VI. BOOK of knowledge has not been transmitted to us; but there is a little catalogue of his books extant, which may not be unworthy of notice. 103 Athelstan. ATHELSTAN, amid his greatness, remembered the poor. He decreed, that each of his gerefas should feed in all ways one poor Englishman, if any such they either had or could find. He ordered that, from every two of his farms, one measure of meal, one gammon of bacon, or a ram worth four pennies, should be monthly given; and clothing for twelve months, every year. He also commanded each of them yearly to redeem one miserable being who had forfeited his liberty by a penal adjudication. He left not these charities as mere precepts, which might be executed or neglected without consequences. He attached the interest of his gerefas to their obedience. "If any gerefa shall disregard this, he shall be fined thirty shillings, and the money shall be divided among the needy of the town.' ❞ 104 105 It was a common saying of the Anglo-Saxons of Athelstan, that no one more legally or more learnedly conducted a government. It is not at all surprising, that he was a favourite both among his own people and in Europe. 106 He was certainly a great and illustrious character. He appears to have been as amiable as great. To the clergy he 103 It is in Saxon characters in the Cotton Library, Domitian, A. 1., in these words: "This syndon tha bec the Æthelstanes pepan, De natura rerum; Persius, de arte metrica; Donatum minorem ; Excerptiones de metrica arte; Apocalypsin; Donatum majorem ; Alchuinum; Glossa super Catonem; Libellum de grammatica arte qui sic incipit, &c. Sedulium.. • J I zenim pæs Alfpoldes preostes, Glossa super Donatum, Dialogorum." MSS. p. 55. 105 Malmsb. 49. 104 Wilkins, 56. .... 106 Tota Europa laudes ejus prædicabat, virtutem in cœlum ferebat, &c. Malmsb. 51. II. Athelstan. was attentive and mild; to his people affable and CHAP. pleasant. With the great he was dignified; with others he laid aside his state, and was condescending and decently familiar. His stature was almost the middle size; his hair yellowish, twisted with golden threads. His people loved him for his bravery and humility; but his enemies felt his wrath. 107 THE memory of Athelstan is stained with the murder of his brother. When Athelstan acceded, his elevation was opposed by one Alfred, who disdained his authority. On his apprehension, there appeared persons who arraigned Edwin, then a youth, the brother of Athelstan, as an accomplice in the rebellion. Edwin, by himself and his friends, implored the confidence of the king, and denied the charge by his oath. But Athelstan ordered Edwin, with one attendant, to be put to sea in a shattered boat without oars. For some time the prince continued in sight of land, but the winds at last rose, and he was carried over the ocean out of hope. In despair he sprung upon the waves, and was their immediate victim. His body was brought to shore between Dover and Whitsand. For seven years, Athelstan mourned his death with a penitence 108 which proved that he gained nothing by the crime, but self-reproach and infelicity—the most usual consequence of guilt! 107 Malmsbury has given us this portrait, p. 50. 108 Malmsb. 48. 53. 251.; Sim. Dun. 134. 154.; Hoveden, 422.; Hunt. 354.; Matt. West. 362.; and Bromton, 836. 208 APPENDIX ΤΟ THE REIGN OF ATHELSTAN, BOOK VI. CHAP. II. Bretagne. As the authentic History of Bretagne is almost unknown, Sketch of the ancient History of BRETAGNE, and ATHELSTAN'S THE event which connects the reign of Athelstan with the history of Bretagne was the appearance in England of the descendants of the expatriated Britons, who had retreated from the Saxon conquest into Armorica, now flying from the Northmen's swords to seek an asylum, and a country, from the descendants of their most hated foes the Anglo-Saxons, who had driven their ancestors from their native soil. THIS incident may be allowed to interest us so far with the history of these emigrants, as to admit an episode to be devoted to their memory. It is the more necessary, because the first British colonists of Armorica have hitherto been almost excluded from European history. Wherever they have at all appeared, fable has wrapped the narration with her clouds', and conceals or disfigures that mild illumination with which their forgotten tombs ought in justice 1 See the Histoire de Bretagne par Bertrand d'Argentre, 1618. He begins with the fabulous Conan, the ally of Maximus. He mentions seriously about Hercules falling in love with Celtina, daughter of Britannus, a king of Gaul, and that their issue was Celtes, the father of the Celtic nation, p. 4. He asserts it to be true history that the inhabitants of Britain came from Armorica! p. 19. to be accompanied. The Armorican exiles were the coun- Bretagne. trymen of Arthur; they were of the race of the Aborigines of the island, and they lost their country, because they spurned a foreign yoke. Though powerful and ambitious governments surrounded and oppressed them, they preserved themselves a distinct nation under their own chieftains till the close of the fifteenth century. Such actions deserve a recording memorial in the temples of history. Their more recent transactions have been interwoven with our annals. It is their earliest fortunes that will here be traced. 2 THE provinces of Gaul on the sea-coast, between the Armorica. Seine and the Loire, were called Armorica by the Celtic natives, in the days of Cæsar. He enumerates seven states which were included in that name, of which the modern Quimper, Rennes, and Vannes are part. Excepting the single incident of the conquest of the Venetian territory by the people of Vannes, 164, U.C., they are not mentioned in existing history before the expeditions of the conqueror of Gaul. 5 Or the Armorican districts, Vannes was at that period the most distinguished. It excelled the others in the science and use of navigation. It possessed many ships, by which it carried on an intercourse with Britain, a region then as unknown to Rome as Otaheite was to England in the reign of George the First. The few ports which on this coast 2 Though the ancient Britons have appeared little in history, one work of considerable merit has been devoted to their nation, which alludes to their early state, with more judgment and knowlege than I have elsewhere seen. I mean, Lobineau's Histoire de Bretagne, 2 vols. fol. He states the great researches which the literary patronage of a bishop of Quimper caused to be made through Bretagne, for ancient documents of its history. The valuable work of Lobineau was one of the consequences. Vertot's book is rather the performance of a political controversialist than of an impartial historian. 3 L. 7. c. 69. He mentions them again, 1. 5. c. 44., and Hirtius, his continuator, in l. 8. c. 25. Cellarius places the Armorican tract inter Ligerim et Sequanum. Vid. Geog. ant. v. i. p. 125. 4 See Cæsar's names, l. 7. c. 69. Pliny, 1. 4. c. 31. is alone in extending Armorica to the Pyrenees. He and Rutilius, 1. 1. v. 213. and Sidonius Paneg. Avit. v. 369, spell the word Aremorica. This exactly suits the meaning of the original British, ar y mor uch on the sea-cliffs. Athelstan. afforded a shelter from an impetuous sea were in the command of the people of Vannes, and their importance enabled them to exact a tribute from all who frequented the adjoining ocean. 6 THE inhabitants of Vannes detained two Roman envoys, and excited a confederacy of their neighbours against Cæsar. The issue was disastrous to the defenders of their country. Part was destroyed; the rest submitted: the conqueror, unpitying, ordered their senate and the inhabitants to be rigorously punished. The natives of Britain aided them in their struggle; and this assistance, and some similar act of friendship, became the pretext for Cæsar's aggression upon our island. 9 THE subsequent revolts of Armorica were easily suppressed by Cæsar, and it withstood the Romans no more. Augustus, in his distribution of the provinces of Gaul, comprehended Armorica under the Lionnoise. Adrian divided this region into two districts, and put Armorica into the second. This second province experienced another subdivision, of which Tours was the capital; and the commander of Tours superintended Bretagne as well as other districts. 10 ARMORICA remained in subjection to the Romans until its revolt and temporary independence in 410, when Britain also seceded from the empire; but this freedom was of short duration. Rutilius, in his poetical itinerary, in the year 416, informs us that Exuperantius was teaching the Armoricans to love the returning wanderer, peace 12; that he had restored the laws, and brought back liberty— expressions which imply that they had re-admitted the Roman government. About the year 435, they aided the revolt of Sibation, and the faction of the Bagaude. We 6 Cæsar, 1. 3. c. 8. 12 7 Cæsar, 1. 3. c. 16, His reason for the severity was, that the barbarians might in future respect the jus legatorum. 8 L. 3. c. 9. Auxilia ex Britannia 9 L. 4. c. 18. 10 Lobineau, p. 2. accersunt. 11 See the first volume of this history, p. 176, 177. and Zozimus, 1. 6. p. 376. 12 His expression is, postliminium pacis, v. 213. |