【英文读物】The Saxons in England.docx

【英文读物】The Saxons in EnglandCHAPTER I. GROWTH OF THE KINGLY POWER. The object of the First Book was generally to give a clear view of the principles upon which the original settlement of the Anglosaxons was founded. But as our earliest fortunes are involved in an obscurity caused by the almost total absence of contemporary records, and as the principles themselves are not historically developed in all their integrity, at least in this country, many conclusions could only be arrived at through a system of induction, by comparing the known facts of Teutonic history in other lands, or at earlier periods, by tracing the remnants of old institutions in their influence upon society in an altered, and perhaps somewhat deteriorated, condition, and lastly by general reasoning derived from the nature of society itself. This 2Second Book is however devoted to the historical development of those principles, in periods whereof we possess more sufficient record, and to an investigation of the form in which, after a long series of compromises, our institutions slowly and gradually unfolded themselves, till the close of the Anglosaxon monarchy. The two points upon which this part of the subject more particularly turns, are, the introduction of Christianity, and the progressive consolidation and extension of the kingly power; and round these two points the chapters of this Book will naturally group themselves. It is fortunate for us that the large amount of historical materials which we possess, enables us to follow the various social changes in considerable detail, and renders it possible to let the Anglosaxons tell their own story to a much greater extent than in the first Book.In the course of years, continual wars had removed a multitude of petty kings or chieftains from the scene; a consolidation of countries had taken place; actual sovereignty, grounded on the law of force, on possession, or on federal compacts, had raised a few of the old dynasts above the rank of their fellows; the other nobles, and families of royal lineage, had for the most part submitted to the law of the comitatus, swelling the ranks, adorning the court, and increasing the power of princes who had risen upon their degradation; and at the commencement of the seventh century, England presented the extraordinary spectacle of at least eight independent kingdoms, of greater or less power and 3influence, and, as we may reasonably believe, very various degrees of civil and moral cultivation. In the extreme south-eastern corner of the island was the Kentish confederation, comprising in all probability the present counties of Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex, whose numerous kings acknowledged the supremacy of Æðelberht, the son of Eormanríc, a prince of the house of Æscings, originally perhaps a Sussex family, but who claimed their royal descent from Wóden, through Hengist, the first traditional king of Kent. Under this head three of the eight named kingdoms were thus united; but successful warlike enterprise or the praise of superior wisdom had extended the political influence of the Æscing even to the southern bank of the Humber. Next to Sussex, along the southern coast, and as far westward as the border of the Welsh in Dorsetshire or Devon, lay the kingdom of the Westsaxons or Gewissas, which stretched northward to the Thames and westward to the Severn, and probably extended along the latter river over at least a part of Gloucestershire: this kingdom, or rather confederation, comprised all or part of the following counties; Hampshire with the Isle of Wight, a tributary sovereignty; Dorsetshire, perhaps a part of Devonshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, a portion of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Middlesex, up to the Chiltern Hills. Eastanglia occupied the extreme east of the island, stretching to the north and west up to the Wash and the marshes of Lincoln and Cambridgeshire, and comprehending, together with its marches, Norfolk and Suffolk, and part at least of Cambridge, Huntingdon, 4Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Mercia with its dependent sovereignties occupied nearly all the remaining portion of England east of the Severn and south of the Humber, including a portion of Herefordshire, and probably also of Salop, beyond the western bank of the former river: while two small kingdoms, often united into one, but when separate, called Deira and Bernicia, filled the remaining space from the Humber to the Pictish border, which may be represented by a line running irregularly north-east from Dumbarton to Inverkeithing1. In the extreme west the remains of the Keltic populations who had disdained to place 5themselves under the yoke of the Saxons, still maintained a dangerous and often threatening independence: and Cornwall and Devon, North and South Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, perhaps even part of Northumberland, still formed important fortresses, garrisoned by this hardy and unsubjugated race. Beyond the Picts, throughout the north of Scotland, and in the neighbouring island of Ireland, were the Scots, a Keltic race, but not so nearly allied as the Cornish, Cymric and Pictish tribes.It is probable enough that the princes who presided over these several aggregations of communities, had their traditional or family alliances and friendships, as well as their enmities, political and 6personal, and that some description of public law may consequently have grown up among them, by which their national intercourse was regulated. But we cannot suppose this to have been either very comprehensive or well defined. Least of all can we find any proof that there was a community of action among them, of a systematic and permanent character. A national priesthood, and a central service in which all alike participated, had any such existed, might have formed a point of union for all the races; but there is no record of this, and, I think, but little probability of its having been found at any time. If we consider the various sources from which the separate populations were derived, and the very different periods at which they became masters of their several seats; their constant hostility and the differences of language2 and law; above all the distance of their settlements, severed by deep and gloomy forests, rude hills, unforded streams, or noxious and pestilential morasses, we can hardly imagine any concert among them for the establishment of a common worship; it is even doubtfulso meagre are our notices of the national heathendomwhether the same gods were revered all over England; although the descent of all the reigning families from Wóden would seem to speak for his worship at least having been universal. Again, there is reason to doubt that the priesthood occupied here quite so commanding a position as they may have enjoyed upon 7the continent, partly because the carelessness or hatred of the British Christians refused to attempt the conversion of their adversaries3, and thus afforded no opportunity for a reaction or combined effort at resistance on the part of the Pagans; and partly because we cannot look for any very deep rooted religious convictions in the breast of the wandering, military adventurer, removed from the time-hallowed sites of ancient, local worship, and strongly tempted to “trow upon himself,” in preference to gods whose powers and attributes he had little leisure to contemplate. The words of Coifi, a Northumbrian high-priest, to Eádwini, do at any rate imply a feeling on his part, that his position was not so brilliant and advantageous as he thought himself entitled to expect; and the very expressions he uses, implying a very considerable degree of subordination to the king of one principality4, are hardly consistent with the hypothesis of a national hierarchy, which must have assumed a position scarcely inferior to that of the sovereigns themselves. 8Finally, I cannot believe that, had such an organization and such a body existed, there would be no trace of the opposition it must have offered to the introduction of the new creed: some record there must have been of a triumph so signal as that of Christianity under such circumstances; and the good believers who lavish miracles upon most inadequate occasions, must have given us some well-authenticated cases by which the sanctity of the monk was demonstrated to the confusion of the pagan. The silence of the Christian historian is an eloquent evidence of the insignificant power of the heathen priesthood.Much less can we admit that there was any central political authority, recognized, systematic and regulated, by which the several kingdoms were combined into a corporate body. There is indeed a theory, respectable for its antiquity, and reproduced by modern ingenuity, according to which this important fact is assumed, and we are not only taught that the several kingdoms formed a confederation, at whose head, by election or otherwise, one of the princes was placed with imperial power, but that this institution was derived by direct imitation from the custom of the Roman empire: we further learn that the title of this high functionary was Bretwalda, or Emperor of Britain, and that he possessed the imperial decorations of the Roman state5. When this discovery was first made I know not, but the most detailed account that I have seen 9may be given from the, in many respects, excellent and neglected work of Rapin. He tells us6:“The Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, that conquered the best part of Britain, looking upon themselves as one and the same people7, as they had been in Germany, established a form of government, as like as possible to what they had lived under in their own country. They formed their Wittena-Gemot, or assembly of wise men, to settle the common affairs of the seven kingdoms, and conferred the command of their armies upon one chosen out of the seven kings, to whom, for that reason no doubt, some have given the title of Monarch, on pretence of his having the precedence and some superiority over the rest. But to me that dignity seems rather to have been like that of Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Low Countries. There was however some difference between the Saxon government in Britain and that in Germany. For instance, in Germany the governor of each province entirely depended on the General Assembly, where the supreme power was lodged; whereas in Britain, each king was sovereign in his own dominions. But notwithstanding this, all the kingdoms together were, in some respects, considered as the same state, and every one submitted to the resolutions of the General Assembly of the Seven Kingdoms, to which he gave his consent by himself 10or representative. A free election, and sometimes force, gave the Heptarchy a chief or monarch, whose authority was more or less, according to their strength8. For though the person invested with this office had no right to an unlimited authority, there was scarce one of these monarchs but what aspired to an absolute power.”This description has at least the advantage of detail and of consistency, even though it should unfortunately lack that of truth; but most of those who in more modern times have adopted the hypothesis, refrain from giving us any explanation of the fact it assumes: they tell us indeed the title, and profess to name those who successively bore it, but they are totally silent as to the powers of this great public officer, as to the mode of his appointment, the manner in which he exerted his authority, or the object for which such authority was found necessary. I must frankly confess that I am unable to find any evidence whatever in favour of this view, which appears to me totally inconsistent with everything which we know of the state and principles of society at the early period with which we have to deal. In point of fact, everything depends upon the way in which we construe a passage of Beda, together with one in the Saxon Chronicle, borrowed from him, and the meaning which history and philology justify us in giving to 11the words made use of by both authors. As the question is of some importance, it may as well be disposed of at once, although only two so-called Bretwaldas are recorded previous to the seventh century.Modern ingenuity, having hastily acquiesced in the existence of this authority, has naturally been somewhat at a loss to account for it; yet this is obviously the most important part of the problem: accordingly Mr. Sharon Turner looks upon the Bretwalda as a kind of war-king, a temporary military leader: he says9,“The disaster of Ceawlin gave safety to Kent. Ethelbert preserved his authority in that kingdom, and at length proceeded to that insulary predominance among the Anglosaxon kings, which they called the Bretwalda, or the ruler of Britain. Whether this was a mere title assumed by Hengist, and afterwards by Ella, and continued by the most successful Anglosaxon prince of his day, or conceded in any national council of all the Anglosaxons, or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon king that most felt and pressed his temporary power,whether it was an imitation of the British unbennaeth, or a continuation of the Saxon custom of electing a war-cyning, cannot now be ascertained.”To this he adds in a note:“The proper force of this word Bretwalda cannot imply conquest, because Ella the First is not said to have conquered Hengist or Cerdic; nor did the 12other Bretwaldas conquer the other Saxon kingdoms.”Again he returns to the charge: in the eighth chapter of the same book, he says10:“Perhaps the conjecture on this dignity which would come nearest the truth, would be, that it was the Walda or ruler of the Saxon kingdoms against the Britons, while the latter maintained the struggle for the possession of the country,a species of Agamemnon against the general enemy, not a title of dignity or power against each other. If so, it would be but the war-king of the Saxons in Britain, against its native chiefs.”Lappenberg, adopting this last view, refines upon it in detail: he believes the Bretwalda to have been the elected generalissimo of the Saxons against the Welsh or other Keltic races, and that as the tide of conquest rolled onwards, the dignity shifted to the shoulders of that prince whose position made him the best guardian of the frontiers. But this will scarcely account to us for the Bretwaldadom of Ælle in Sussex, Æðelberht in Kent, or Rdwald in Eastanglia; yet these are three especially named. Besides we have a right to require some evidence that there ever was a common action of the Saxons against the Britons, and that they really were in the habit of appointing war-kings in England, two points on which there exists not a tittle of proof. Indeed it seems clear to me that a piece of vicious philology lurks at the bottom of 13this whole theory, a