in the latest. In some places the prose narrative gives way to verse, as in the account of the battle of Brunanburh. The following passage is the modest relation of the critical turn in the fortunes of Alfred. A.D. 878.-This year, during midwinter, after Twelfth night, the [Danish] army stole away to Chippenham, and overran the land of the West Saxons and sat there; and many of the people they drove beyond sea, and of the remainder the greater part they subdued and forced to obey them, except King Alfred; and he, with a small band, with difficulty retreated to the woods and to the fastnesses of the moors. And the same winter the brother of Hingwar and of Halfdene came with twenty-three ships to Devonshire in Wessex; and he was there slain, and with him eight hundred and forty men of his army; and there was taken the warflag which they called the Raven. After this, at Easter, King Alfred, with a small band, constructed a fortress at Athelney; and from this fortress, with that part of the men of Somerset which was nearest to it, from time to time they fought against the army. Then, in the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Brixton, on the east side of Selwood; and there came to meet him all the men of Somerset, and the men of Wiltshire, and that portion of the men of Hampshire which was on this side of the sea; and they were joyful at his presence. On the following day he went from that station to Iglea [Iley], and on the day after this to Heddington, and there fought against the whole army, put them to flight, and pursued them as far as their fortress; and there he sat down fourteen days. And then the army delivered to him hostages, with many oaths, that they would leave his kingdom, and also promised him that their king should receive baptism; and this they accordingly fulfilled. And about three weeks after this King Guthrum came to him, with some thirty men, who were of the most distinguished in the army, at Aller, which is near Athelney; and the king was his god-father at baptism, and his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore: and he was twelve days with the king; and he greatly honored him and his companions with gifts. THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. THIS account of the battle of Brunanburh, A.D. 937, is modernized from one of the poetical passages of the Saxon Chronicle by Lord Tennyson. The Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan had driven Anlaf or Olaf the Red from possession of his father Sitric's Danish kingdom of Northumbria. Olaf took refuge in his Irish kingdom, and returned thence with 615 vessels into the Humber. He was aided by his fatherin-law Constantine II., of Scotland, by Owen, king of Strathclyde, and some British princes. But these allies were completely defeated at Brunanburh, and the victory was celebrated in this spirited ballad. Athelstan King, Lord among Earls, He with his brother, Edmund Atheling, Slew with the sword-edge, there by Brunanburh, Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands. Theirs was a greatness got from their Grandsires— Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes. Bow'd the spoiler, bent the Scotsman, Fell the ship-crews doom'd to the death. All the field with blood of the fighters Flow'd, from when first the great sun-star of morning-tide, Lamp of the Lord God, Lord everlasting, Glode over earth till the glorious creature Sunk to his setting. There lay many a man marr'd by the javelin, Men of the Northland shot over shield. There was the Scotsman weary of war. |