English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day

le Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning, there was, in the Anglian region of Northumbria, a development of religious and intellect

cognise the first great stage in the revival of learning, and the first moveme

able Bede," who was born near Wearmouth (Durham) in 672, and lived for the greater part of his life at Jarrow, where he died in 735. He wrote several other works, also in Latin, most of which Professor Earle enumerates. It is said of Beda himself that he was "learned in our native songs," and it is prob

eidfaerae na

rra than him

nae, aer his

tae, godaes a

-daege doemi

slated, this r

eed-journey

thought than

ontemplate, ere

rit, (either) of

eath-day, wil

of Whitby, in the days of the abbess Hild, who died in 680, near the close of the seventh century. He received the gift of divine song in a vision of the night; and after the

ncarnation, passion, and resurrection of our Lord, and His ascension into heaven; the coming of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of the Apostles. Likewise of the terror of the future judgement, the horror of punishment in hell, and the bl

mbrian text has unfortunately perished, we have no means of knowing to what extent they represent C?dmon's work. It is possible that they preserve some of it in a more or less close form of translation, but we cannot verify

riginal form, as C?dmon dictated it; and it corresponds closely with Beda's Latin version. It

ergan hefae

cti end his

dur; sue he u

tin, or

scop ael

rofe, haleg

geard monc

tin, ?ft

[u], frea

in a literal

raise the warden

might and His

er of glory; (even) a

Ruler, establish

l) shaped, for

r) roof, (He) t

rld (He), man

er, afterwa

men-(being the

we may assign them to Whitby. Similarly, Beda's

ns it is now at Leyden, in Holland. The locality is unknown, but we may assign it to Yorkshire or Durham without going far wrong. There is another copy in a

ears inscriptions; on two opposite faces in Latin, and on the other two in runic characters. Each of the latter pair contains a few lines of Northern poetry, selected from a poem (doubtless by the poet Cynewulf) which is preserved in full in a much later Southern (or Wessex) copy in a MS. at Vercelli in Piedmont (Italy).

llows: it will be seen that the cross

d? hin? god

de on galg

l? men; buga

ic riicn

fard; h?lda

ngket men b

? bistemid bigot

tions at the

t w?s o

er fus? fe

anum; ic th

mith sorgu

hr? tham secg

strelum

i? hin? l

im ?t his l

? ther heafu

ning of the lin

ighty stri

unt upon the gal

ll men; I (the cros

s) reared up t

aven; I durst

(the cross and Ch

h the blood poured

was upon

her came eage

) that One; I b

afflicted w

owever to the

ded wit

down, weary

e Him, at the he

there the Lo

llusion is in any case very obscure; but the latter notion makes the better sense, and is capable of being explained by the Norse legend of Balder, who was frequently s

in Cumberland; but they contribute little to our knowledge except the forms of proper names. The Liber Vit?

le documents, all of which are connected with Durham, gener

ed Latin additions. A small portion of the MS. has been misplaced by the binder; the Latin prose on pp. 138-145 should follow that on p. 162. Mr Stevenson's edition exhibits a rather large number of misreadings, most of which (I fear not quite all) are noted i

m aworden is Adam

bus factus est Adam

und fyres of thon

s ignis, inde rubeus e

sindon salto teher

sunt salsae lacrima

und blostmes of t

ndus floris, inde es

unstydfullnisse vel un

inde est insta

n is oroth cald pu

st anhela frigida: p

t mo

s hom

; his salt tears, of salt; his sweat, of dew; the colour of his eyes, of flowers; the insta

of the chief treasures in our national collection. It contains a beautifully executed Latin text of the four Gospels, written in the isle of Lindisfarne, by Eadfrith (bishop of Lindisfarne in 698-721), probably before 700. The interlinear Northumbrian gloss is two and

glossed the whole of St Matthew's Gospel, and a very small portion of St Mark. It is worthy of especial notice, that his gloss, throughout St Matthew, is not in the Northumbrian dialect, but in a form of Mercian. But it is clear that when he had completed this first Gospel, he borrowed the Lindisfarne MS. as a guide to help him, and kept it before him when he began to gloss St Mark. He at once began to copy the glosses in the older MS., with slight occasional variations in the grammar; bu

rd, in the order of that text; so that the glossator can neither observe the natural English order nor in all cases preserve the English grammar; a fact which somewh

thy yfle hia gecuoe

cum maledixeru

cuoethas eghwe

nt et dixerint omne

fore mec gefeath an

me. 12. gaudete e

is vel sint in heofnum s

copiosa est in

itgo tha the we

phetas qui fuerunt

gif salt forworthes i

od si sal euanuerit

ofer th?t buta th?t ges

ultra nisi ut

monnum gie aron vel s

hominibus 14. Uo

stra gehyda vel gede

tas abscondi su

vel leht-f?t and settas

dunt lucernam e

fer leht-isern and li

andelabrum et luc

thon v

o s

three centuries, from the year 1000 to nearly 1300,