451. So Wace, 5873;
452. See Neustria Pia, 210; Lincy, “Essai Historique et Littéraire sur l’Abbayes de Fécamp” (Rouen, 1840), p. 6. The expressions of Dudo, 153 B et seqq., and of William of Malmesbury, ii. 178, might easily mislead.
454. See Hist. of Fed. Government, i. 574.
455. Roman de Rou, 5955–5974.
457. I do not mean merely because the word “parlement” occurs several times in the Roman de Rou. It is there used in its primitive sense, as translating “colloquium.” With this Norman revolt we may compare the revolt in Britanny in 1675, described in the Count of Carné’s “Etats de Bretagne.” See especially the “Code Paysan” at i. 377. The part of Rudolf of Ivry is played by the Duke of Chaulnes.
458. Will. Gem. v. 2. “Nam rustici unanimes per diversos totius Normannicæ patriæ comitatus plurima agentes conventicula, juxta suos libitus vivere decernebant. Quatenus, tam in silvarum compendiis quam in aquarum commerciis, nullo obsistente ante statuti juris obice, legibus uterentur suis. Quæ ut rata manerent, ab unoquoque cœtu furentis vulgi duo eliguntur legati, qui decreta ad mediterraneum roboranda ferrent conventum.”
459. Roman de Rou, 6070;
It does not necessarily follow that the word “commune” was used at the time, though I know no reason why such may not have been the case. It would be quite enough if Wace applied to the union of the peasants a name which in his time had become perfectly familiar, in the instinctive feeling that the earlier movement was essentially a forerunner of the later. Compare the “conjurationes” so strictly forbidden in the Carolingian Capitularies. See Brentano on Gilds, p. lxxvi; and for a full account of these “conjurationes,” Waitz, iv. 362–364.
460. Roman de Rou, 6001–6015.
461. Mark the brutal levity with which Rudolf’s cruelties are dismissed by William of Jumièges (v. 2); “Qui [Rodulphus] non morans jussa, cunctos confestim legatos cum nonnullis aliis cepit, truncatisque manibus et pedibus, inutiles suis remisit, qui eos talibus compescerent, et ne deteriora paterentur suis eventibus cautos redderent. His rustici expertis, festinato concionibus omissis, ad sua aratra sunt reversi.” So Roman de Rou, where various other tortures are spoken of, vv. 6093–6118. The same sentiment comes out in the speech which Orderic (713 A) puts into the mouth of the monks of Molesme; “Exinde principum institutione, et diutina consuetudine usitatum est in Gallia, ut rustici ruralia, sicut decet, peragant opera, et servi servilia passim exerceant ministeria.... Absit ut rustici torpescant otio, saturique lascivientes cachinnis et inani vacent ludicro, quorum genuina sors labori dedita est assiduo.”
462. Albereda, the wife of Rudolf, built the famous tower of Ivry. See Will. Gem. viii. 15.
463. See Palgrave, iii. 44.
464. Our main authorities for this period are essentially the same as those to which we have to go for our knowledge of earlier times. The English Chronicles are still our principal guide. For the present they may be quoted as one work, as the differences between the different manuscripts, pointed out by Mr. Earle in the Preface to his Parallel Saxon Chronicles, are not as yet of much strictly historical importance. Florence of Worcester gives what is essentially a Latin version of the Chronicles, with frequent explanatory additions, which his carefulness and sound sense render of great value. The Charters and Laws of the reign of Æthelred are abundant, and, besides their primary value as illustrating laws and customs, the signatures constantly help us to the succession of offices and to a sort of skeleton biographies of the leading men of the time. These, the Chronicles, Laws, and Charters, form our primary authorities. The later Latin Chroniclers, from William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon onwards, supply many additional facts; but their accounts are often mixed up with romantic details, and it is dangerous to trust them, except when they show signs of following authorities which are now lost. This is not uncommonly the case with both Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury. Local histories, like those of Ely, Ramsey, and Abingdon, supply occasional facts, but the same sort of cautions which apply to the secondary writers of general history apply to them in a still greater degree. We now also begin to draw some little help from foreign sources. The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, the Chronicles of Swegen Aggesson, the various Sagas, especially the famous Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson, are very hard to reconcile with the more authentic notices in our own Chronicles; but among much that is doubtful and much that is clearly fabulous, they often help us to facts, and to the causes and connexions of facts, which our own writers leave obscure. The Norman writers also begin to be of some importance for the events which connect England and Normandy. For the early part of the reign of Æthelred we have no contemporary Norman writer, but the accounts in the Roman de Rou and in William of Jumièges at least show us what was the Norman tradition. Later in the period, we have, in the Encomium Emmæ (reprinted in the nineteenth volume of Pertz by the name of “Gesta Cnutonis”), the work of a contemporary Norman or Flemish writer, which, though throughout unfair and inaccurate, is worth comparing with our English writers. Occasional notices of Danish and English affairs are sometimes to be gleaned from the German writers, like Adam of Bremen and the contemporary Thietmar of Merseberg.
On the whole the materials for this period are ample, and, as regards England, they are fully trustworthy. The difficulty lies in reconciling the English and continental narratives.
465. “Unready” must mean “lacking rede” or counsel. Walter Map (De Nugis, 199) calls him “Edelredus, quem Anglici consilium [insilium? see below, p. 317] vocaverunt, quia nullius erat negotii.” “Magnificus,” the epithet of Eadmund the First, means rather “worker of great deeds”—the Greek μεγαλοπράγμων,—than “magnificent” in the vulgar sense.
466. See Appendix AA.
467. Fl. Wig. A. 975. “Congregato exercitu, monasteria Orientalium Anglorum maxima strenuitate defenderunt.”
468. “Amicus Dei.” Fl. Wig. 975, 991, 992, 1016. See Appendix AA.
469. See Appendix AA.
470. For a full examination of her story, I would refer to the first Essay in my Historical Essays, first series.
471. “Fabius Quæstor Patricius Æthelwerdus,” as he thinks good to call himself, the author of the earliest and most meagre of our Latin Chronicles, was descended (see his own Prologue) from one of the sons of Æthelred the First who were excluded to make way for Ælfred (see above, p. 108).
472. Fl. Wig. 975. See Appendix BB.
473. The correct description is “the Old Lady.” See Chron. (Abingdon), 1051. Lady (Hlæfdige), it will be remembered, not Queen, is the usual title of the wife of a West-Saxon King.
474. See Eadmer, Anglia Sacra, ii. 220, Osbern, 112, and Lingard’s note, Hist. of England, i. 274.
475. Fl. Wig. A. 976. The poems in the Chronicles certainly seem to me to connect the banishment of Oslac with the predominance of Ælfhere and the anti-monastic party.
476. See Appendix KK.
477. The Chronicles bitterly lament the crime, without mentioning the criminal. Florence distinctly charges Ælfthryth with it. In the hands of William of Malmesbury (ii. 162) the story becomes a romance, which gets fresh details in those of Bromton (X Scriptt. 873 et seqq.). The obiter dictum of William of Malmesbury (ii. 165), that Ælfhere had a hand in Eadward’s death, is contrary to the whole tenor of the history. See Chron. 980; Fl. Wig. 979.
478. I know not what to make of the incredible story in Goscelin’s Life of Saint Eadgyth (Mabillon, Ann. Ord. Ben. vii. 622), that the Witan or some of them (“regni proceres”) wished to choose his heroine, a natural daughter of Eadgar and already a professed nun, as Lady in her own right. A female reign had not been heard of since the days of Sexburh.
479. Chron. and Fl. Wig. in anno. See also the charter of 998 in Cod. Dipl. iii. 305, and Appendix AA. The beginnings of a legendary version may be seen in William of Malmesbury (ii. 165) and Roger of Wendover (i. 423).
480. Fl. Wig. 987. The English and Welsh Chronicles both put the cattle-plague a year earlier, and do not mention the disease among men.
481. On the contradictory statements as to Æthelred’s first wife and her children, see Appendix RR.
482. The full form of this name, Swegen, is always used by the English Chroniclers; but in Danish pronunciation it seems to have been already cut down into Svein or Sven. The Latin forms are Suanus and Sueno.
483. This is in marked contrast to the affairs of the Empire, on which our Chroniclers evidently kept a careful eye, and of which they contain many notices.
484. See the Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson, c. 29; Laing, i. 395. Swegen is called Suein Otto by Adam of Bremen, ii. 25.
486. See the “Saga om Oloff Tryggwasson,” “Historia Olai Tryggwæ Filii,” Upsala, 1691, or Laing’s Sea-Kings of Norway, i. 367.
487. Adam Brem. ii. 32; Saxo, lib. x. p. 188. Swegen, already King, is driven out by Eric of Sweden. To reconcile the chronology is hopeless. Saxo calls the English King Eadward.
488. Chron. A. 980. “And þý ilcan geare wæs Legeceasterscír gehergod fram norð scipherige.” Florence has, more distinctly, “Civitatis Legionum provincia a Norwegensibus piratis devastatur.” Northmen of all kinds are often confounded under the name of Danes, but none but genuine Norwegians are likely to be spoken of in this way. Leicester here, as often, is not the midland Leicester, but Chester.
489. Chron. and Fl. Wig. in anno. “Goda se Defenisca þegen” was killed, according to the Chronicles. Florence calls him “satrapa Domnaniæ.” Satrapa seems to be sometimes used as a formal title inferior to Ealdorman. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 356, where Leofsige is raised from the rank of satrapa to that of dux.
490. The Chronicles give no names; Florence mentions Justin and Guthmund; but the treaty presently to be mentioned, gives the name of Olaf as well.
491. The original Old-English text is printed in Thorpe’s Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, p. 131; there is a modern English translation in Conybeare’s Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon poetry, xc. The poem, of which unfortunately the beginning and ending are lost, is evidently local and contemporary. I therefore do not hesitate to accept the main facts of the battle and the names of the actors as trustworthy, much more trustworthy than if they were found in a Latin prose chronicle a century or two later. The speeches, no doubt, are, like most speeches in history, the invention of the poet.
492. The church, a massive Romanesque building, may not unlikely have been raised, like so many other churches on battle-fields, to commemorate the event.
493. .sp 1
This “heorð-werod” or hearth company are the personal following or comitatus (see above, p. 86) of the chief; to their exploits the poem is chiefly devoted. This battle of Maldon, like all our battles, will be found to contain many details leading to the illustration of the last and greatest battle on Senlac.
494. William of Malmesbury says of Harold (iii. 241), “Rex ipse pedes juxta vexillum stabat cum fratribus, ut, in commune periculo æquato, nemo de fuga cogitaret.” So Brihtnoth bids his men form a firm rank with the “board-wall” or line of shields;
Mr. Conybeare mistook the meaning of the passage and the tactics of the English army when he translated “and þone stede healdan,” “how to guide their steeds.” It means “how to hold their stead or place.”
The English habit of fighting on foot is noticed with some exaggeration in the earliest description of our nation; ἄλκιμοι δέ εἰσι πάντων μάλιστα βαρβάρων ὧν ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν οἱ νησιῶται οὗτοι, ἔς τε τὰς ξυμβολὰς, πεζοὶ ἴασιν· οὐ γὰρ ὅσον εἰσὶ τοῦ ἱππεύειν ἀμελέτητοι, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ ἵππον ὅ τι ποτέ ἐστιν ἐπίστασθαι σφίσι ξυμβαίνει, κ.τ.λ. Prokopios, Bell. Goth. iv. 20.
495. The only other Maccus whom I know anything of is the Under-king of Man, who was one of the princes who rowed Eadgar on the Dee. But what could he, or any one of his family or nation, be doing in the comitatus of an Ealdorman of the East-Saxons?
496. Compare however the discussion among the revolted Karians as to crossing the Maiandros. Herod. v. 118. Compare on the other hand the challenge to cross the Wear given by Edward the Third to the Scots in 1327. Froissart, i. c. xix. (vol. i. p. 20. ed. 1559); Longman, Edward III. i. 14. So the Parthians and Antonius, Plut. Ant. 49.
497. The weapon of close fight at Maldon, as at Brunanburh, was on both sides the sword. The Danish axe had not yet been introduced into England, and as late as Stamfordbridge Harold Hardrada wielded the sword. The bill is twice mentioned, and it is put into the hand of Brihtnoth himself; but it is plain that the bill here spoken of was a sword and not an axe;
Earlier in the poem the defensive and offensive weapons of the English appear distinctly as “Bord and brád swurd.” The early use of the epithet “brown” applied to a sword, common in later ballads, should be noticed.
498. The likeness struck Mr. Conybeare strongly, p. lxxxviii.
499. So I understand the lines,
Compare the flight of the French serving-boys on their masters’ horses at the approach of Chandos in 1369. Froissart, c. cclxxvii. (i. 383, 384); Longman, Edward III. ii. 167.
501. So says the Ely History (ii. 6), which, on such a point, may be trusted. The Abbot supplied the loss with a mass of wax.
502. Is this Ælfwine a son of the banished Ealdorman Ælfric? “Ælfwine minister,” occasionally, but not very commonly, signs charters about this time.
503. So I understand the passage, as does Mr. Conybeare. But we have no mention of any inroad of this army into Northumberland.
504. Ammianus, xvi. 12. “Comites ejus, ducenti numero, et tres amici junctissimi, flagitium arbitrati post regem vivere vel pro rege non mori, si ita tulerit casus.” In this case, the King having surrendered, they “tradidere se vinciendos.”
505. Fl. Wig. A. 991. “Utrinque infinita multitudine cæsa, ipse dux occubuit, Danica vero fortuna vicit.” The Ely historian tries hard to turn the battle into a victory.
506. See her life in Bæda, iv. 19, 20.
507. The Ely History (ii. 3) gives the legend. With the slight improvement of painting Ælfthryth as a witch, it is the story of Joseph and Zuleikha, or of Bellerophontês and Anteia, over again, with such changes as were needed when the tale was transferred from a married woman to a widow. It should be remembered that Ælfthryth’s first husband Æthelwold seems to have been a nephew of Brihtnoth.
508. Hist. El. ii. 7. “Torquem auream, et cortinam [curtain] gestis viri sui intextam atque depositam, depictam in memoriam probitatis ejus, huic ecclesiæ donavit.” See Palgrave, Eng. Com. ii. ccccvi; Lingard, i. 278.
509. The Chronicles say expressly, “On þam geare man gerædde ƿæt man geald ærest gafol Deniscum mannum,” &c. But there is a curious piece of evidence to show that the possibility of such a measure was thought of long before. In the will of King Eadred in the Liber de Hyda, p. 153, he leaves sixteen hundred pounds “to þan þæt hi mege magan hu[n]gor and hæþenne here him fram aceapian, gif hie beþurfen.” The manuscript seems to be very corrupt, but there can be no doubt as to the meaning. The words are left out in the Latin and later English versions which follow.
510. Fl. Wig. A. 990. “Clericis a Cantuaria proturbatis, monachos induxit.”
511. See the preamble to the Peace in Thorpe, i. 284. Cf. Chron. and Fl. Wig. 991. The Chronicle mentions only the Archbishop, not the Ealdormen.
513. I do not know where Æthelweard’s ealdormanship lay. If this Ælfric was Ealdorman of the Mercians, it is clear that his government would be directly threatened by an enemy who had probably had possession of a large part of East-Anglia and Essex.
514. See the Treaty in Thorpe, i. 284; Schmid, 204; and Appendix DD.
515. Chron. in anno. “Þa gerædde se cyning and ealle his witan.” So Florence; “Consilio jussuque regis Anglorum Ægelredi procerumque suorum.”
516. His name is Ælfstan both in the Chronicles and in Florence, through some confusion with a predecessor of that name, who died in 981.
517. See Appendix FF. Thored in the Chronicle is Eorl, Ælfric is Ealdorman. This distinction clearly marks out Thored as of Danish birth, or as holding a government within the Danish part of England.
518. Ammianus, xxvii. 8. “Lundinium vetus oppidum, quod Augustam posteritas appellavit.” xxviii. 3. “Ab Augusta profectus, quam veteres appellavere Lundinium.” He however himself elsewhere (xx. 1) speaks of “Lundinium” without any addition. The popular name of London survived the official name of Augusta, just as Sikyôn survived Dêmêtrias, as Mantineia survived Antigoneia, as Jerusalem survived Ælia Capitolina.
519. Tac. Ann. xiv. 33. On the origin of London, see Guest, Archæological Journal, 1866, No. xci. p. 159. Cf. Vita S. Bon., Pertz, ii. 338. “Pervenit ad locum ubi erat forum rerum venalium, et usque hodie antiquo Anglorum Saxonumque vocabulo appellatur Lundenwich.”
520. Bæda, Eccl. Hist. ii. 3.
521. Chron. 896. On the probability that the present Tower occupies the site of a fortress of Ælfred, see Mr. Earle’s note, p. 310.
522. Thorpe, Laws and Inst. i. 228; Kemble, Saxons in England, ii. 521.
523. Instituta Lundoniæ, Thorpe, i. 300.
524. Thorpe, i. 300; Lappenberg, Gesch. des hansischen Stahlhofes, p. 5. The great privilege of the “homines Imperatoris, qui veniebant in navibus suis,” seems to have been that they were, with certain exceptions, allowed to buy and sell on board their own ships, which doubtless exempted them from certain tolls to which others were liable.
526. Thorpe, i. 300. “Homines Imperatoris, qui veniebant in navibus suis, bonarum legum digni tenebantur, sicut et nos.”
527. See Appendix AA.
528. So it stands in the English version of the Brut y Tywysogion, in anno; “And Maredudd, son of Owain, paid to the Black Pagans a tribute of one penny for each person.” But in the Annales Cambriæ the transaction takes the milder form of a redemption of captives; “Maredut redemit captivos a gentilibus nigris, nummo pro unoquoque dato.”
529. His own dominions are described (Brut, 991) as Dyfed, Ceredigion, Gower, and Cydweli, answering to the modern counties of Pembroke, Cardigan, Caermarthen, and part of Glamorgan. In 985 he conquered Mona or Anglesey, Merioneth, and Gwynedd generally.
530. He is called Owen, Guyn, and Etwin. Was this last name borrowed from the English Eadwine? His English ally appears in the Brut as “Eclis the Great, a Saxon prince from the seas of the south.” The Annals call him Edelisi, that is, doubtless Æthelsige. See Appendix AA.
531. Brut y Tywysogion, 991. “Maredudd hired the pagans willing to join him.”
532. On Æthelred’s relations with Normandy see Appendix EE.
533. This is the conjecture of Lappenberg, ii. 153, Eng. Tr.
534. Will. Malms, ii. 166. “Et de hominibus regis vel inimicis suis nullum Ricardus recipiat, neque rex de suis, sine sigillo eorum.” Sigillum does not necessarily imply a seal in the later sense; a signature of any kind is enough.
536. Chron. in anno. “Ac seo halige Godes modor on þam dæge hire mildheortnesse þære burhware gecydde, and hi ahredde wið heora feondum.” A good deal of the simple earnestness of the English is lost in Florence’s Latin, “Dei suæque genetricis Mariæ juvamine.”
537. Flor. Wig. “Furore simul et tristitia exasperati.”
538. It would, I imagine, be very hard to find out the exact point in Olaf Tryggvesson’s life when, according to his Saga (c. xiii.), he made expeditions in Britain, Ireland, and Scotland, attacking the heathen and keeping peace with the Christians. It would be hardly more difficult to identify the daughter of an Irish King and widow of an English Ealdorman, whom Olaf marries in the next chapter. See above, p. 269.
539. I conceive this to be the distinction intended by Florence, when he says “de tota West-Saxonia stippendium dabatur [“and hi mon þær fedde geond eall Westseaxena rice,” say the Chronicles]; de tota vero Anglia tributum, quod erat xvi. millia librarum, dependebatur.”
540. The confirmation of Olaf implies his previous baptism, and thereby remarkably confirms that part of the legend. But Adam of Bremen (ii. 34) has two quite different accounts, according to one of which Olaf learned Christianity in England for the first time, while, according to the other, he was converted in Norway by English missionaries. The one point in which all versions agree is to connect his conversion with England in some shape or other.
541. Ann. Camb.; Brut y Tywysogion, 994.
542. See Thietmar, iv. 16; Adam Brem. ii. 29.
543. The charters of this year in the Codex Diplomaticus (iii. 284, 286, and 288), one of King Æthelred and two of Æscwig, Bishop of Dorchester, belong to a meeting before the death of Sigeric, by whom they were signed. Those of the same year at pp. 281 and 290, which Ælfric signs as Archbishop-elect, must belong to a later meeting, probably that at which he was elected. He was consecrated next year (Chron. and Fl. Wig.). Had he held the bishopric of Ramsbury without consecration?
544. So the Chronicles, but only in the late Canterbury manuscript (Cott. Domit. A. viii.). This fact however is probably authentic; but what can be made of the story of Ælfric driving out the seculars from Christ Church, where Sigeric had already brought in monks? See above, p. 278.
545. See Bæda, Eccl. Hist. iv. 27, and the prose and verse lives of Saint Cuthberht in his Opera Historica Minora, pp. 3, 49. Also Sim. Dun., Eccl. Dun. lib. ii. c. 6, et seqq. (X Scriptt. 13).
546. Flor. Wig. 995.
547. Sim. Dun., Hist. Dun. iii. 2. “Comitans sanctissimi patris Cuthberti corpus universus populus in Dunelmum, locum quidem natura munitum, sed non facile habitabilem invenit, quoniam densissima undique silva totum occupaverat.” Compare the description of Durham given by William of Malmesbury, De Gest. Pont. p. 270, ed. Hamilton; “Dunelmum est collis, ab una vallis planitie paullatim et molli clivo turgescens in tumulum; et licet situ edito et prærupto rupium omnem aditum excludat hostium, tamen ibi moderni collibus imposuerunt castellum.” He then goes on to speak of the river and its fish. See also the Old-English poem on Durham printed at p. 153 of the Surtees edition of Simeon, and which is referred to by Simeon himself in his History of the Church of Durham, iii. 7. William also might seem to have had the poem before him.
548. A still closer parallel, though on a far smaller scale, may be found in Ireland in the ruined cathedral and archiepiscopal fortress which crown the famous rock of Cashel. Only at Sitten the church and the castle are on two distinct heights, as if Cashel and Glastonbury were set side by side.
549. Cod. Dipl. iii. 299.
550. Cod. Dipl. iii. 302. “Collecta haud minima sapientum multitudine in aula villæ regiæ quæ nuncupative a populis et [æt?] Calnæ vocitatur. Ac sic paucis interpositis ymeris [himeris, ἡμέραις] rursus advocata omnis exercitus, caterva pontificum, abbatum, ducum, optimatum nobiliumque quamplurimorum ad villam quæ ab indigenis Wanetincg agnominatur,” &c. &c. The whole passage is remarkable and valuable.
551. Thorpe, i. 280; Schmid, 198. The Wantage laws are said specially to be “æfter Engla lage.”
552. So Schmid, p. li. The use of the word Wapentake, a division confined to the North, and the special mention of the Five Boroughs, seem quite to bear out this conjecture.