Archaeological Essays Part 12

[Footnote 153: _Chronicon de Mailros_, p. 226 (Bannatyne Club edition).]

[Footnote 154: Wyntown's _Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland_, vol. i. p.

183.]

[Footnote 155: In the _Scotichronicon_ instead of "In Tegalere," the third of these lines commences "Inregale regens," etc.; and it is noted that in the "Liber Dumblain" the line begins "Indegale," etc.]

[Footnote 156: Buchanan, in his _Rerum Scoticorum Historia_, gives the locality as "ad Almonis amnis ostium." (Lib. vi. c. 81.)]

[Footnote 157: _Scotorum Historiae_, p. 235 of Paris edition of 1574.

b.e.l.l.e.n.den and Stewart, in their translations of Boece's _History_ both place the fight at "Crawmond."]

[Footnote 158: This doc.u.ment, ent.i.tled _Nomina Regum Scottorum et Pictorum_ and published by Father Innes in his _Critical Essay_, p. 797, etc., is described by that esteemed and cautious author as a doc.u.ment the very fact of the registration of which among the records and charters of the ancient church of St. Andrews "is a full proof of its being held authentick at the time it was written, that is about A.D.

1251." (P. 607.)]

[Footnote 159: The orthography of the copy of this Chronicle, as given by Innes, is very inaccurate, and the omission of the two initial letters of "_in_ver," not very extraordinary in the word Rathveramoen.

Apparently the same word Rathinveramon occurs previously in the same Chronicle, when Donald MacAlpin, the second king of the combined Picts and Scots, is entered as having died "in Raith in Veramont" (p. 801). In another of the old Chronicles published by Innes, this king is said to have died in his palace at "Belachoir" (p. 783). If, as some historians believe, the Lothians were not annexed to Scotland before his death in A.D. 859, by Kenneth the brother of Donald, and did not become a part of the Scottish kingdom till the time of Indulf (about A.D. 954), or even later, then it is probable that the site of King Donald's death in A.D.

863, at Rathinveramon, was on the Almond in Perths.h.i.+re, within his own territories.]

[Footnote 160: I am only aware of one very marked exception to this general law Malcolm Canmore is known to have been killed near Alnwick, when attacking its castle. Alnwick is situated on the Alne, about five or six miles above the village of Alnmouth, the ancient Twyford, on the Alne, of Bede, on the mount near which St. Cuthbert was installed as a bishop. But in the ancient Chronicle from the Register of St. Andrews, King Malcolm is entered (see Innes, p. 803) as "interfectus in Inneraldan." The error has more likely originated in a want of proper local knowledge on the part of the chronicler than in so unusual a use of the Celtic word "inver;" for, according to all a.n.a.logies, while the term is applicable to Alnmouth, it is not at all applicable to Alnwick.]

[Footnote 161: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_. (Stevenson's Edit. p. 35.)]

[Footnote 162: _De Bello Gothico_, lib. iv. c. 20. See other authorities in Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 182.]

[Footnote 163: _Emmii Rerum Friescarum Historia_, p. 41.]

[Footnote 164: _History of England_, vol. i.--Anglo-Saxon Period, pp.

33, 34.]

[Footnote 165: _The Ethnology of the British Islands_, p. 259. At p.

240, Dr. Latham "A native tradition makes Hengist a Frisian." Dr.

Bosworth cites (see his _Origin of the English, etc., Language and Nation_, p. 52) Maerlant in his Chronicle as doubtful whether to call Hengist a Frisian or a Saxon.]

[Footnote 166: See his _Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages_, p. 54. Some modern authorities have thought it philosophical to object to the whole story of Hengist and Horsa, on the alleged ground that these names are "equine" in their original meaning--"henges" and "hors" signifying stallion and horse in the old Saxon tongue. If the principles of historic criticism had no stronger reasons for clearing the story of the first Saxon settlement in Kent of its romantic and apocryphal superfluities, this argument would serve us badly. For some future American historian might, on a similar hypercritical ground, argue against the probability of Columbus, a Genoese, having discovered America, and carried thither (to use the language of his son Ferdinand) "the olive branch and oil of baptism across the ocean,"--of Drake and Hawkins having, in Queen Elizabeth's time, explored the West Indies, and sailed round the southernmost point of America,--of General Wolfe having taken Quebec,--or Lord Lyons being English amba.s.sador to the United States in the eventful year 1860, on the ground that Colombo is actually the name of a dove in Italian, Drake and Hawkins only the appellations of birds, and Wolfe and Lyons the English names for two wild beasts.]

[Footnote 167: See Thorpe's edition of Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon Poems, p. 219, line 45.]

[Footnote 168: _Monumenta Historica_, p. 623.]

[Footnote 169: _Ib._, p. 659.]

[Footnote 170: _Ib._, p. 544.]

[Footnote 171: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, lib. i. cap.

15, p. 34 of Mr. Stevenson's edition. In some editions of Bede's _History_ (as in Dr. Giles' Translation, for example) the name of Vitta is carelessly omitted, as a word apparently of no moment. Such a discussion as the present shows how wrong it is to tamper with the texts of such old authors.]

[Footnote 172: See these names in page 414 of Stevenson's edition of the _Historia Ecclesiastica_.]

[Footnote 173: _Monumenta Historica Britt._, preface, p. 82.]

[Footnote 174: "Ethelwerdi Chronicorum," lib. ii. c. 2, in _Monumenta Historica_, p. 505.]

[Footnote 175: _Ibid._ lib. i. p. 502 of _Monumenta Historica_.]

[Footnote 176: The historical personage and leader Woden is represented in all these genealogies as having lived four generations, or from 100 to 150 years earlier than the age of Hengist and Horsa.]

[Footnote 177: See p. 24 of Mr. Stevenson's edition of _Nennii Historia Britonum_, printed for the English Historical Society. In the Gaelic translation of the _Historia Britonum_, known as the Irish Nennius, the name Wetta or Guitta is spelled in various copies as "Guigte" and "Guite." The last form irresistibly suggests the Urbs Guidi of Bede, situated in the Firth of Forth. Might not he have thus written the Keltic or Pictish form of the name of a city or stronghold founded by Vitta or Vecta; and does this afford any clue to the fact, that the waters of the Forth are spoken of as the Sea of Guidi by Angus the Culdee, and as the Mare Fresic.u.m by Nennius, while its sh.o.r.es are the Frisic.u.m Litus of Joceline? In the text I have noted the transformation of the a.n.a.logous Latin name of the Isle of Wight, "Vecta," into "Guith,"

by Nennius. The "urbs Guidi" of Bede is described by him as placed in the middle of the Firth of Forth, "in medio sui." Its most probable site is, as I have elsewhere (see _Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 254, 255) endeavoured to show, Inch Keith; and, phonetically, the term "Keith" is certainly not a great variation from "Guith" or "Guidi." At page 7 of Stevenson's edition of Nennius, the Isle of Wight, the old "Insula Vecta" of the Roman authors, is written "Inis Gueith"--a term too evidently a.n.a.logous to "Inch Keith" to require any comment.]

[Footnote 178: See Irish Nennius, p. 77; _Saxon Chronicle_, under year 855, etc.]

[Footnote 179: _Northern Antiquities_, Bohn's edition, p. 71. Sigge is generally held as the name of one of the sons of Woden.]

[Footnote 180: _Gest._ I. sec. 5, I. 11.]

[Footnote 181: _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, p. 707.]

[Footnote 182: See his "Chronicon ex Chronicis," in the _Monumenta Historica_, pp. 523 and 627.]

[Footnote 183: See preceding note (1), p. 168. In answer to the vague objection that the alleged leaders were two brothers, Mr. Thorpe observes that the circ.u.mstance of two brothers being joint-kings or leaders, bearing, like Hengist and Horsa, alliterative names, is far from unheard of in the annals of the north; and as instances (he adds) may be cited, Ragnar, Inver, Ulba, and two kings in Rumedal--viz.

Haerlang and Hrollang.--See his Translation of Lappenberg's _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, vol. i. pp. 78 and 275.]

[Footnote 184: See Mr. Stevenson's Introduction, p. xxv., to the Historical Society's edition of Bede's _Historia Ecclesiastica_; and also Mr. Hardy in the Preface, p. 71, to the _Monumenta Historica Britannica_.]

[Footnote 185: The great importance attached to genealogical descent lasted much longer than the Saxon era itself. Thus the author of the latest Life (1860) of Edward I., when speaking of the birth of that monarch at London in 1239, observes (p. 8), "The kind of feeling which was excited by the birth of an English prince in the English metropolis, and by the king's evident desire to connect the young heir to the throne with his Saxon ancestors, is shown in the _Worcester Chronicle_ of that date. The fact is thus significantly described:--

'On the 14th day of the calends of July, Eleanor, Queen of England gave birth to her eldest son Edward; whose father was Henry; whose father was John; whose father was Henry; whose mother was Matilda the Empress; whose mother was Matilda, Queen of England; whose mother was Margaret, Queen of Scotland; whose father was Edward; whose father was Edmund Ironside; who was the son of Ethelred; who was the son of Edgar; who was the son of Edmund; who was the son of Edward the elder; who was the son of Alfred.'"--(_The Greatest of the Plantagenets_, pp. 8 and 9.)

Here we have eleven genealogical ascents appealed to from Edward to Alfred. The thirteen or fourteen ascents again from Alfred to Cerdic, the first Anglo-Saxon king of Wess.e.x, are as fixed and determined as the eleven from Alfred to Edward. (See them quoted by Florence, a.s.ser, etc.) But the power of reckoning the lineage of Cerdic up through the intervening nine alleged ascents to Woden, was indispensable to form and to maintain Cerdic's claim to royalty, and was probably preserved with as great, if not greater care when written records were so defective and wanting.]

[Footnote 186: _The Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 11.]

[Footnote 187: See the inscription, etc., in Whittaker's _Manchester_, vol. i. p. 160.]

[Footnote 188: On these Frisian cohorts, and consequently also Frisian colonists, in England, see the learned _Memoir on the Roman Garrison at Manchester_, by my friend Dr. Black. (Manchester, 1849.)]

[Footnote 189: Buckman and Newmarch's work on _Ancient Corinium_, p.

114.]

[Footnote 190: Palgrave's _Anglo-Saxons_, p. 24.]

[Footnote 191: For fuller evidence on this point, see the remarks by Mr.

Kemble in his _Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 13, etc.]

[Footnote 192: _Ammiani Marcellini Historiae_, lib. xxviii. c. 1. The poet Claudian, perhaps with the full liberty of a poet, sings of Theodosius' forces in this war having pursued the Saxons to the very Orkneys:--

----maduerunt Saxone fuso Orcades.]

[Footnote 193: _Inquiry into the History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 116.