by Edmund Burke
A.D. 682The great ecclesiastical chair of this kingdom, for near a century, was filled by foreigners. They were nominated by the Popes, who were in that age just or politic enough to appoint persons of a merit in some degree adequate to that important charge. Through this series of foreign and learned prelates, continual accessions were made to the originally slender stock of English literature. The greatest and most valuable of these accessions was made in the time and by the care of Theodorus, the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a Greek by birth, a man of a high ambitious spirit, and of a mind more liberal and talents better cultivated than generally fell to the lot of the Western prelates. He first introduced the study of his native language into this island. He brought with him a number of valuable books in many faculties, and amongst them a magnificent copy of the works of Homer, the most ancient and best of poets, and the best chosen to inspire a people just initiated into letters with an ardent love and with a true taste for the sciences. Under his influence a school was formed at Canterbury; and thus the other great fountain of knowledge, the Greek tongue, was opened in England in the year of our Lord 669.
The southern parts of England received their improvements directly through the channel of Rome. The kingdom of Northumberland, as soon as it was converted, began to contend with the southern provinces in an emulation of piety and learning. The ecclesiastics then [there?] also kept up and profited by their intercourse with Rome; but they found their principal resources of knowledge from another and a more extraordinary quarter. The island of Hii, or Columbkill, is a small and barren rock in the Western Ocean. But in those days it was high in reputation as the site of a monastery which had acquired great renown for the rigor of its studies and the severity of its ascetic discipline. Its authority was extended over all the northern parts of Britain and Ireland; and the monks of Hii even exercised episcopal jurisdiction over all those regions. They had a considerable share both in the religious and literate institution of the Northumbrians. Another island, of still less importance, in the mouth of the Tees [Tweed?], and called Lindisfarne, was about this time sanctified by the austerities of an hermit called Cuthbert. It soon became also a very celebrated monastery. It was, from a dread of the ravages of pirates, removed first to the adjacent part of the continent, and on the same account finally to Durham. The heads of this monastery omitted nothing which could contribute to the glory of their founder and to the dignity of their house, which became, in a very short time, by their assiduous endeavors, the most considerable school perhaps in Europe.
The great and justest boast of this monastery is the Venerable Beda, who was educated and spent his whole life there. An account of his writings is an account of the English learning in that age, taken in its most advantageous view. Many of his works remain, and he wrote both in prose and verse, and upon all sorts of subjects. His theology forms the most considerable part of his writings. He wrote comments upon almost the whole Scripture, and several homilies on the principal festivals of the Church. Both the comments and sermons are generally allegorical in the construction of the text, and simply moral in the application. In these discourses several things seem strained and fanciful; but herein he followed entirely the manner of the earlier fathers, from whom the greatest part of his divinity is not so much imitated as extracted. The systematic and logical method, which seems to have been first introduced into theology by John of Damascus, and which after wards was known by the name of School Divinity, was not then in use, at least in the Western Church, though soon after it made an amazing progress. In this scheme the allegorical gave way to the literal explication, the imagination had less scope, and the affections were less touched. But it prevailed by an appearance more solid and philosophical, by an order more scientific, and by a readiness of application either for the solution or the exciting of doubts and difficulties.
They also cultivated in this monastery the study of natural philosophy and astronomy. There remain of Beda one entire book and some scattered essays on these subjects. This book, De Rerum Natura, is concise and methodical, and contains no very contemptible abstract of the physics which were taught in the decline of the Roman Empire. It was somewhat unfortunate that the infancy of English learning was supported by the dotage of the Roman, and that even the spring-head from whence they drew their instructions was itself corrupted. However, the works of the great masters of the ancient science still remained; but in natural philosophy the worst was the most fashionable. The Epicurean physics, the most approaching to rational, had long lost all credit by being made the support of an impious theology and a loose morality. The fine visions of Plato fell into some discredit by the abuse which heretics had made of them; and the writings of Aristotle seem to have been then the only ones much regarded, even in natural philosophy, in which branch of science alone they are unworthy of him. Beda entirely follows his system. The appearances of Nature are explained by matter and form, and by the four vulgar elements, acted upon by the four supposed qualities of hot, dry, moist, and cold. His astronomy is on the common system of the ancients, sufficient for the few purposes to which they applied it, but otherwise imperfect and grossly erroneous. He makes the moon larger than the earth; though a reflection on the nature of eclipses, which he understood, might have satisfied him of the contrary. But he had so much to copy that he had little time to examine. These speculations, however erroneous, were still useful; for, though men err in assigning the causes of natural operations, the works of Nature are by this means brought under their consideration, which cannot be done without enlarging the mind. The science may be false or frivolous; the improvement will be real. It may here be remarked, that soon afterwards the monks began to apply themselves to astronomy and chronology, from the disputes, which were carried on with so much heat and so little effect, concerning the proper time of celebrating Easter; and the English owed the cultivation of these noble sciences to one of the most trivial controversies of ecclesiastic discipline.
Beda did not confine his attention to those superior sciences. He treated of music, and of rhetoric, of grammar, and the art of versification, and of arithmetic, both by letters and on the fingers; and his work on this last subject is the only one in which that piece of antique curiosity has been preserved to us. All these are short pieces; some of them are in the catechetical method, and seem designed for the immediate use of the pupils in his monastery, in order to furnish them with some leading ideas in the rudiments of these arts, then newly introduced into his country. He likewise made, and probably for the same purpose, a very ample and valuable collection of short philosophical, political, and moral maxims, from Aristotle, Plato, Seneca, and other sages of heathen antiquity. He made a separate book of shining commonplaces and remarkable passages extracted from the works of Cicero, of whom he was a great admirer, though he seems to have been not an happy or diligent imitator in his style. From a view of these pieces we may form an idea of what stock in the science the English at that time possessed, and what advances they had made. That work of Beda which is the best known and most esteemed is the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation. Disgraced by a want of choice and frequently by a confused ill disposition of his matter, and blemished with a degree of credulity next to infantine, it is still a valuable, and for the time a surprising performance. The book opens with a description of this island which would not have disgraced a classical author; and he has prefixed to it a chronological abridgment of sacred and profane history connected, from the beginning of the world, which, though not critically adapted to his main design, is of far more intrinsic value, and indeed displays a vast fund of historical erudition. On the whole, though this father of the English learning seems to have been but a genius of the middle class, neither elevated nor subtile, and one who wrote in a low style, simple, but not elegant, yet, when we reflect upon the time in which he lived, the place in which he spent his whole life, within the walls of a monastery, in so remote and wild a country, it is impossible to refuse him the praise of an incredible
industry and a generous thirst of knowledge.
That a nation who not fifty years before had but just begun to emerge from a barbarism so perfect that they were unfurnished even with an alphabet should in so short a time have established so flourishing a seminary of learning, and have produced so eminent a teacher, is a circumstance which I imagine no other nation besides England can boast.
Hitherto we have spoken only of their Latin and Greek literature. They cultivated also their native language, which, according to the opinions of the most adequate judges, was deficient neither in energy nor beauty, and was possessed of such an happy flexibility as to be capable of expressing with grace and effect every new technical idea introduced either by theology or science. They were fond of poetry; they sung at all their feasts; and it was counted extremely disgraceful not to be able to take a part in these performances, even when they challenged each other to a sudden exertion of the poetic spirit. Cædmon, afterwards one of the most eminent of their poets, was disgraced in this manner into an exertion of a latent genius. He was desired in his turn to sing, but, being ignorant and full of natural sensibility, retired in confusion from the company, and by instant and strenuous application soon became a distinguished proficient in the art.
CHAPTER III.
SERIES OF ANGLO-SAXON KINGS FROM ETHELBERT TO ALFRED: WITH THE INVASION OF THE DANES.
A.D. 799The Christian religion, having once taken root in Kent, spread itself with great rapidity throughout all the other Saxon kingdoms in England. The manners of the Saxons underwent a notable alteration by this change in their religion: their ferocity was much abated; they became more mild and sociable; and their laws began to partake of the softness of their manners, everywhere recommending mercy and a tenderness for Christian blood. There never was any people who embraced religion with a more fervent zeal than the Anglo-Saxons, nor with more simplicity of spirit. Their history for a long time shows us a remarkable conflict between their dispositions and their principles. This conflict produced no medium, because they were absolutely contrary, and both operated with almost equal violence. Great crimes and extravagant penances, rapine and an entire resignation of worldly goods, rapes and vows of perpetual chastity, succeeded each other in the same persons. There was nothing which the violence of their passions could not induce them to commit; nothing to which they did not submit to atone for their offences, when reflection gave an opportunity to repent. But by degrees the sanctions of religion began to preponderate; and as the monks at this time attracted all the religious veneration, religion everywhere began to relish of the cloister: an inactive spirit, and a spirit of scruples prevailed; they dreaded to put the greatest criminal to death; they scrupled to engage in any worldly functions. A king of the Saxons dreaded that God would call him to an account for the time which he spent in his temporal affairs and had stolen from prayer. It was frequent for kings to go on pilgrimages to Rome or to Jerusalem, on foot, and under circumstances of great hardship. Several kings resigned their crowns to devote themselves to religious contemplation in monasteries, — more at that time and in this nation than in all other nations and in all times. This, as it introduced great mildness into the tempers of the people, made them less warlike, and consequently prepared the way to their forming one body under Egbert, and for the other changes which followed.
The kingdom of Wessex, by the wisdom and courage of King Ina, the greatest legislator and politician of those times, had swallowed up Cornwall, for a while a refuge for some of the old Britons, together with the little kingdom of the South Saxons. By this augmentation it stretched from the Land’s End to the borders of Kent, the Thames flowing on the north, the ocean washing it on the south. By their situation the people of Wessex naturally came to engross the little trade which then fed the revenues of England; and their minds were somewhat opened by a foreign communication, by which they became more civilized and better acquainted with the arts of war and of government. Such was the condition of the kingdom of Wessex, when Egbert was called to the throne of his ancestors. The civil commotions which for some time prevailed had driven this prince early in life into an useful banishment. He was honorably received at the court of Charlemagne, where he had an opportunity of studying government in the best school, and of forming himself after the most perfect model. Whilst Charlemagne was reducing the continent of Europe into one empire, Egbert reduced England into one kingdom. The state of his own dominions, perfectly united under him, with the other advantages which we have just mentioned, and the state of the neighboring Saxon governments, made this reduction less difficult. Besides Wessex, there were but two kingdoms of consideration in England, — Mercia and Northumberland. They were powerful enough in the advantages of Nature, but reduced to great weakness by their divisions. As there is nothing of more moment to any country than to settle the succession of its government on clear and invariable principles, the Saxon monarchies, which were supported by no such principles, were continually tottering. The right of government sometimes was considered as in the eldest son, sometimes in all; sometimes the will of the deceased prince disposed of the crown, sometimes a popular election bestowed it. The consequence of this was the frequent division and frequent reunion of the same territory, which were productive of infinite mischief; many various principles of succession gave titles to some, pretensions to more; and plots, cabals, and crimes could not be wanting to all the pretenders. Thus was Mercia torn to pieces; and the kingdom of Northumberland, assaulted on one side by the Scots, and ravaged on the other by the Danish incursions, could not recover from a long anarchy into which its intestine divisions had plunged it. Egbert knew how to make advantage of these divisions: fomenting them by his policy at first, and quelling them afterwards by his sword, he reduced these two kingdoms under his government. The same power which conquered Mercia and Northumberland made the reduction of Kent and Essex easy, — the people on all hands the more readily submitting, because there was no change made in their laws, manners, or the form of their government.
Egbert A.D. 827.
A.D. 832Egbert, when he had brought all England under his dominion, made the Welsh tributary, and carried his arms with success into Scotland, assumed the title of Monarch of all Britain. The southern part of the island was now for the first time authentically known by the name of England, and by every appearance promised to have arrived at the fortunate moment for forming a permanent and splendid monarchy. But Egbert had not reigned seven years in peace, when the Danes, who had before showed themselves in some scattered parties, and made some inconsiderable descents, entered the kingdom in a formidable body. This people came from the same place whence the English themselves were derived, and they differed from them in little else than that they still retained their original barbarity and heathenism. These, assisted by the Norwegians, and other people of Scandinavia, were the last torrent of the Northern ravagers which overflowed Europe. What is remarkable, they attacked England and France when these two kingdoms were in the height of their grandeur, — France under Charlemagne, England united by Egbert. The good fortune of Egbert met its first check from these people, who defeated his forces with great slaughter near Charmouth in Dorsetshire. It generally happens that a new nation, with a new method of making war, succeeds against a people only exercised in arms by their own civil dissensions. Besides, England, newly united, was not without those jealousies and that disaffection which give such great advantage to an invader. But the vigilance and courage of Egbert repaired this defeat; he repulsed the Danes; and died soon after at Winchester, full of years and glory.
Ethelwolf A.D. 838He left a great, but an endangered succession, to his son Ethelwolf, who was a mild and virtuous prince, full of a timid piety, which utterly disqualifies for government; and he began to govern at a time when the greatest capacity was wanted. The Danes pour in upon every side; the king rouses from his lethargy; battles are fought with various success, which it were useless and tedious to recount. The event seems to have been, that in some corners of the
kingdom the Danes gained a few inconsiderable settlements; the rest of the kingdom, after being terribly ravaged, was left a little time to recover, in order to be plundered anew. But the weak prince took no advantage of this time to concert a regular plan of defence, or to rouse a proper spirit in his people. Yielding himself wholly to speculative devotion, he entirely neglected his affairs, and, to complete the ruin of his kingdom, abandoned it, in such critical circumstances, to make a pilgrimage to Rome. At Rome he behaved in the manner that suited his little genius, in making charitable foundations, and in extending the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, which the folly of some princes of the Heptarchy had granted for their particular dominions, over the whole Kingdom. His shameful desertion of his country raised so general a discontent, that in his absence his own son, with the principal of his nobility and bishops, conspired against him. At his return, he found, however, that several still adhered to him; but here, too, incapable of acting with rigor, he agreed to an accommodation, which placed the crown on the head of his rebellious son, and only left to himself a sphere of government as narrow as his genius, — the district of Kent, whither he retired to enjoy an inglorious privacy with a wife whom he had married in France.
Ethelred, A.D. 866On his death, his son Ethelred still held the crown, which he had preoccupied by his rebellion, and which he polluted with a new stain. He married his father’s widow. The confused history of these times furnishes no clear account either of the successions of the kings or of their actions. During the reign of this prince and his successors Ethelbert and Ethelred, the people in several parts of England seem to have withdrawn from the kingdom of Wessex, and to have revived their former independency. This, added to the weakness of the government, made way for new swarms of Danes, who burst in upon this ill-governed and divided people, ravaging the whole country in a terrible manner, but principally directing their fury against every monument of civility or piety. They had now formed a regular establishment in Northumberland, and gained a very considerable footing in Mercia and East Anglia; they hovered over every part of the kingdom with their fleets; and being established in many places in the heart of the country, nothing seemed able to resist them.