It was by special applications to his cotemporary ecclesiastics that Beda got his facts; each application being made for the history of some particular diocese or province.

a. For Kent, Albinus, abbot of Canterbury, was the chief authority. He forwarded, by a priest named Nothelm, such statements as 'he had obtained from either the monuments of literature, or the tradition of the old men." He also gave notices of some of the districts conterminous with Kent.

b. For Wessex, Bishop Daniel "transmitted certain facts in the Ecclesiastical History of his own province, along with some appertaining to the neighbouring country of Sussex and the Isle of Wight."

c. For Suffolk and Norfolk "part of the Ecclesiastical History was taken from either the writings or the traditions of the old men, and part from the narrative of the very reverend abbot Esau."

d. For Mercia in general the monks of Lestingham were the authorities; but

e. For the particular province of Lincoln, the evidence was separate "For what was done in the province of Lindisey as touching the faith in Christ, as well as the succession of the priests, I have gained my information from either the letters of the very reverend High Priest Cymbert, or the vivá voce communications of living men."

f. For Northumberland, Beda collected his notices himself. His chief sources were vivá voce communications, and a life of St. Cuthbert, written by the monks of Lindisfarn.

Add to these, Gildas, a life of St. Germanus, and some few classical writers, as accessible to us as they were to Beda, and we have the authorities for the Historia Ecclesiastica. Whatever may have been the learning of the author, and however much he may have been the luminary of his age, his materials are neither better nor worse than this. Indeed, it is only for Northumberland that Beda is, him

self, answerable. The real evidence is that of Albinus, Daniel, the monks of Lestingham, &c.

§ 8. The same criticism applies to the other great authority for our early history, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For the later years of the Anglo-Saxon period, it is a full and satisfactory document. Nevertheless, it cannot be taken as an historical authority for the Pagan period, or the period anterior to A.D. 597. For the Pagan, and it may be added for a much later, period, its statements are open to criticism.

§ 9. The character, then, of the chief authorities is not such as to command the absolute adoption of either their ethnology or their chronology. To date the German occupancy of Britain from A.D. 449, and to hold that it began with the exploits of Hengest and Horsa, is to lay too much stress upon the comparatively late evidence of Beda, and too little upon that of Mamertinus and the Notitia.

§ 10. At the same time the palmary passages both of Beda and the Chronicle which bear upon the German invasions of Britain, should be known. They are the following:

BEDA.

"They came from three of the chief peoples of Germany, viz. the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes. Of Jute origin are the occupants of Kent and Wight, i.e. the nation which occupies the Isle of Wight, and that which, to this day, in the province of the West Saxons, is named the nation of the Jutes-opposite the Isle of Wight. From the Saxons, i. e. from that country which is named after the Old Saxons, came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, the West Saxons. Moreover, from the Angles, i. e. from that country which is called Angulus, and which from that time to this is reported to have lien as a desert between the provinces of the Jutes and Saxons, came the East Angles, the Midland Angles, the Mercians, and all the stock of the Northumbrians."

In the original.

"Advenerant autem de tribus Germaniæ populis fortioribus, id est Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis. De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuarii et Vectuarii, hoc est ea gens, quæ Vectam tenet insulam, et ea, quæ usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita

contra ipsam insulam Vectam. De Saxonibus, id est ea regione, quæ nunc Antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui Saxones. Porro de Anglis, hoc est de illa patria, quæ Angulus dicitur et ab eo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Mercii, tota Nordhumbrorum progenies."

The following is from the Saxon Chronicle (A.D. 449):—

"Da comon pa men of prim megðum Germaniæ, of Eald-Seaxum, of Anglum, of Jotum.

"Of Jotum comon Cantware and Wihtware, þæt is seo mæia, pe nú eardab on Wiht, and pæt cyn on West-Sexum de man gyt hæt Iútnacyn. Of Eald-Seaxum comon East-Seaxan, and Suð-Seaxan, and West-Seaxan. Of Angle comon (se á siðan stôd westig betwix Iútum and Seaxum) East-Engle, MiddelAngle, Mearce, and ealle Nordymbra."

"There came men from three powers of Germany, from OldSaxons, from Angles, from Jutes.

"From the Jutes came the inhabitants of Kent and of Wight, that is, the race that now dwells in Wight, and that tribe amongst the West-Saxons which is yet called the Jute kin. From the Old-Saxons came the East-Saxons, and South - Saxons, and WestSaxons. From Angle (which has since always stood waste betwixt the Jutes and Saxons) came the East-Angles, Middle-Angles, Mercians, and all the Northumbrians."

It is clear that the Anglo-Saxon notice is little more than a translation of the Latin one.

Thirdly; Alfred writes

"Comon of prym folcum þa strangestan Germaniæ, þæt of Saxum, and of Angle, and of Geatum; of Geatum fruman sindon Cantwære and Wiht-sætan, þæt is seo þeód se Wiht þat ealond on eardas."

"Came they of three folk the strongest of Germany; that of the Saxons, and of the Angles, and of the Geats. Of the Geats originally are the Kent-people and the Wiht-settlers, that is the people which Wiht the Island live on."

§ 11. The accuracy of all this being assumed, the further question as to the relation which the different immigrant tribes bore to each other finds place; and we ask about the extent to which the Jute differed from the Angle or the Saxon, and the relations of the Angle and the Saxon to

each other. Did they speak different languages? different dialects of a common tongue? or dialects absolutely identical? Did they belong to the same or to different confederations? Was one polity common to all? Were the civilizations similar?

Questions like these being answered, and a certain amount of mutual difference being ascertained, it then stands over to inquire whether any traces of it are still to be found in the modern English. Are there any provincial dialects which are Jute rather than Angle? or Angle rather than Saxon? Are certain local customs Saxon rather than Angle, certain points of dialect Angle rather than Saxon? Are there the characteristics of the Jutes in Kent, Hants, and the Isle of Wight? of the Saxons in Sussex, Essex, Wessex, and Middlesex, and of the Angles in Norfolk, Suffolk, the Midland Counties, Yorkshire and Northumberland?

§ 12. The accuracy, however, of all this is (as has been stated) doubtful. If so, certain exceptions are to be taken.

1. Were the Juta of Beda from Jutland?- -a. The Jutlanders, at the present moment, are Danes, rather than Germans; and Danes rather than Germans were they at the time of the Angle conquest of England.

b. Now in no other part of England do we find the Danes of Jutland treated as Jutes, but, on the contrary, as ordinary Danes. In Lincolnshire, in Yorkshire, in several other counties, there were Jutes in abundance. The name, however, by which they are designated is Dane. Hence, if a Dane from Jutland, when he settled in the Isle of Wight, were called a Jute, he was named on a principle foreign to the rest of the island. If the Jutes of Beda had been true Jutlanders, they would also have been Danes; and if they were Danes they would have been called Dane and Denisce.

c. Again; in Lincolnshire, in Yorkshire, in several other

counties where there was an abundance of Jutes, there both was, and is, abundance of evidence to their occupancy. The names of their settlements ended, and end, in -by, as Grims-by, Whit-by, &c. Let any one look to any ordinary map of England, and count the names of this kind; let him, then, look to their distribution. Let him note the extent to which they appear in each and all of the districts where Danes have ever been supposed to have settled; and then, let him note the utter absence of them in the parts where Beda places his Jutes. Compare Lincolnshire, which was really Danish, with Kent, Hants, and the Isle of Wight, which are only Jute, and the possibility of error will become apparent.

That there was a population of which the Latin name was Jute in the parts under notice, seems to be a fact. Its origin from Jutland seems to be an inference, and an incorrect one. My own view is that, as far as there were Jutes at all in the South of Britain, there were Jutes from the opposite coast of Gaul. If so, they were Goths. Word for word, the two forms are convertible. Alfred's form is Geat, and in the work attributed to Asser the name is Gothus.

"Osburg erat filia Oslac-qui Oslac Gothus erat natione, ortus enim erat de Gothis et Jutis."

In English.

66

"Osburg" (the mother of Alfred) was the daughter of Oslac-who was a Goth by nation, in origin from the Goths and Jutes."

§ 13. Was the difference between the Angles and the Saxons real?—The text of Beda suggests a difference between the Angles and the Saxons. Is this difference real or nominal? I believe it to be nominal. I submit that the Saxons were neither more nor less than Angles under another name.

a. At the present moment the Welsh call the English Saxons.

That the Romans and Britons spoke of the Angles under the same name is highly probable.