Table of Contents

From the Anglo-SAxon InvASIon to the normAn ConqueSt

449-1066Introduction: Warrior & Priest p. 4

lIterAture oF the WArrIor: Epic, Elegy, and Riddle

The Seafarer p. 16The Wanderer p. 20 Riddles p. 23The Battle of Brunnanburh p. 25from Andreas St. Andrew Goes Down to the Sea p. 28 A Storm at Sea p. 29 Andrew Tells How Christ Stilled the Tempest p. 29 The Vision of Andrew’s Disciples p. 30 St. Andrew’s Miracle p. 31

lIterAture oF the PrIeSt: History, Lyric, and Dream

Bede, from Ecclesiatical History of the English Nation Preface p. 34 Bede’s Description of Britain and Ireland p. 35 The Coming of the English p. 37 A Victory of the Britains p. 39 The Sending of Augustine p. 39 The Arrival of Augustine p. 40 Augustine’s Manner of Life p. 41 Pope Gregory Sends More Laborers p. 42 King Edwin of Northumbria Embraces Christianity p. 42 The Baptism of King Edwin p. 44Cuthbert’s Letter on the Death of Bede p. 45Caedmon’s Hymn p. 48The Dream of the Rood p. 49

From the normAn ConqueSt to the ACCeSSIon oF the tudorS

1066-1485Introduction: Knight, Priest, & Commoner p. 56

lIterAture oF the medIevAl ChurCh And ItS PeoPle: Allegory, Lyric, and Drama

from A Bestiary The Lion p. 70 The Phoenix p. 71 The Whale p. 72 The Turtle-Dove p. 72Gaudeamus Igitur p. 73Everyman p. 74

lIterAture oF the Common PeoPle: Popular Ballads and Arthurian Romance

Sir Patrick Spens p. 110Robin Hood and Little John p. 111Robin Hood and Allen a Dale p. 114Robin Hood’s Death and Burial p. 116from Le Morte d’Arthur, Vol. 2, Book 21

Chapter 1: How Sir Mordred presumed and took on him to be King of England,

and would have married the queen, his father's wife p. 119 Chapter 2: How after that King Arthur had tidings, he returned and came to

Dover, where Sir Mordred met him to let his landing; and of the death of Sir Gawaine p. 120 Chapter 3: How after, Sir Gawaine's ghost appeared to King Arthur, and

warned him that he should not fight that day p. 122 Chapter 4: How by misadventure of an adder the battle began, where

Mordred was slain, and Arthur hurt to the death p. 123 Chapter 5: How King Arthur commanded to cast his sword Excalibur

into the water, and how he was delivered to ladies in a barge p. 126 Chapter 6: How Sir Bedivere found him on the morrow dead in a

hermitage, and how he abode there with the hermit p. 128 Chapter 7: Of the opinion of some men of the death of King Arthur;

and how Queen Guinever made her a nun in Almesbury p. 129

Battle of BrunnanburhIn most of the manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the entry for the year 937 is the following battle-

epic. It celebrates the victory of King Athelstan of Wessex, grandson of King Alfred, against a coalition of Danes, Welsh, and Scots, who were trying to check the spread of Anglo-Saxon domination into the region of England north of the Humber. The battle resulted in a complete victory for Athelstan and served to mark an important step in the recovery by the Anglo-Saxons of the Danelagh, following the death of Alfred the Great. The place of the conflict has never been definitely established but is believed to have been somewhere on or near the northwest coast of England. The poem is noteworthy as a late, tenth-century imitation of the Old English heroic epic and further as an excellent example of the vigorous, virile battle-poetry which is symptomatic of the beginnings of English national feeling. It contains many of the phrases, formulas, and tricks of style of the older scop; but its vividness suggests that it was composed by either an eye-witness or one very near to the battle in time or place. Taken with The Battle of Maldon, from the last decade of the tenth century, it is irrefutable evidence that the aristocratic bardic tradition persisted in Anglo-Saxon literature throughout the Old English period.

Athelstan king, ruler of heroes,Ring-lord of earlmen, with Edmund his brother,The atheling, aiding him, earned in the battleUnending glory with edges of sword-bladesAt1 Brunnanborough; they battered down the shield-wall,The scions of Edward swept down linden-shieldsWith leavings of hammers; 'twas, in sooth, fittingGreat earls' offspring that oft in battle 'gainstAll their enemies they their own land should fight for

10 Their homes and their treasures. Foes bit the dust, then,Folk of the Scots and men of the waters, too,Fell fated there: the field ran red2 with theBlood of the brave, when the beacon of heavenUpmounted at morning, the marvellous orb,When dear-bright on high the candle of God, theLord everlasting, luminous glided,Till the beauteous being in his abode settled.On the ground prone lay good heroes manyFrom darts dead there, doughty northerners,

20 And Scotchmen in shoals o'er their shields wounded,War-sated, weary. The Wessexmen onward

1 The prep. embe is, by different lexicographers and translators, rendered near, by, at, round. 2 Dennade (l. 12) is variously rendered became slippery; became firm, smooth; resounded; was stained. Ours is a

free translation and, like the rest, conjectural.

25Battle of Brunnanburh

With the flower of their folk-troop followed the track ofThe hated people the whole day through, then;With keen-edged cutlasses close in the rearward theyMowed down the fugitives. The Mercians refused thereFierce battle-play to few of the heroes thatWith Anlaf, o'er the ocean's angry commotions,Had come to their country on the craft's bosom,For the fight fated. Five young kings, too,

30 Soothed with the sword's-edge slept on the battle-field,Licking the dust there, and likewise seven of theEarls of King Anlaf, an army numberless,Seamen3 and Scotchmen. The Norse leader, then,Was in flight driven; from direst necessityWith a handful of henchmen hied to his ship's-prow;The craft seaward bounded, the king departed,On the fallow flood fled for his life, then;There the aged one also, old Constantinus,To his home northward hurried and scurried,

40 The hoar-headed warrior needed not to boast ofThe clashing of weapons: kinsmen lost he,Was of friends fleeced, too, on that field of destruction,

3 The gen. plu. flotena, proposed by Ett., clear ups this passage.

26 Battle of Brunnanburh

Was beaten in battle, his bairn leavingIn the dust dead there, done for with spear-points,Young in the combat. Of the clashing of swordsThe grizzle-haired hero little could boast,Old and crafty,4 nor Anlaf the more:'Mid the remnants of slaughter they had small need to laugh, now,To brag they were better in battle-encounters,

50 On the field of combat, in conflict of banners,The mingling of lances, the meeting of troopers,The wrangling of weapons, when they rashly clashed withThe royal bairns of Edward on the red field of carnage.In their nailed ships, then, the Norsemen departed,Dreary leavings of darts over Dyng's waters (?)5

O'er the floods foaming faring to Dublin,Chapfallen pirates, chased back to Ireland,And both brothers, then, blithely together soonCame to their country, king and atheling,

60 Boasting of battle back to West Saxonland.Behind, left they, to prey on the fallen,The sable-suited one, the swart raven,6

Crooked of beak, and the dusky-coated,White-tailed eagle, to eat at the feast, too,The goshawk greedy and that gray beast, too,The wolf in the weald. Worse slaughter ofFolk on the field few ever heard ofErst on this island with edges of swords doneAs far as the books say, writers of eld,

70 Since eastward hither the Angles and SaxonsUp o'er the ocean came over to Britain,Since the proud war-smiths o'er the Welshmen triumphed,The earls greedy for glory gained them a country.

4 Our rendering follows BT.; the form inwita (l. 46) has puzzled scholars. Possibly it is a gen. plu. limiting eald - old in his tricks, guile.

5 Dyng may be a man's name, or the phrase may mean the sea of noise; cf. modern ding-dong.6 In the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, the eagle, the wolf, and the raven are regular attendants of the battle.

27Battle of Brunnanburh