violent abuse and repulsive rhetoric of Gildas, there is too much reason to fear, that many of the deformities which his coarse daubing has distorted almost into incredibility, degraded the character and accelerated the downfall of our ancient British predecessors.44 CHAP. VIII. 44 See Salv. de Gub. 44-47. APPENDIX TO BOOK II. THE MANNERS OF THE SAXONS IN THEIR CHAP. I. CHAP. I. The Character and Persons of the most ancient SAXONS. WE may now pause to consider the most prominent features of the Saxons before they established themselves in Britain. The Anglo-Saxons came to England from the Germanic continent; and above a century had elapsed from their first settlements before they received those improvements and changes which followed the introduction of the Christian system. These circumstances make it necessary to exhibit them as they were in their continental and pagan state, before they are delineated with the features, and in the dress of Christianity. It would be extremely desirable to give a complete portrait of our ancestors in their uncivilised state; but this is an epocha in the history of the human mind which in former times seldom interested any one, and has not been faithfully detailed. Hence on this subject curiosity must submit to be disappointed. The converted Anglo-Saxon remembered the practices of his idolatrous ancestors with too much abhorrence, to record them for the notice of future ages; and as we have no Runic spells to call the pagan warrior from his grave, we can only see him in those imperfect sketches which patient industry may collect from the passages scattered in the works which time has spared. The character of the ancient Saxons displayed the qualities of fearless, active, and successful pirates. It is not merely the Spanish churchman Orosius', who speaks of them as dreadful for their courage and agility, but the emperor Julian, who had lived among barbarians, and who had fought with some Saxon tribes, denotes them as distinguished amongst their neighbours for vehemence and valour.2 Zosimus, their contemporary, expresses the general feeling of his age, when he ranks them as superior to others in energy, strength, and warlike fortitude.3 Their ferocious qualities were nourished by the habit of indiscriminate depredation. It was from the cruelty and destructiveness, as well as from the suddenness of their incursions, that they were dreaded more than any other people. Like the Danes and Norwegians, their successors and assailants, they desolated where they plundered with the sword and flame.5 It was consistency in such men to be inattentive to danger. They launched their predatory vessels, and suffered the wind to blow them to any foreign coast, indifferent whether the result was a depredation unresisted, or the deathful conflict. Such was their cupidity, or their brutal hardihood, that they often preferred embarking in the tempest which might shipwreck them, because at such a season their victims would be more unguarded. Their warfare did not originate from the more generous, or the more pardonable of man's evil passions. It was the offspring of the basest. Their swords were not unsheathed by ambition or resentment. The love of plunder and of cruelty was their favourite habit; and hence they attacked, indifferently, every coast which they could reach.6 Inland provinces were not protected from their invasion. From ignorance, necessity, or policy, they traversed the ocean in boats framed of osiers, and covered with skins sewed together; and such was their skill or their prodigality of life, 1 Orosius, lib. vii. c. 32. 2 Julian Imp. Orat. de laud. Const. p. 116. 3 Zosimus, lib. iii. p. 147. ed. Ox. 4 Salvian says, gens Saxonum fera est, de Gub. Dei, lib. iv. V. Fortunatus calls them "aspera gens, vivens quasi more ferino," Bib. Mag. Pat. viii. 787.; and Sidonius has the strong expression of " omni hosti truculentior," lib. viii. c. 7. Even in the eighth century the Saxons on the continent are described by Eginhard as "natura feroces," p. 4. 5 Amm. Marcell. lib. xxviii. c. 3. 6 Amm. Marcell. lib. xxviii. c. 3., xxvii. c. 8. Sid. Apoll. CHAP. I. CHAP. I. that in these they sported in the tempests of the German Ocean." It is possible that men who had seen the vessels in which the Francs had escaped from the Pontus, and who had been twice instructed by imperial usurpers in the naval art, might have constructed more important war ships if their judgment had approved. Although their isles, and their maritime. provinces of Ditmarsia and Stormaria, were barren of wood, yet Holsatia abounded with it; and if their defective landcarriage prevented the frequency of this supply, the Elbe was at hand to float down inexhaustible stores from the immense forests of Germany. They may have preferred their light skiffs, from an experience of their superior utility. When their fatal incursions had incited the Romans to fortify and to garrison the frontier of Britain and Gaul, the Saxons directed their enmity against the inland regions. For their peculiar vessels no coast was too shallow, no river too small; they dared to ascend the streams for eighty or an hundred miles; and if other plunder invited, or danger pressed, they carried their vessels from one river to another, and thus escaped with facility from the most superior foe." Of the Saxons, an author of the fifth century says to a friend who was opposed to them, " You see as many piratical leaders as you behold rowers, for they all command, obey, teach, and learn the art of pillage. Hence, after your greatest caution, still greater care is requisite. This enemy is fiercer than any other; if you be unguarded, they attack; if prepared, they elude you. They despise the opposing, and destroy the unwary; if they pursue, they overtake; if they fly, they escape. Shipwrecks discipline them, not deter; they do not merely know, they are familiar with, all the dangers of the sea; a tempest gives them security and success, for it divests the meditated land of the apprehension of a descent. In the midst of waves and threatening rocks they rejoice at their peril, because they hope to surprise. "10 As their naval expeditions, though often wildly daring, That this ocean was anciently dangerous from its tempests, Boniface, the selfdevoted missionary of Germany, often states: periculosum est navigantibus, p. 52. Germanici tempestatibus maris undique quassantibus fatigati senis miserere, p. 59. vol. xvi. Bib. Mag. Patrum. 8 On the vessels of the Saxons, see Du Bos, Hist. Crit. de 9 See Du Bos, 149. Gibbon, ii. 524. la Mon. de France, i. Est parva scapha ex Isidorus Orig. lib. xix. 10 Sid. Apoll. Epist. lib. 8. were much governed by the policy of surprise, so their land incursions were sometimes conducted with all the craft of robbers. "Dispersed into many bodies," says Zosimus, of some of their confederates, "they plundered by night, and when day appeared, they concealed themselves in the woods, feasting on the booty they had gained." They are, however, seldom mentioned by the historians of the fourth and fifth centuries without some epithets which express a superiority over other men in their achievements or their courage. The ferocity of the Saxon character would seem to suit better the dark and melancholy physiognomies of Asia and Africa, than the fair, pleasing, and blue-eyed countenances by which our ancestors are described. 12 But though nature had supplied them with the germs of those amiable qualities which have become the national character of their descendants, their direful customs, their acquired passions, and barbarous education perverted every good propensity. So ductile is the human capacity, that there is no colour, climate, or constitution which governs the moral character so permanently as the good or evil habits and discipline to which it is subjected. An incident mentioned by Symmachus shows that they had a pride of mind which could not endure disgrace. He says that twenty-nine Saxons strangled themselves to avoid being brought into a theatre for a gladiatorial show.13 Their persons were of the largest size. On the continent they were so proud of their forms and their descent, and so anxious to perpetuate them, that they were averse to marriages with other nations.14 Hence the colour of the. hair of their males is mentioned as uniform. In the fourth century they cut their hair so close to the skin, that the appearance of the head was diminished and the face enlarged. 15 In the following ages, their hair behind is mentioned as 11 Zosimus, lib. iii. p. 149. This tribe, whom he calls Quadi, Marcellinus, lib. xvii. c. 8., more correctly names Chamavi. These robbers were destroyed by one Chariette, a Franc, who organised some corps on the same plan. 12 Sidon. Apoll. lib. viii. ep. 9. Bede, lib. ii. c. 1. The expressions applied by Tacitus to all the German nations are "truces, et cerulei oculi." 13 Ep. xlvi. lib. 2. p. 90. 14 Meginh. ib. ap. Lang. Script. Dan. tom. ii. p. 39. Wittichind. p. 5. Tacitus had expressed the same of all the German tribes. CHAP. L. |