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Germanic and Roman antiquity and the sense of the past in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michael Hunter
Affiliation:
Worcester College, Oxford

Extract

Nothing is more characteristic of the Dark Ages than the ease with which the barbarians assimilated Latin culture. Within a century of Augustine's mission to the pagan English, ‘a barbarous, fierce and unbelieving nation’ who ‘paralysed [him] with terror’, Ceolfrith had attempted to make Jarrow a second Vivarium and Northumbria could boast scriptoria with an uncial hand superior to the contemporary products of Rome herself. No less striking is the career of a barbarian prince like Cædwalla, who emerged from the forests of Wessex on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he was baptized in St Peter's and had his epitaph written in classical metres by the archbishop of Milan. Yet the Christianity which thus introduced the Saxons to Mediterranean classicism did not cut them off from their native cultural inheritance. The Northumbria which produced the Codex Amiatinus was also the home of Cædmon and of the Lindisfarne Gospels, whose rich mixture of Roman and barbaric elements exemplifies the Saxons’ success in turning vernacular poetry and insular art to Christian themes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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page 43 note 4 The Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus, ed. Kemble, J. M. (London, 1848), p. 125.Google Scholar

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page 46 note 1 Ed. Sedgfield, W. J., ch. xix (p. 46).Google Scholar

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page 46 note 3 For a different view, see Donaghey, ‘The Sources’, p. 40.

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page 46 note 7 Except for Bede's remark that the traces of the stakes in the Thames with which the Ancient Britons resisted Julius Caesar's advance ‘are visible even today’ (HE 1.2) and his suggestion that the Britons originally came from Armorica (Ibid. 1.1).

page 47 note 1 Anglo-Saxon Poetry, trans. Gordon, R. K., rev. ed. (London, 1954), p. 84.Google Scholar

page 47 note 2 Preface to D text.

page 47 note 3 Ed. Sweet, H., p. 224 (v.4).Google Scholar

page 47 note 4 Quoted by Loyn, H. R., ‘The Term Ealdorman in the Translations Prepared at the Time of King Alfred’, EHR 68 (1953), 518.Google Scholar

page 47 note 5 Lines 175ff. Discussed in Whitelock, Audience of Beowulf, pp. 77f.Google Scholar

page 47 note 6 ASC, s.a. 853. Cf. Asser, De Rebus Gestis Alfredi, VIII and English Historical DocumentsI, 810.Google ScholarBut see Nelson, J. L., ‘The Problem of King Alfred's Royal Anointing’, Jnl of Eccles. Hist. 18 (1967), 145ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 47 note 7 Jones, P. F., A Concordance to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Bede (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), p. 252.Google Scholar Cf. on the later Saxon period the sources quoted in John, E., Orbis Britanniae (Leicester, 1966), pp 52–5.Google Scholar

page 47 note 8 Birch, , Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 289.Google Scholar

page 48 note 1 Folz, R., L'Idée d'Empire en Occident du Ve au VIIe Siècle (Paris, 1953), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 48 note 2 Cf. Southern, R. W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: I The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth’, TRHS 5th ser. 20 (1970), 189–90.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 Blunt, C. E., ‘The Coinage of Offa’, Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, , p. 42.Google Scholar

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page 48 note 5 Chronicle of Æthelweard, trans. Campbell, , p. I.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 HE 11.16. On its possible ‘Roman’ connotations, see above, p. 40, n. I; on its Germanic associations, see Chaney, W. A., The Cull of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 1970), pp. 141ff.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), p. 35. He considers this view of the title to be mistaken.Google Scholar

page 49 note 3 While Professor Deanesley has been the chief claimant of Roman revivalism (see ‘Roman Traditionalist Influence’), Professor Chaney's stress on pagan Germanic traditions is more misleading (see Chaney, The Cull of Kingship).

page 49 note 4 Meaney, A., A Gaelleer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites (London, 1964), passim.Google Scholar On settlements, e.g. Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire, see Archaeologia 73 (1923), 179 and Ibid. 76 (1927), pl. 8.

page 49 note 5 Meaney, , A Gaetleer, pp. 53, 97, 124, 189 and 268. Also pp. 107 and 115 (rings), p. 275 (buckles) and pp. 139 and 294 (beads).Google Scholar

page 49 note 6 In rings, from Alfriston, Sussex, Sussex Archaeol. Collections 56 (1914), 24Google Scholar, and Milton-near-Sittingbourne, , Kent, F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings in the British Museum (London, 1907), no. 1651 and perhaps no. 1652Google Scholar(but see Payne, G., Collectanea Cantiana (London, 1893), pp. 86–7,Google Scholar apparently referring to this ring with no mention of Saxon context). In a brooch from Alveston, Warwickshire, Leeds, E. T., Anglo-Saxon Square-Headed Brooches (Oxford, 1949), no. 116Google Scholar; in a buckle from Lyminge, Kent, Archaeologia Cantiana 69 (1955), 24;Google Scholar in pendants from Epsom, Surrey, Illustrated London News 6860 (1971), 31,Google ScholarPakefield, Suffolk, VCH Suffolk I (1911), 347Google Scholar, and from Sibertswold Down, Kent, B. Fausett, Inventorium Sepulchrale (London, 1856), p. 131;Google Scholar and loose from Ozingell, Kent, C. Roach Smith, Colleclanea Antiqua III (London, 1854), pl. 5,Google Scholar and Sleaford, Lincolnshire, Archaeologia 50 (1887), 404.Google Scholar Dr Martin Henig has kindly informed me of two further examples, neither of them published: British Museum 1936 5–11.22 (from Howletts, Berkesbourme, Kent) and Worthing Museum 3452 (from High-down, Sussex), both in rings.

page 50 note 1 Meaney, , Gaetteer, passim. At Gilton, Kent, a pair of scales was found with eighteen weights, some of them Roman coins, VCH Kent i (1908), 354.Google Scholar

page 50 note 2 Meaney, , Gaetteer, p. 229 (Lackford, Suffolk).Google Scholar

page 50 note 3 Ibid. p. 159 (Lovedon Hill, Lincoinshire).

page 50 note 4 E.g. Denton, Lincolnshire, Reports and Papers of the Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeol. Soc. n.s. 10 (19631964), 94f.Google Scholar and North Stoke, Lincoinshire, (a bath-house), Archaeologia 22 (1892), 32.Google Scholar Cf. Meaney, , Gaetteer, pp. 54, 91 and 301.Google Scholar

page 50 note 5 Meaney, , Gazetteer, pp. 200 and 259–60.Google Scholar

page 50 note 6 Ibid. pp. 18–19 and passim.

page 50 note 7 Ibid. pp. 44, 144–5, 250 and 265.

page 50 note 8 Myres, J. N. L., Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England (Oxford, 1969), pp. 121–2.Google Scholar

page 50 note 9 Skillet-handle, Meaney, Gazetteer, p. 262;Google Scholar skillet base, Ibid. p. 115 part of spoon, Ibid. p. 62; pin, Ibid. p. 134; disc, perhaps lid of seal box, Ibid. p. 88; scale of armour, Ibid. p. 62; lock, perhaps Roman, Ibid. p. 119; bronze tag, Ibid. p. 95. Some objects may have been valued for their moulded ornament, e.g. a metal ornament with a figure of winged Cupid as reaper, Ibid. p. 210; enamelled hare-shaped ornament, Ibid. p. 95; knife handle with hare and hounds design, Ibid. p. 115. Cf. a portion of a stone plaque carved with a winged figure found at Sutton Hoo (Mound 3) in 1938, Proc. of the Suffolk Inst. of Archaeology 30(1964), 1617.Google Scholar

page 50 note 10 Cf. Brown, P. D. C., ‘The Ironwork’, Excavations at Shakenoak III, ed. Brodribb, A. C. C., Hands, A. R. and Walker, D. R. (Oxford, 1972), 109.Google Scholar

page 50 note 11 Douglas, J., Nenia Britannica (London, 1793), p. 92 (from Ash (Gilton), Kent).Google Scholar

page 50 note 12 Meaney, , Gazetteer, pp. 38, 170 and 300.Google Scholar

page 50 note 13 Brown, , ‘The Ironwork’, p. 109.Google Scholar

page 50 note 14 See Kenneth, Cameron, English Place-Names (London, 1961), esp. pp. 110–11.Google Scholar