This huntin' doesn't pay,But we'n powler't up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day.
This huntin' doesn't pay,But we'n powler't up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day.
This huntin' doesn't pay,
But we'n powler't up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day.
But, if some conclusions, although scanty, can be drawn from place-names in which the wordgrendeloccurs, nothing can be got from the numerous place-names which have been thought to contain the nameBēow. The clearest of these is theon Bēowan hammes hecgan, which occurs in the Wiltshire charter of 931. But we can learn nothing definite from it: and although there are other instances of strong and weak forms alternating, we cannot even be quite certain that the Beowa here is identical with the Beow of the genealogies[596].
The other cases, many of which occur inDomesday Bookare worthless. Those which point to a weak form may often be derived from the weak nounbēo, "bee": "The Anglo-Saxons set great store by their bees, honey and wax being indispensables to them[597]."
Bēas brōc,Bēas feld(Bewes feld) occur in charters: but here a connection withbēaw, "horsefly," is possible: for parallels, one has only to consider the long list of places enumerated by Björkman, the names of which are derived from those of beasts,birds, or insects[598]. And in such a word asBēolēah, even if the first element bebēow, why may it not be the common noun "barley," and not the name of the hero at all?
No argument can therefore be drawn from such a conjecture as that of Olrik, thatBēas brōcrefers to the water into which the last sheaf (representing Beow) was thrown, in accordance with the harvest custom, and in the expectation of the return of the spirit in the coming spring[599].
C. THE STAGES ABOVE WODEN IN THE WEST-SAXON GENEALOGY
The problems to which this pedigree gives rise are very numerous, and some have been discussed above. There are four which seem to need further discussion.
(I) A "Sceafa" occurs inWidsithas ruling over the Longobards. Of course we cannot be certain that this hero is identical with the Sceaf of the genealogy. Now there is no one in the long list of historic or semi-historic Longobard kings, ruling after the tribe had left Scandinavia, who bears a name at all similar. It seems therefore reasonable to suppose that Sceafa, if he is a genuine Longobard king at all, belongs to the primitive times when the Longobardi or Winnili dwelt in "Scadan," before the historic or semi-historic times with which our extant list deals. And Old English accounts, although making Sceaf an ancestor of the Saxon kings, are unanimous in connecting him with Scani or Scandza.
Some scholars[600]have seen a serious difficulty in the weak form "Sceafa," as compared with "Sceaf." But we have the exactly parallel cases ofHorsa[601]compared withHors[602], andHrǣdla[603]compared withHrǣdel[604],Hrēðel. Parallel, but not quite so certain, areSceldwa[605]andScyld[606],Gēata[607]andGēat[608],Bēowa[609]andBēaw, Bēo(w)[610].
I do not think it has ever been doubted that the formsHorsandHorsa, orHrēðelandHrǣdla, relate to one and the same person. Prof. Chadwick seems to have little or no doubt as to the identity ofScyldandSceldwa[611], orBēoandBēowa[612]. Why then should the identity ofScēafandScēafabe denied because one form is strong and the other weak[613]? We cannot demonstrate the identity of the figure in the genealogies with the figure inWidsith; but little difficulty is occasioned by the weak form.
(II) Secondly, the absence of the nameScēaffrom the oldestMSof theChronicle(theParker MS,C.C.C.C.173) has been made the ground for suggesting that when thatMSwas written (c.892) Sceaf had not yet been invented (Möller,Volksepos, 43; Symons inPauls Grdr. (2),III, 645; Napier, as quoted by Clarke,Sidelights, 125). But Sceaf, and the other names which are omitted from theParker MS, are found in the otherMSSof theChronicleand the allied pedigrees, which are known to be derived independently from one and the same original. Now, unless the names were older than theParker MS, they could not appear in so many independent transcripts. For, even though these transcripts are individually later, theiragreementtakes us back to a period earlier than that of theParker MSitself[614].
An examination of the different versions of the genealogy, given on pp.202-3, above, and of the tree showing the connection between them, on p.315, will, I think, make this clear.
The versions of the pedigree given in theParker MSof theChronicle, in Asser and inTextus Roffensis I, all contain the stagesFriþuwaldandFriþuwulf. Asser andRoff. Iare connected by the note aboutGēata: butRoff. Iis not derived from that text of Asser which has come down to us, as thattext has corruptedFinandGodwulfinto one name and has substitutedSethforScēaf["Seth,SaxoniceSceaf": Florence of Worcester].Roff. Iis free from both these corruptions.
Ethelwerd is obviously connected with a type of genealogy giving the stagesFriþuwaldandFriþuwulf, but differs from all the others in giving no stages betweenScyldandScēf.
None of the other versions contain the namesFriþuwaldandFriþuwulf. They are closely parallel, but fall into groups showing special peculiarities.
MSS Tib. A. VIandTib. B. Iof theChronicleshow only trifling differences of spelling. TheMSSbelong respectively to about the years 1000 and 1050, and are both derived from an Abingdon original of about 977[615].
MS Cott. Tib. B. IVis derived from a copy of theChroniclesent North about 892[616].
MS Cott. Tib. B. VandTextus Roffensis IIare closely connected, but neither is derived from the other. ForRoff. IIpreservesTeþwaandHwāla, who are lost inTib. B. V; Tib. B. VpreservesIterman, who is corrupted inRoff. II.BothTib. B. VandRoff. IIcarry the pedigree down to Edgar, mentioning his three sonsĒadweard and Ēadmund and Æþelred æðelingas syndon Ēadgāres suna cyninges. The original therefore apparently belongs to some date before 970, when Edmund died (cf. Stevenson's Asser, 158, note).
Common features ofMS Cott. Tib. B. VandRoff. IIare (1)Eat(a)forGeat(a), (2) the omission ofdfromScealdwa, and (3) the expressionse Scēf, "this Scef." Features (1) and (3) are copied in the Icelandic pedigrees.Scealdwais given correctly there, but the Icelandic transcriber could easily have got it fromScealdwagingabove. The Icelandic was, then, ultimately derived either fromTib. B. Vor from a version so closely connected as not to be worth distinguishing.
AccordinglyCott. Tib. B. V,Textus Roffensis II,LangfeðgatalandFlateyarbókform one group, pointing to an archetypec.970.
The pedigrees can accordingly be grouped on the system shown on the opposite page[617].
(III) Prof. Chadwick, in hisOrigin of the English Nation, draws wide deductions from the fact that the Danes traced the pedigree of their kings back to Skjold, whilst the West-Saxons included Sceldwa (Scyld) in their royal pedigree:
"Since the Angli and the Danes claimed descent from the same ancestor, there can be no doubt that the bond was believed to be one of blood[618]."
"Since the Angli and the Danes claimed descent from the same ancestor, there can be no doubt that the bond was believed to be one of blood[618]."
This belief, Prof. Chadwick thinks, went back to exceedingly early times[619], and he regards it as well-founded:
"It is true that the Angli of Britain seem never to have included themselves among the Danes, but the reason for this may be that the termDene(Danir) had not come into use as a collective term before the invasion of Britain[620]."
"It is true that the Angli of Britain seem never to have included themselves among the Danes, but the reason for this may be that the termDene(Danir) had not come into use as a collective term before the invasion of Britain[620]."
Doubtless the fact that the name of a Danish kingScyldorSceldwais found in a pedigree of West-Saxon kings, as drawn up at a period certainly not later than 892, points to a belief, at that date, in some kind of a connection. But we have still to ask: How close was the connection supposed to be? And how old is the belief?
Firstly as to the closeness of the connection. Finn also occurs in the pedigree—possibly the Frisian king: Sceaf occurs, possibly, though not certainly, a Longobard king. Noah and Adam occur; are we therefore to suppose that the compiler of theGenealogybelieved his kings to be of one blood with the Hebrews? Certainly he did: but only remotely, as common descendants of Noah. And the occurrence of Sceldwa and Sceaf and Finn in the genealogies—granting the identity of these heroes with Skjold of the Danes, Sceafa of the Longobards and Finn of the Frisians, might only prove that the genealogist believed in their common (Germanic) race.
900 950 1000 1050 1100 1125| | | | | || A. Chron | W. Chron._| Parker MS ______________________________| MS Cott, Otho B. XI, 2./ | c. 890-900 | c. 1025// | Asser/______________________________________| MS Cott. Otho A. XII,/ \ | c. 1000/ \________________________________________________________| Textus Roffensis I,/ | c. 1120Transcript of \ ................ | B. Chron.Chronicle from Copy sent to Abingdon, : presumed : /| MS Cott. Tib. A. VI,which all kept there till c. 977__: Abingdon :/ | c. 1000extant \ : copy, c. 977 :\ | C. Chron.MSS are \ :..............: \_______________| MS Cott. Tib. B. I,derived \____________ | c. 1050Copy sent to Ripon\\ | D. Chron.\_________________________________| MS Cott. Tib. B. IV,\ | c. 1050\ | Common original\_| compiled about _| 970 \\ \____________________________________| Textus Roffensis II,\ | c. 1120\ | Genealogy\_| MS Cott. Tib. B. V,| c. 1000 ________________________________| Icelandic| Genealogies==>
Secondly, how old is the belief? The Anglian genealogies (Northumbrian, Mercian and East Anglian), as reproduced in theHistoria Brittonumand in theVespasian MS, form part of what is doubtless, as is said above, the oldest extant English historical document. But in this documentthere is no mention of Scyld. Indeed, it contains no pedigree of the West-Saxon kings at all. From whatever cause, the West-Saxon genealogy is not extant from so early a date as are the pedigrees of the Northumbrian, Mercian, East Anglian and Kentish kings[621]. Still, this may well be a mere accident, and I am not prepared to dispute that the pedigree which traces the West-Saxon kings to Woden dates back, like the other genealogies connecting Old English kings with Woden, to primitive and heathen times. Now the West-Saxon pedigree is found in many forms: some which trace the royal house only to Woden, and some which go beyond Woden and contain a list of names by which Woden is connected with Sceaf, and then with Noah and Adam.
(1) The nucleus of the whole pedigree is to be found in the names between Cynric or Cerdic and Woden. These occur in every version. The pedigree in this, its simplest form, is found twice among the entries in theChroniclewhich deal with the events of heathen times, under 552 and 597. These names fall into verse:
[Cynrīc Cerdicing], Cerdic Elesing,Elesa Esling, Esla GiWising,GiWis Wīging, Wīg Frēawining,Frēawine Friðugāring, Friðugār Bronding,Brond Bǣldæging, Bǣldæg Wōdening.
[Cynrīc Cerdicing], Cerdic Elesing,Elesa Esling, Esla GiWising,GiWis Wīging, Wīg Frēawining,Frēawine Friðugāring, Friðugār Bronding,Brond Bǣldæging, Bǣldæg Wōdening.
[Cynrīc Cerdicing], Cerdic Elesing,
Elesa Esling, Esla GiWising,
GiWis Wīging, Wīg Frēawining,
Frēawine Friðugāring, Friðugār Bronding,
Brond Bǣldæging, Bǣldæg Wōdening.
Like the mnemonic lists inWidsith, these lines are probably very old. Their object is clearly to connect the founder of the West-Saxon royal house with Woden. Note, that not only do the names alliterate, but the alliteration is perfect. Every line attains double alliteration in the first half, with one alliterating word only in the second half. The lines must go back to times when lists of royal ancestors, both real and imaginary, had tobe arranged in correct verse; times when such things were recorded by memory rather than by writing. They are pre-literary, and were doubtless chanted by retainers of the West-Saxon kings in heathen days.
(2) An expanded form of this genealogy occurs inMSS C.C.C.C.183 andCotton Tib. B. V. Woden is here furnished with a father Frealaf. We know nothing of any Frealaf as father of the All-Father in heathen days, though Frealaf is found in this capacity in other genealogies written down in the ages after the conversion. Frealaf breaks the correct alliterative system. In bothMSSthe pedigree is brought down to King Ine (688-726): bothMSSare ultimately, no doubt, derived from a list current in the time of that king, that is to say less than a century after the conversion of Wessex.
(3) A further expansion, which Prof. Napier has held on linguistic grounds[622]to have been written down as early as 750, is incorporated in a genealogical and chronological note regarding the West-Saxon kings, which is extant in manyMSS[623].In its present formthis genealogical note is a recension, under Alfred, of a document coming down to the death of his father Æthelwulf. It traces the pedigree of Æthelwulf to Cerdic, but it keeps this district from the rhythmical nucleus, in which it traces Cerdic to Woden, and no further.
(4) Then, in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 855, the pedigree is given in its most elaborate form. There the genealogy of Æthelwulf is traced in one unbroken series, not merely through Cerdic to Woden, but from Woden through a long line of Woden's ancestors, including Frealaf, Geat, Sceldwa and Sceaf, to Noah and Adam.
It has been noted above[624]that none of theChroniclepedigreesstop at Sceaf. TheChronicle, in the stages above Woden, recognizes as stopping places only Geat (Northumbrian pedigree, anno 547) or Adam (West-Saxon pedigree, anno 855).
(5) The Chronicle of Ethelwerd (c.1000) does, however, stop at Scef[625]. Now it has been argued that Ethelwerd's pedigree is merely abbreviated from the pedigree in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicleunder 855, and that, in making Scef the final stage, and in what he tells us about that hero, Ethelwerd is merely adapting what he had read inBeowulfabout Scyld[626]. But this seems hardly possible. Ethelwerd, it is true, borrows most of his facts from theChronicle, from Bede, and other known sources: but there are some passages which show that he had access to a source now lost. Ethelwerd was a member of the West-Saxon royal house, and he wrote his Chronicle for a kinswoman, Matilda, in order, as he says, to explain their common stock and race. They were both descended from Æthelwulf, the chronicler being great-great-grandson of Æthelred, and the lady to whom he dedicates his work being great-great-granddaughter of Alfred. So he writes to tell "who and whence were their kin, so far as memory adduces, and our parents have taught us." Accordingly, though he begins his Chronicle with the Creation, the bulk of it is devoted to the deeds of his or Matilda's ancestors. Is it credible that he would have cut out all the stages in their common pedigree between Scyld and Scef, that he would have sacrificed all the ancestors of Scef, thus severing relations with Noah and Adam, and that he would have attributed to Scef the story which inBeowulfis attributed to Scyld, all this simply in order to bring his English pedigree into some harmony with what is told about the Danish pedigree inBeowulf—a poem of which we have no evidence that he had ever heard?
To suppose him to have done this, is to make him sacrifice,without any reason, just that part of the pedigree in theChronicleunder 855 which, from all we know of Ethelwerd, was most likely to have interested him: that which connected his race with Noah and Adam. Further, it is to suppose him to have reproduced just those stages in the pedigree which on criticalgrounds modern scholars can show to be the oldest, and to have modified or rejected just those which on critical grounds modern scholars can show to be later accretion. When Brandl supposes Ethelwerd to have produced his pedigree by comparing together merely the materials which have come down to us to-day, namelyBeowulfand theChronicle, he is, in reality, attributing to him the mind and acumen of a modern critic. An Anglo-Saxon alderman could only have detected and rejected the additions by using some material which hasnotcome down to us. What more natural than that Ethelwerd, who writes as the historian of the West-Saxon royal family, should have known of a family pedigree which traced the line up to Sceaf and his arrival in the boat, and that he should have (rightly) thought this to be more authoritative than the pedigree in theChronicleunder the year 855, which had been expanded from it? Prof. Chadwick, it seems to me, is here quite justified in holding that Ethelwerd had "acquired the genealogy from some unknown source, in a more primitive form than that contained in theChronicle[627]."
But, because the source of Ethelwerd's pedigree is more primitive than that contained in theChronicleunder the year 855, it does not follow that it goes back to heathen times. Wessex had been converted more than two centuries earlier.
We are now in a position to make some estimate of the antiquity of Scyld and Sceaf in the West-Saxon pedigree. The nucleus of this pedigree is to be found in the verses connecting Cynric and Cerdic with Woden. (Even as late as Æthelwulf and Alfred this nucleus is often kept distinct from the later, more historic stages connecting Cerdic with living men.) Pedigrees of other royal houses go to Woden, and many stop there; however, in times comparatively early, but yet Christian, we find Woden provided with five ancestors: later, Ethelwerd gives him ten: theChroniclegives him twenty-five. It is evidently a process of accumulation.
Now, if the name of Scyld had occurred in the portion of the pedigree which traces the West-Saxon kings up to Woden,it would possess sufficient authority to form the basis of an argument. But Scyld, like Heremod, Beaw and Sceaf, occurs in the fantastic development of the pedigree, by which Woden is connected up with Adam and Noah. The fact that these heroes occuraboveWoden makes it almost incredible that their position in the pedigree can go back to heathen times. Those who believed in Woden as a god can hardly have believed at the same time that he was a descendant of the Danish king Scyld. This difficulty Prof. Chadwick admits: "It is difficult to believe that in heathen times Woden was credited with five generations of ancestors, as in theFrealaf-Geatlist." Still less is it credible that he was credited with 25 generations of ancestors, as in theFrealaf-Geat-Sceldwa-Sceaf-Noe-Adamlist.
The obvious conclusion seems to me to be that the names above Woden were added in Christian times to the original list, which in heathen times only went back to Woden, andwhich is still extant in this form. A Christian, rationalizing Woden as a human magician, would have no difficulty in placing him far down the ages, just as Saxo Grammaticus does[628]. ObviouslyNoe-Adammust be an addition of Christian times, and the same seems to me to apply to all the other names above Woden, which, though ancient and Germanic, are not therefore ancient and Germanic in the capacity of ancestors of Woden.
And even if these extraordinary ancestors of Woden were really believed in in heathen times, they cannot have been regarded as the special property of any one nation. For it was never claimed that the West-Saxon kings had any unique distinction in tracing their ancestry to Woden, such as would give them a special claim upon Woden's forefathers. How then can the ancient belief (if indeed itwerean ancient belief) that Woden was descended from Scyld, King of Denmark, prove that the Anglo-Saxons regardedthemselvesas specially related to the Danes? For any such relationship derived through Woden must have been shared by all descendants of the All-Father.
Prof. Chadwick avoids this difficulty by supposing that Woden did not originally occur in the pedigree, but is a laterinsertion[629]. But how can this be so when, of the two forms in which the West-Saxon pedigree appears, one (and, so far as our evidence goes, much the older one) traces the kings to Wodenand stops there. Theobjectof this pedigree is to connect the West-Saxon kings with Woden. The expanded pedigrees, which carry on the line still further, from Woden to Sceldwa, Sceaf and Adam, though very numerous, are all traceable to one, or at most two, sources. It is surely not the right method to regard Woden as an interpolation (though he occurs in that portion of the pedigree which is common to all versions, some of which we can probably trace back to primitive times), and to regard as the original element Scyld and Sceaf (though they form part of the continuation of the pedigree found only in, at most, two families ofMSSwhich we cannot trace back beyond the ninth century).
Besides, there is the strongest external support for Woden in the very place which he occupies in the West-Saxon pedigree. That pedigree is traced in all its texts up to one Baldæg and his father Woden. Those texts which further give Woden's ancestry make him a descendant of Frealaf—they generally make Woden son of Frealaf, though some texts insert an intermediate Frithuwald.
Now the very ancient Northumbrian pedigree also goes up, by a different route, to "Beldæg," and gives him Woden for a father. In some versions (e.g. theHistoria Brittonum) the Northumbrian pedigree stops there: in others (e.g. theVespasian MS) Woden has a father Frealaf. How thencanit be argued, contrary to the unanimous evidence of all the dozen or moreMSSof the West-Saxon pedigree, thatWoden, standing as he does between his proper father and his proper son, is an interpolation? There is no evidence whatsoever to support such an argument, and everything to disprove it.
The fact that Sceaf, Sceldwa and Beaw occur above Woden, that some versions of the pedigree stop at Woden, and that in heathen times presumably all must have stopped when they reached the All-Father, seems to me a fatal argument—not against the antiquity of the legends of Sceaf, Sceldwa, andBeaw, but against the antiquity of these characters in the capacity (given to them in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle) of ancestors of the West-Saxon kings, and against the vast deduction concerning the origin of the English nation which Prof. Chadwick draws from this supposed antiquity.
(IV) Precisely the same argument—that Sceaf, Sceldwa and Beaw are foundabove Wodenin the pedigree of the English kings, and are not likely to have occupied that place in primitive heathen times, is fatal to the attempt to draw from this pedigree any argument that the myths of these heroes were specially and exclusively Anglo-Saxon. The argument of Müllenhoff and other scholars for an ancient,purely Anglo-SaxonBeowa-myth[630]falls, therefore, to the ground.
D. EVIDENCE FOR THE DATE OFBEOWULF. THE RELATION OFBEOWULFTO THE CLASSICAL EPIC
A few years ago there was a tendency to exaggerate the value of grammatical forms in fixing the date of Old English poetry, and attempts were made to arrange Old English poems in a chronological series, according to the exact percentage of "early" to "late" forms in each. There has now been a natural reaction against the assumption that, granting certain forms to be archaic, these would necessarily be found in a percentage diminishing exactly according to the dates of composition of the various poems in which they occur. The reaction has now gone to the other extreme, and grammatical facts are in danger of being regarded as not being "in any way valid or helpful indications of dates[631]."
Schücking[632], in an elaborate recent monograph on the date ofBeowulf, rejects the grammatical evidence as valueless, and proceeds to date the poem about two centuries later than has usually been held, placing its composition at the court of some christianized Scandinavian monarch in England, about 900A.D.
But it surely does not follow that, because grammatical data have been misused, therefore no use can be made of them. And, ifBeowulfwas composed about the year 900, from stories current among the Viking settlers, how are we to account for the fact that the proper names inBeowulfare given, not in the Scandinavian forms of the Viking age, nor in corruptions of such forms, but in the correct English forms which we should expect, according to English sound laws, if the names had been brought over in the sixth century, and handed down traditionally[633]?
For example, King Hygelac no doubt called himselfHugilaikaz. TheChochilaicusof Gregory of Tours is a good—if uncouth—shot at reproducing this name. The name became, in Norse,Hugleikrand in DanishHuglek(Hugletusin Saxo): traditional kings so named are recorded, though it is difficult to find that they have anything in common with the King Hygelac inBeowulf[634]. Had the name been introduced into England in Viking times, we should expect the Scandinavian form, notHygelāc[635].
Even in the rare cases where the character inBeowulfand his Scandinavian equivalent bear names which are not phonologically identical, the difference does not point to any corruption such as might have arisen from borrowing in Viking days[636]. We have only to contrast the way in which the names of Viking chiefs are recorded in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, to be convinced that the Scandinavian stories recorded inBeowulfare due to contact during the age when Britain was being conquered, not during the Viking period three or four centuries later[637].
And the arguments from literary and political history, which Schücking adduces to prove his late date, seem to me to point in exactly the opposite direction, and to confirm the orthodox view which would placeBeowulfnearer 700 than 900.
Schücking urges that, however highly we estimate the civilizing effect of Christianity, it was only in the second half of the seventh century that England was thoroughly permeated by the new faith. Can we expect already, at the beginning of the eighth century, a courtly work, showing, as doesBeowulf, such wonderful examples of tact, modesty, unselfishness and magnanimity? And this at the time when King Ceolwulf was forced by his rebellious subjects to take the cowl. For Schücking[638], following Hodgkin[639], reminds us how, in the eighth century, out of 15 Northumbrian kings, five were dethroned, five murdered; two abdicated, and only three held the crown to their death; and how at the end of the century Charlemagne called the Northumbrian Angles "a perfidious and perverse nation, murderers of their lords."
But surely, at the base of all this argument, lies the same assumption which, as Schücking rightly holds, vitiates so many of the grammatical arguments; the assumption that development must necessarily be in steady and progressive proportion. We may take Penda as a type of the unreclaimed heathen, and Edward the Confessor of the chaste and saintly churchman; but Anglo-Saxon history was by no means a development in steady progression, of diminishing percentages of ruffianism and increasing percentages of saintship.
The knowledge of, and interest in, heathen custom shown inBeowulf, such as the vivid accounts of cremation, would lead us to place it as near heathen times as other data will allow. So much must be granted to the argument of Prof. Chadwick[640]. But the Christian tone, so far from leading us to placeBeowulflate, wouldalsolead us to place it near the time of the conversion. For it is precisely in these times just after the conversion, that we get the most striking instances in all Old English history of that "tact, modesty, generosity, and magnanimity" which Schücking rightly regards as characteristic ofBeowulf.
King Oswin (who was slain in 651) was, Bede tells us, handsome, courteous of speech and bearing, bountiful both to greatand lowly, beloved of all men for his qualities of mind and body, so that noblemen came from all over England to enter his service—yet of all his endowments gentleness and humility were the chief. We cannot read the description without being reminded of the words of the thegns in praise of the dead Beowulf. Indeed, I doubt if Beowulf would have carried gentleness to those around him quite so far as did Oswin. For Oswin had given to Bishop Aidan an exceptionally fine horse—and Aidan gave it to a beggar who asked alms. The king's mild suggestion that a horse of less value would have been good enough for the beggar, and that the bishop needed a good horse for his own use, drew from the saint the stern question "Is that son of a mare dearer to thee than the Son of God?" The king, who had come from hunting, stood warming himself at the fire, thinking over what had passed; then he suddenly ungirt his sword, gave it to his squire, and throwing himself at the feet of the bishop, promised never again to grudge anything he might give in his charities.
Of course such conduct was exceptional in seventh century Northumbria—it convinced Aidan that the king was too good to live long, as indeed proved to be the case. But it shows that the ideals of courtesy and gentleness shown inBeowulfwere by no means beyond the possibility of attainment—were indeed surpassed by a seventh century king. I do not know if they could be so easily paralleled in later Old English times.
And what is true from the point of view of morals is true equally from that of art and learning. In spite of the misfortunes of Northumbrian kings in the eighth century, thefirst thirdof that century was "the Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon England[641]." And not unnaturally, for it had been preceded by half a century during which Northumbria had been free both from internal strife and from invasion. The empire won by Oswiu over Picts and Scots in the North had been lost at the battle of Nectansmere: but that battle had been followed by the twenty years reign of the learned Aldfrid, whose scholarship did not prevent him from nobly retrieving the state of the kingdom[642], though he could not recover the lost dominions.
Now, whatever we may think ofBeowulfas poetry, it is remarkable for its conscious and deliberate art, and for the tone of civilization which pervades it. And this half century was distinguished, above any other period of Old English history, precisely for its art and its civilization. Four and a half centuries later, when the works of great Norman master builders were rising everywhere in the land, the buildings which Bishop Wilfrid had put up during this first period of conversion were still objects of admiration, even for those who had seen the glories of the great Roman basilicas[643].
Nor is there anything surprising in the fact that this "golden age" was not maintained. On the contrary, it is "in accordance with the phenomena of Saxon history in general, in which seasons of brilliant promise are succeeded by long eras of national eclipse. It is from this point of view quite in accordance with natural likelihood that the age of conversion was one of such stimulus to the artistic powers of the people that a level of effort and achievement was reached which subsequent generations were not able to maintain. The carved crosses and the coins certainly degenerate in artistic value as the centuries pass away, and the fine barbaric gold and encrusted work is early in date[644]."
Already in the early part of the eighth century signs of decay are to be observed. At the end of hisEcclesiastical History, Bede complains that the times are so full of disturbance that one knows not what to say, or what the end will be. And these fears were justified. A hundred and forty years of turmoil and decay follow, till the civilization of the North and the Midlands was overthrown by the Danes, and York became the uneasy seat of a heathen jarl.
How it should be possible to see in these facts, as contrasted with the Christian and civilized tone ofBeowulf, any argument for late date, I cannot see. On the contrary, because of its Christian civilization combined with its still vivid, if perhaps not always quite exact, recollection of heathen customs, we should be inclined to putBeowulfin the early Christian ages.
A further argument put forward for this late date is the old one that the Scandinavian sympathies ofBeowulfshow it to have been composed for a Scandinavian court, the court, Schücking thinks, of one of the princes who ruled over those portions of England which the Danes had settled[645]. Of course Schücking is too sound a scholar to revive at this time of day the old fallacy that the Anglo-Saxons ought to have taken no interest in the deeds of any but Anglo-Saxon heroes. But how, he asks, are we to account for suchenthusiasmfor, such a burning interest in, a people of alien dialect and foreign dynasty, such as the Scyldings of Denmark?
The answer seems to me to be that the enthusiasm ofBeowulfis not for the Danish nation as such: on the contrary,Beowulfdepicts a situation which is most humiliating to the Danes. For twelve years they have suffered the depredations of Grendel; Hrothgar and his kin have proved helpless: all the Danes have been unequal to the need. Twice at least this is emphasized in the most uncompromising, and indeed insulting, way[646]. The poet's enthusiasm is not, then, for the Danish race as such, but for the ideal of a great court with its body of retainers. Such retainers are not necessarily native born—rather is it the mark of the great court that it draws men from far and wide to enter the service, whether permanently or temporarily, even as Beowulf came from afar to help the aged Hrothgar in his need.
It is this ideal of personal valour and personal loyalty, rather than of tribal patriotism, which pervadesBeowulf, and which certainly suits the known facts of the seventh and early eighth centuries. The bitterest strife in England in the seventh century had been between the two quite new states of Northumbria and Mercia, both equally of Anglian race. Both these states had been built up by a combination of smaller units, and not without violating the old local patriotisms of the diverse elements from which they had been formed. At first, at any rate, no such thing as Northumbrian or Mercian patriotism can have existed. Loyalty was personal, to the king. Neither the kingdom nor thecomitatuswas homogeneous. We have seenthat Bede mentions it as a peculiar honour to a Northumbrian prince thatfrom all parts of Englandnobles came to enter his service. We must not demand from the seventh or eighth century our ideals of exclusive enthusiasm for the land of one's birth, ideals which make it disreputable for a "mercenary" to sell his sword. The ideal is, on the contrary, loyalty to a prince whose service a warriorvoluntarilyenters. And the Danish court is depicted as a pattern of such loyalty—before the Scyldings began to work evil[647], by the treason of Hrothulf.
Further, the fact that the Danish court at Leire had been a heathen one might be matter for regret, but it would not prevent its being praised by an Englishman about 700. For England was then entirely Christian. In the process of conversion no single Christian had, so far as we know, been martyred. There had been no war of religion. If Penda had fought against Oswald, it had been as the king of Mercia against the king of Northumbria. Penda's allies were Christian, and he showed no antipathy to the new faith[648]. So that at this date there was no reason for men to feel any deep hostility towards a heathendom which had been the faith of their grandfathers, and with which there had never been any embittered conflict.
But in 900 the position was quite different. For more than a generation the country had been engaged in a life-and-death struggle between two warring camps, the "Christian men" and the "heathen men." The "heathen men" were in process of conversion, but were liable to be ever recruited afresh from beyond the sea. It seems highly unlikely thatBeowulfcould have been written at this date, by some English poet, for the court of a converted Scandinavian prince, with a view perhaps, as Schücking suggests, to educating his children in the English speech. In such a case the one thing likely to be avoided by the English poet, with more than two centuries of Christianity behind him, would surely have been the praise of that Scandinavian heathendom, from which his patron had freed himself, and from which his children were to be weaned. The martyrdom of S. Edmund might have seemed a more appropriate theme[649].The tolerant attitude towards heathen customs, and the almost antiquarian interest in them, very justly, as it seems to me, emphasized by Schücking[650], is surely far more possible ina.d.700 than inA.D.900. For between those dates heathendom had ceased to be an antiquarian curiosity, and had become an imminent peril.
If those are right who hold thatBeowulfis no purely native growth, but shows influence of the classical epic, then again it is easier to credit such influence about the year 700 than 900. At the earlier date we have scholars like Aldhelm and Bede, both well acquainted with Virgil, yet both interested in vernacular verse. It has been urged, as areductio ad absurdumof the view which would connectBeowulfwith Virgil, that the relation to theOdysseyis more obvious than that to theÆneid. Perhaps, however, some remote and indirect connection even betweenBeowulfand theOdysseyis not altogether unthinkable, about the year 700. At the end of the seventh century there was a flourishing school of Greek learning in England, under Hadrian and the Greek Archbishop Theodore, both "well read in sacredand in secularliterature." In 730 their scholars were still alive, and, Bede tells us, could speak Greek and Latin as correctly as their native tongue. Bede himself knew something about theIliadand theOdyssey. Not till eight centuries have passed, and we reach Grocyn and Linacre, was it again to be as easy for an Englishman to have a first-hand knowledge of a Greek classic as it was about the year 700. What scholarship had sunk to by the days of Alfred, we know: and we know that all Alfred's patronage did not produce any scholar whom we can think of as in the least degree comparable to Bede.
So that from the point of view of its close touch with heathendom, its tolerance for heathen customs, its Christian magnanimity and gentleness, its conscious art, and its learned tone, all historic and artistic analogy would lead us to placeBeowulfin the great age—the age of Bede.
This has brought us to another question—more interesting to many than the mere question of date. Are we to supposeany direct connection between the classical and the Old English epic?
As nations pass through their "Heroic Age," similar social conditions will necessarily be reflected by many similarities in their poetry. In heroic lays likeFinnsburgorHildebrandor the Norse poems, phrases and situations may occur which remind us of phrases and situations in theIliad, without affording any ground for supposing classical influence direct or indirect.
But there is much more inBeowulfthan mere accidental coincidence of phrase or situation.
A simple-minded romancer would have made theÆneida biography of Æneas from the cradle to the grave. Not so Virgil. The story begins with mention of Carthage. Æneas then comes on the scene. At a banquet he tells to Dido his earlier adventures. Just soBeowulfbegins, not with the birth of Beowulf and his boyhood, but with Heorot. Beowulf arrives. At the banquet, in reply to Unferth, he narrates his earlier adventures. TheBeowulf-poet is not content merely to tell us that there was minstrelsy at the feast, but like Virgil or Homer, he must give an account of what was sung. The epic style leads often to almost verbal similarities. Jupiter consoling Hercules for the loss of the son of his host says: