PREFACE.
The history of the English, from their arrival in Britain to his own times, has been written by Bede, a man of singular learning and modesty, in a clear and captivating style. After him you will not, in my opinion, easily find any person who has attempted to compose in Latin the history of this people. Let others declare whether their researches in this respect have been, or are likely to be, more fortunate; my own labour, though diligent in the extreme, has, down to this period, been without its reward. There, are, indeed, some notices of antiquity, written in the vernacular tongue after the manner of a chronicle,[1] and arranged according to the years of our Lord. By means of these alone, the times succeeding this man have been rescued from oblivion: for of Elward,[2] a noble and illustrious man, who attempted to arrange these chronicles in Latin, and whose intention I could applaud if his language did not disgust me, it is better to be silent. Nor has it escaped my knowledge, that there is also a work of my Lord Eadmer,[3] written with a chastened elegance of style, in which, beginning from King Edgar, he has but hastily glanced at the times down to William the First: and thence, taking a freer range, gives a narrative, copious, and of great utility to the studious, until the death of Archbishop Ralph.[4] Thus from the time of Bede there is a period of two hundred and twenty-three years left unnoticed in his history; so that the regular series of time, unsupported by a connected relation, halts in the middle. This circumstance has induced me, as well out of love to my
- ↑ This alludes to those invaluable records, the Saxon Chronicles. These, as originally compiled, have been already published in the present Series of Monkish Historians.
- ↑ Elward, or Ethelwerd, was a noble Saxon, great-great-grandson of King Ethelred, brother of Alfred. He abridged and translated the Saxon Chronicle into Latin, published in the present Series. He lived apparently in the time of Edgar, towards the close of the tenth century.
- ↑ Eadmer, a monk and precentor of Christ-Church, Canterbury, and pupil of Archbishop Anselm, together with a variety of other works, wrote "Historia Novorum," or, a history of modern times, from a.d. 1066 to 1122.
- ↑ MS. Anselmi. Eadmer at first brought down his history to the death of Archbishop Anselm only, a.d. 1109, but afterwards continued it to the decease of Ralph, a.d. 1122.
