by Robert Lacey
1. See Tite, p. 79, for a description of Sir Robert Cotton’s library.
2. Fell, p. 21.
3. See Werner, p. 108, for a table of London body heights over the centuries, based on excavations going back to prehistoric times. This shows, for example, that the average Saxon male body height was 5’8”, as compared to the modern average of 5’9” (and a Victorian male average of 5’5 1/2”). The table also shows that, at 5’ 4 1/4”, the average Saxon female was actually taller than the modern female Londoner, whose average height is 5’3 3/4”. The equivalent height for the female Victorian was 5’ 1/4”.
4. Ibid.
5. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, pp. 174,175.
6. Derry and Williams, p. 57; Daumas, pp. 468-470.
7. Bede, p. 186.
8. Ibid., p. 189.
9. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, vol. 3, pp. 595 ff., Calendar.
10. Farmer, pp. 339, 340.
11. Herzfeld, p. x.
12. Bede, p. 75.
13. Phillips, p. 40.
14. Aelfric’s Lives of the Saints, quoted in Brooke, Popular Religion, p. 37.
15. Ibid.
16. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, p. 39. Aelfflaed was the widow of Byrhtnoth, hero of the Battle of Maldon.
17. Ibid., p. 55.
18. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, p. 536.
19. It is a commonplace of archaeological research that human brain volumes have not altered significantly since early historical times. See the articles by Morant and by Pearson in Biometrika.
20. Heaney, lines 216-222.
21. Johnson, p. 26.
22. McCrum, p. 55. It must be presumed that significant numbers of Britons remained in their homes and became assimilated with the invaders, but there is no way of quantifying how many.
23. Ibid., p. 58.
24. Our thanks to Stephen Pollington for supplying these examples of Old English and Norse dialogue.
25. McCrum, p. 71.
26. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 106,109.
27. Ibid., entries for 962, 973 and 978 a.d.
28. McCrum, pp. 70, 71.
29. Daumas, p. 489.
30. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, pp. m, 112.
31. Crossley-Holland, p. 262.
32. Finberg, p. 220.
33. Ibid., p. 224. The tract is called the Gereja.
34. Crossley-Holland, p. 261.
35. Aelfric, “Sermon on the Sacrifice of Easter Day,” in Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, pp. 149-152.
36. Langland, p. 81.
37. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 121 if.
38. Hagen, Handbook, p. 107.
39. Ibid., p. 112.
40. Bede, p. 226.
41. Hagen, Handbook, p. 109.
42. Hagen, Second Handbook, p. 93.
43. Ibid., p. 163.
44. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, p. 65.
45. Hagen, Second Handbook, pp. 230, 231.
46. Riddle from the Exeter Book, cited in Hagen, Second Handbook, p. 233.
47. Beowulf, in Crossley-Holland, p. 89.
48. Hooke, p. 207.
49. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, p. 829.
50. Andrew Pulsiano, “The Ghost of Asser,” in Pulsiano and Treharne, p. 255.
51. Daumas, p. 506.
52. Finberg, p. 76.
53. Ibid., p. 190.
54. Pollington, English Warrior, Appendix III.
55. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, pp. 181,182.
56. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, quoted in Finberg, pp. 183,184.
57. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, p. 175.
58. Derry and Williams, p. 90.
59. Hill, “Towns as Structures and Functioning Communities,” in Hooke, p. 207.
60. Whitelock, Beginnings, p. 116.
61. Ibid., p. 129.
62. Ibid., p. 132.
63. Ibid., p. 133.
64. Bede, p. 359.
65. Southern, p. 44.
66. Ibid., pp. 34, 35.
67. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, p. 173.
68. Rodger, p. xxiii.
69. Ibid., pp. 4-16.
70. Alfred’s Metres of Boethius, metre 20, lines 161-175, cited in Griffiths, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 236.
71. Robert Worth Frank, Jr., in Sweeney, p. 227.
72. Camporesi, p. 18.
73. Gilbert, p. 15.
74. Quoted by Rose Graham in Barraclough, Social Life, p. 74.
75. Banham, Monasteriales Indicia. All the following references are taken from this lucid and illuminating book, which includes a set of illustrations.
76. McGurk, ”Metrical Calendar,” p. 88.
77. Quoted in Hagen, Second Handbook, p. 363.
78. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, p. 174.
79. Hagen, Handbook, p. 20.
80. Hoskins, p. 81.
81. Fichtenau, p. 272.
82. Power, p. 108.
83. Fell, p. 146.
84. Griffiths, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 58.
85. Ibid., p. 65.
86. Jones, Medieval Medicine, p. 39.
87. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, p. 263.
88. Power, p. 24.
89. De Temporum Ratione, chapter 35, cited in Griffiths, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 66.
90. Bald’s Leechbook, I 72, quoted in Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, p. 259.
91. Quoted in Griffiths, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 66.
92. Bokonyi, “Stockbreeding and Herding in Medieval Europe,” in Sweeney, p. 53.
93. Hagen, Second Handbook, p. 49.
94. Ibid.
95. Hagen, Handbook, p. 99.
96. Daumas, p. 276.
97. Derry and Williams, p. 67.
98. Old High German charm, quoted in Power, pp. 23, 24.
99. Rodrigues, p. 151.
100. Hill, “A Handful of Grit.”
101. Claiborne, pp. 349-364.
102. De Natura Rerum, chapter 36, cited in Griffiths, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 230.
103. De Tonitmis Libellus, cited in Griffiths, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 230-231.
104. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 855 a.d.
105. Herbert, Lost Gods, p. 15.
106. Power, p. 23.
107. Herbert, Lost Gods, p. 20.
108. Bede, p. 76.
109. Ibid., p. 133.
110. Hill,”The Crane and the Gyrfalcon.” in. Howarth, p. 175.
112. Crossley-Holland, p. 241.
113. Porter, Riddles, p. 67.
114. Fell, p. 17.
115. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 913 a.d.
116. Fell, p. 109.
117. Bede, p. 245.
118. Fell, p. 109.
119. Ibid., p. 126.
120. Ibid., p. 57.
121. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, p. 426.
122. Fell, p. 64.
123. Ibid., p. 47.
124. Ibid., pp. 57-59—
125. Leyser, p. 49.
126. Fell, p. 59.
127. Focillon, p. 64.
128. France, p. in.
129. Ibid., p. 75.
130. Ibid., p. 93.
131. Ibid., p. 216.
132. Ibid., pp. 115,117.
133. Ibid., p. 171.
134. Ibid., pp. 193, 205.
135. Thompson, pp. 47, 48.
136. Focillon, p. 54.
137. Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, opening paragraph, translated by Dr. Andy Orchard.
138. Crossley-Holland, pp. 294-295.
139. Ibid., p. 297.
140. Reproduced in Campbell, p. 196.
141. Ibid., p. 197.
142. Ibid., p. 201.
143. Porter, Roy, pp. 231, 277.
144. Deegan and Scragg, p. 17.
145. Landes, p. 32. See the opening chapters of this stimulating book for a wider discussion of these themes.
146. Crossley-Holland, p. 304.
t Millennium