Fishery Law.—G.C. Oke, A Handy Book of the Fishery Laws (edited by J.W. Willis Band and A.C. M'Barnet, London, 1903).



ANGLO-ISRAELITE THEORY, the contention that the British people in the United Kingdom, its colonies, and the United States, are the racial descendants of the "ten tribes" forming the kingdom of Israel, large numbers of whom were deported by Sargon king of Assyria on the fall of Samaria in 721 B.C. The theory (which is fully set forth in a book called Philo-Israel) rests on premises which are deemed by scholars—both theological and anthropological—to be utterly unsound.



ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE:—The French language (q.v.) came over to England with William the Conqueror. During the whole of the 12th century it shared with Latin the distinction of being the literary language of England, and it was in use at the court until the 14th century. It was not until the reign of Henry IV. that English became the native tongue of the kings of England. After the loss of the French provinces, schools for the teaching of French were established in England, among the most celebrated of which we may quote that of Marlborough. The language then underwent certain changes which gradually distinguished it from the French spoken in France; but, except for some graphical characteristics, from which certain rules of pronunciation are to be inferred, the changes to which the language was subjected were the individual modifications of the various authors, so that, while we may still speak of Anglo-Norman writers, an Anglo-Norman language, properly so called, gradually ceased to exist. The prestige enjoyed by the French language, which, in the 14th century, the author of the Maniere de language calls "le plus bel et le plus gracious language et plus noble parler, apres latin d'escole, qui soit au monde et de touz genz mieulx prisee et amee que nul autre (quar Dieux le fist si douce et amiable principalement a l'oneur et loenge de luy mesmes. Et pour ce il peut comparer au parler des angels du ciel, pour la grand doulceur et biaultee d'icel)," was such that it was not till 1363 that the chancellor opened the parliamentary session with an English speech. And although the Hundred Years' War led to a decline in the study of French and the disappearance of Anglo-Norman literature, the French language continued, through some vicissitudes, to be the classical language of the courts of justice until the 17th century. It is still the language of the Channel Islands, though there too it tends more and more to give way before the advance of English.

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It will be seen from the above that the most flourishing period of Anglo-Norman literature was from the beginning of the 12th century to the end of the first quarter of the 13th. The end of this period is generally said to coincide with the loss of the French provinces to Philip Augustus, but literary and political history do not correspond quite so precisely, and the end of the first period would be more accurately denoted by the appearance of the history of William the Marshal in 1225 (published for the Societe de l'histoire de France, by Paul Meyer, 3 vols., 1891-1901). It owes its brilliancy largely to the protection accorded by Henry II. of England to the men of letters of his day. "He could speak French and Latin well, and is said to have known something of every tongue between'the Bay of Biscay and the Jordan.' He was probably the most highly educated sovereign of his day, and amid all his busy active life he never lost his interest in literature and intellectual discussion; his hands were never empty, they always had either a bow or a book" (Dict. of Nat. Biog.). Wace and Benoit de Sainte-More compiled their histories at his bidding, and it was in his reign that Marie de France composed her poems. An event with which he was closely connected, viz. the murder of Thomas Becket, gave rise to a whole series of writings, some of which are purely Anglo-Norman. In his time appeared the works of Beroul and Thomas respectively, as well as some of the most celebrated of the Anglo-Norman romans d'aventure. It is important to keep this fact in mind when studying the different works which Anglo-Norman literature has left us. We will examine these works briefly, grouping them into narrative, didactic, hagiographic, lyric, satiric and dramatic literature.

Narrative Literature: (a) Epic and Romance.—The French epic came over to England at an early date. We know that the Chanson de Roland was sung at the battle of Hastings, and we possess Anglo-Norman MSS. of a few chansons de geste. The Pelerinage de Charlemagne (Koschwitz, Altfranzoesische Bibliothek, 1883) was, for instance, only preserved in an Anglo-Norman manuscript of the British Museum (now lost), although the author was certainly a Parisian. The oldest manuscript of the Chanson de Roland that we possess is also a manuscript written in England, and amongst the others of less importance we may mention La Chancun de Willame, the MS. of which has (June 1903) been published in facsimile at Chiswick (cf. Paul Meyer, Romania, xxxii. 597-618). Although the diffusion of epic poetry in England did not actually inspire any new chansons de geste, it developed the taste for this class of literature, and the epic style in which the tales of Horn, of Bovon de Hampton, of Guy of Warwick (still unpublished), of Waldef (still unpublished), and of Fulk Fitz Warine are treated, is certainly partly due to this circumstance. Although the last of these works has come down to us only in a prose version, it contains unmistakable signs of a previous poetic form, and what we possess is really only a rendering into prose similar to the transformations undergone by many of the chansons de geste (cf. L. Brandin, Introduction to Fulk Fitz Warine, London, 1904).

The interinfluence of French and English literature can be studied in the Breton romances and the romans d'aventure even better than in the epic poetry of the period. The Lay of Orpheus is known to us only through an English imitation; the Lai du cor was composed by Robert Biket, an Anglo-Norman poet of the 12th century (Wulff, Lund, 1888). The lais of Marie de France were written in England, and the greater number of the romances composing the matiere de Bretagne seem to have passed from England to France through the medium of Anglo-Norman. The legends of Merlin and Arthur, collected in the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth ([+] 1154), passed into French literature, bearing the character which the bishop of St. Asaph had stamped upon them. Chretien de Troye's Perceval (c. 1175) is doubtless based on an Anglo-Norman poem. Robert de Boron (c. 1215) took the subject of his Merlin (published by G. Paris and J. Ulrich, 1886, 2 vols., Societe des Anciens Textes) from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Finally, the most celebrated love-legend of the middle ages, and one of the most beautiful inventions of world-literature, the story of Tristan and Iseult, tempted two authors, Beroul and Thomas, the first of whom is probably, and the second certainly, Anglo-Norman (see ARTHURIAN LEGEND; GRAIL, THE HOLY; TRISTAN). One Folie Tristan was composed in England in the last years of the 12th century. (For all these questions see Soc. des Anc. Textes, Muret's ed. 1903; Bedier's ed. 1902-1905). Less fascinating than the story of Tristan and Iseult, but nevertheless of considerable interest, are the two romans d'aventure of Hugh of Rutland, Ipomedon (published by Koelbing and Koschwitz, Breslau, 1889) and Protesilaus (still unpublished) written about 1185. The first relates the adventures of a knight who married the young duchess of Calabria, niece of King Meleager of Sicily, but was loved by Medea, the king's wife. The second poem is the sequel to Ipomedon, and deals with the wars and subsequent reconciliation between Ipomedon's sons, Daunus, the elder, lord of Apulia, and Protesilaus, the younger, lord of Calabria. Protesilaus defeats Daunus, who had expelled him from Calabria. He saves his brother's life, is reinvested with the dukedom of Calabria, and, after the death of Daunus, succeeds to Apulia. He subsequently marries Medea, King Meleager's widow, who had helped him to seize Apulia, having transferred her affection for Ipomedon to his younger son (cf. Ward, Cat. of Rom., i. 728). To these two romances by an Anglo-Norman author, Amadas et Idoine, of which we only possess a continental version, is to be added. Gaston Paris has proved indeed that the original was composed in England in the 12th century (An English Miscellany presented to Dr. Furnivall in Honour of his Seventy-fifth Birthday, Oxford, 1901, 386-394). The Anglo-Norman poem on the Life of Richard Coeur de Lion is lost, and an English version only has been preserved. About 1250 Eustace of Kent introduced into England the roman d'Alexandre in his Roman de toute chevalerie, many passages of which have been imitated in one of the oldest English poems on Alexander, namely, King Alisaunder (P. Meyer, Alexandre le grand, Paris, 1886, ii. 273, and Weber, Metrical Romances, Edinburgh).

(b) Fableaux, Fables and Religious Tales.—In spite of the incontestable popularity enjoyed by this class of literature, we have only some half-dozen fableaux written in England, viz. Le chevalier a la corbeille, Le chevalier qui faisait parler les muets, Le chevalier, sa dame et un clerc, Les trois dames, La gageure, Le pretre d'Alison, La bourgeoise d'Orleans (Bedier, Les Fabliaux, 1895). As to fables, one of the most popular collections in the middle ages was that written by Marie de France, which she claimed to have translated from King Alfred. In the Contes moralises, written by Nicole Bozon shortly before 1320 (Soc. Anc. Textes, 1889), a few fables bear a strong resemblance to those of Marie de France.

The religious tales deal mostly with the Mary Legends, and have been handed down to us in three collections:

(i.) The Adgar's collection. Most of these were translated from William of Malmesbury ([+] 1143?) by Adgar in the 12th century ("Adgar's Marien-Legenden," Altfr. Biblioth. ix.; J.A. Herbert, Rom. xxxii. 394).

(ii.) The collection of Everard of Gateley, a monk of St. Edmund at Bury, who wrote c. 1250 three Mary Legends (Rom. xxix. 27).

(iii.) An anonymous collection of sixty Mary Legends composed c. 1250 (Brit. Museum Old Roy. 20 B, xiv.), some of which have been published in Suchier's Bibliotheca Normannica; in the Altf. Bibl. See also Mussafia, "Studien zu den mittelalterlichen Marien-legenden" in Sitzungsh. der Wien. Akademie (t. cxiii., cxv., cxix., cxxiii., cxxix.).

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Another set of religious and moralizing tales is to be found in Chardri's Set dormans and Josaphat, c. 1216 (Koch, Altfr. Bibl., 1880; G. Paris, Poemes et legendes du moyen age).

(c) History.—Of far greater importance, however, are the works which constitute Anglo-Norman historiography. The first Anglo-Norman historiographer is Geoffrey Gaimar, who wrote his Estorie des Angles (between 1147 and 1151) for Dame Constance, wife of Robert Fitz-Gislebert (The Anglo-Norman Metrical Chronicle, Hardy and Martin, i. ii., London, 1888). This history comprised a first part (now lost), which was merely a translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae, preceded by a history of the Trojan War, and a second part which carries us as far as the death of William Rufus. For this second part he has consulted historical documents, but he stops at the year 1087, just when he has reached the period about which he might have been able to give us some first-hand information. Similarly, Wace in his Roman de Rou et des dues de Normandie (ed. Andresen, Heilbronn, 1877-1879, 2 vols.), written 1160-1174, stops at the battle of Tinchebray in 1107 just before the period for which he would have been so useful. His Brut or Geste des Bretons (Le Roux de Lincy, 1836-1838, 2 vols.), written in 1155, is merely a translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth. "Wace," says Gaston Paris, speaking of the Roman de Rou, "traduit en les abregeant des historiens latins que nous possedons; mais ca et la il ajoute soit des contes populaires, par exemple sur Richard 1'er, sur Robert 1'er, soit des particularites qu'il savait par tradition (sur ce meme Robert le magnifique, sur l'expedition de Guillaume, &c.) et qui donnent a son oeuvre un reel interet historique. Sa langue est excellente; son style clair, serre, simple, d'ordinaire assez monotone, vous plait par sa saveur archaique et quelquefois par une certaine grace et une certaine malice."

The History of the Dukes of Normandy by Benoit de Sainte-More is based on the work of Wace. It was composed at the request of Henry II. about 1170, and takes us as far as the year 1135 (ed. by Francisque Michel, 1836-1844, Collection de documents inedits, 3 vols.). The 43,000 lines which it contains are of but little interest to the historian; they are too evidently the work of a romancier courtois, who takes pleasure in recounting love-adventures such as those he has described in his romance of Troy. Other works, however, give us more trustworthy information, for example, the anonymous poem on Henry II.'s Conquest of Ireland in 1172 (ed. Francisque Michel, London, 1837), which, together with the Expugnatio hibernica of Giraud de Barri, constitutes our chief authority on this subject. The Conquest of Ireland was republished in 1892 by Goddard Henry Orpen, under the title of The Song of Dermot and the Earl (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Similarly, Jourdain Fantosme, who was in the north of England in 1174, wrote an account of the wars between Henry II., his sons, William the Lion of Scotland and Louis VII., in 1173 and 1174 (Chronicle of the reigns of Stephen ... III., ed. by Joseph Stevenson and Fr. Michel, London, 1886, pp. 202-307). Not one of these histories, however, is to be compared in value with The History of William the Marshal, Count of Striguil and Pembroke, regent of England from 1216-1219, which was found and subsequently edited by Paul Meyer (Societe de l'histoire de France, 3 vols., 1891-1901). This masterpiece of historiography was composed in 1225 or 1226 by a professional poet of talent at the request of William, son of the marshal. It was compiled from the notes of the marshal's squire, John d'Early ([] 1230 or 1231), who shared all the vicissitudes of his master's life and was one of the executors of his will. This work is of great value for the history of the period 1186-1219, as the information furnished by John d'Early is either personal or obtained at first hand. In the part which deals with the period before 1186, it is true, there are various mistakes, due to the author's ignorance of contemporary history, but these slight blemishes are amply atoned for by the literary value of the work. The style is concise, the anecdotes are well told, the descriptions short and picturesque; the whole constitutes one of the most living pictures of medieval society. Very pale by the side of this work appear the Chronique of Peter of Langtoft, written between 1311 and 1320, and mainly of interest for the period 1294-1307 (ed. by T. Wright, London, 1866-1868); the Chronique of Nicholas Trevet (1258?-1328?), dedicated to Princess Mary, daughter of Edward I. (Duffus Hardy, Descr. Catal. III., 349-350); the Scala Chronica compiled by Thomas Gray of Heaton ([] c. 1369), which carries us to the year 1362-1363 (ed. by J. Stevenson, Maitland Club, Edinburgh, 1836); the Black Prince, a poem by the poet Chandos, composed about 1386, and relating the life of the Black Prince from 1346-1376 (re-edited by Francisque Michel, London and Paris, 1883); and, lastly, the different versions of the Brutes, the form and historical importance of which have been indicated by Paul Meyer (Bulletin de la Societe des Anciens Textes, 1878, pp. 104-145), and by F.W.D. Brie (Geschichte und Quellen der mittelenglischen Prosachronik, The Brute of England or The Chronicles of England, Marburg, 1905).

Finally we may mention, as ancient history, the translation of Eutropius and Dares, by Geoffrey of Waterford (13th century), who gave also the Secret des Secrets, a translation from a work wrongly attributed to Aristotle, which belongs to the next division (Rom. xxiii. 314).

Didactic Literature.—This is the most considerable, if not the most interesting, branch of Anglo-Norman literature: it comprises a large number of works written chiefly with the object of giving both religious and profane instruction to Anglo-Norman lords and ladies. The following list gives the most important productions arranged in chronological order:—

Philippe de Thaun, Comput, c. 1119 (edited by E. Mall, Strassburg, 1873), poem on the calendar; Bestiaire, c. 1130 (ed. by E. Walberg, Paris, 1900; cf. G. Paris, Rom. xxxi. 175); Lois de Guillaume le Conquerant (redaction between 1150 and 1170, ed. by J.E. Matzke, Paris, 1899); Oxford Psalter, c. 1150 (Fr. Michel, Libri Psalmorum versio antiqua gallica, Oxford, 1860); Cambridge Psalter, c. 1160 (Fr. Michel, Le Livre des Psaumes, Paris, 1877); London Psalter, same as Oxford Psalter (cf. Beyer, Zt. f. rom. Phil. xi. 513-534; xii. 1-56); Disticha Catonis, translated by Everard de Kirkham and Elie de Winchester (Stengel, Ausg. u. Abhandlungen); Le Roman de fortune, summary of Boetius' De consolatione philosophiae, by Simon de Fresne (Hist. lit. xxviii. 408); Quatre livres des rois, translated into French in the 12th century, and imitated in England soon after (P. Schloesser, Die Lautverhaeltnisse der quatre livres des rois, Bonn, 1886; Romania, xvii. 124); Donnei des Amanz,, the conversation of two lovers, overheard and carefully noted by the poet, of a purely didactic character, in which are included three interesting pieces, the first being an episode of the story of Tristram, the second a fable, L'homme et le serpent, the third a tale, L'homme et l'oiseau, which is the basis of the celebrated Lai de l'oiselet (Rom. xxv. 497); Livre des Sibiles (1160); Enseignements Trebor, by Robert de Ho (=Hoo, Kent, on the left bank of the Medway) [edited by Mary Vance Young, Paris; Picard, 101; cf. G. Paris, Rom. xxxii. 141]; Lapidaire de Cambridge (Pannier, Les Lapidaires francais); Frere Angier de Ste. Frideswide, Dialogues, 29th of November 1212 (Rom. xii. 145-208, and xxix.; M.K. Pope, Etude sur la langue de Frere Angier, Paris, 1903); Li dialoge Gregoire le pape, ed. by Foerster, 1876; Petit Plet, by Chardri, c. 1216 (Koch, Altfr Bibliothek. i., and Mussafia, Z.f.r.P. iii. 591); Petite philosophie, c. 1225 (Rom. xv. 356; xxix. 72); Histoire de Marie et de Jesus (Rom. xvi. 248-262); Poeme sur l'Ancien Testament (Not. et Extr. xxxiv. 1, 210; Soc. Anc. Textes, 1889, 73-74); Le Corset and Le Miroir, by Robert de Gretham (Rom. vii. 345; xv. 296); Lumiere as Lais, by Pierre de Peckham, c. 1250 (Rom. xv. 287); an Anglo-Norman redaction of Image du monde, c. 1250 (Rom. xxi. 481); two Anglo-Norman versions of Quatre soeurs (Justice, Truth, Peace, Mercy), 13th century (ed. by Fr. Michel, Psautier d'Oxford, pp. 364-368, Bulletin Soc. Anc. Textes, 1886, 57, Romania, xv. 352); another Comput by Rauef de Lenham, 1256 (P. Meyer, Archives des missions, 2nd series iv. 154 and 160-164; Rom. xv. 285); Le chastel d'amors, by Robert Grosseteste or Greathead, bishop of Lincoln ([+] 1253) [ed. by Cooke, Carmina Anglo-Normannica, 1852, Caxton Society]; Poeme sur l'amour de Dieu et sur la haine du peche, 13th century, second part (Rom. xxix. 5); Le mariage des neuf filles du diable (Rom. xxix. 54); Ditie d' Urbain, attributed without any foundation to Henry I. (P. Meyer, Bulletin Soc. Anc. Textes, 1880, p. 73 and Romania xxxii, 68); Dialogue de l'eveque Saint Julien et son disciple (Rom. xxix. 21); Poeme sur l'antichrist et le jugement dernier, by Henri d'Arci (Rom. xxix. 78; Not. et. Extr. 35, i. 137). Wilham de Waddington produced at the end of the 13th century his Manuel des peches, which was adapted in England by Robert of Brunne in his Handlying Sinne (1303) [Hist. lit. xxviii. 179-207; Rom. xxix. 5, 47-53]; see Furnivall,Robert of Brunne's Handlying Synne (Roxb. Club, 1862); in the 14th century we find Nicole Bozon's Contes moralises (see above); Traite de naturesse (Rom. xiii. 508); Sermons in verse (P. Meyer, op. cit. xlv.); Proverbes de bon enseignement (op. cit. xlvi.). We have also a few handbooks on the teaching of French. Gautier de Biblesworth wrote such a treatise a Madame Dyonise de Mountechensi pur aprise de langage (Wright, A Volume of Vocabularies; P. Meyer, Rec. d'anc. textes, p. 360 and Romania xxxii, 22); Orthographia gallica (Sturzinger, Altfr. Bibl. 1884); La maniere de language, written in 1396 (P. Meyer, Rev. crit. d'hist. et de litt. nos. compl. de 1870); Un petit livre pour enseigner les enfants de leur entreparler comun francois, c. 1399 (Stengel, Z. fuer n.f. Spr. u. Litt. i. 11). The important Mirour de l'omme, by John Gower, contains about 30,000 lines written in very good French at the end of the 14th century (Macaulay, The Complete Works of John Gower, i., Oxford, 1899).

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Hagiography.—Among the numerous lives of saints written in Anglo-Norman the most important ones are the following, the list of which is given in chronological order:—Voyage de Saint Brandan (or Brandain), written in 1121, by an ecclesiastic for Queen Aelis of Louvain (Rom. St. i. 553-588; Z.f.r.P. ii. 438-459; Rom. xviii. 203. C. Wahlund, Die altfr. Prosauebersetz. von Brendan's Meerfahrt, Upsala, 1901); life of St. Catherine by Clemence of Barking (Rom. xiii. 400, Jarnik, 1894); life of St Giles, c. 1170, by Guillaume de Berneville (Soc. Anc. Textes fr., 1881; Rom. xi. and xxiii. 94); life of St. Nicholas, life of Our Lady, by Wace (Delius, 1850; Stengel, Cod. Digby, 66); Uhlemann, Gram. Krit. Studien zu Wace's Conception und Nicolas, 1878; life of St. George by Simon de Fresne (Rom. x. 319; J.E. Matzke, Public. of the Mod. Lang. Ass. of Amer. xvii. 1902; Rom. xxxiv. 148); Expurgatoire de Ste. Patrice, by Marie de France (Jenkins, 1894; Eckleben, Aelteste Schilderung vom Fegefeuer d.H. Patricius, 1851; Ph. de Felice, 1906); La vie de St. Edmund le Rei, by Denis Pyramus, end of 12th century (Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, edited by T. Arnold, ii. 1892; Rom. xxii. 170); Henri d'Arci's life of St. Thais, poem on the Antichrist, Visio S. Pauli (P. Meyer, Not. et Extr. xxxv. 137-158); life of St. Gregory the Great by Frere Angier, 30th of April 1214 (Rom. viii. 509-544; ix. 176; xviii. 201); life of St. Modwenna, between 1225 and 1250 (Suchier, Die dem Matthaeus Paris zugeschriebene Vie de St. Auban, 1873, pp. 54-58); Fragments of a life of St Thomas Becket, c. 1230 (P. Meyer, Soc. Anc. Text. fr., 1885); and another life of the same by Benoit of St. Alban, 13th century (Michel, Chron. des ducs de Normandie; Hist. Lit. xxiii. 383); a life of Edward the Confessor, written before 1245 (Luard, Lives of Edward the Confessor, 1858; Hist. Lit. xxvii. 1), by an anonymous monk of Westminster; life of St. Auban, c. 1250 (Suchier, op. cit.; Uhlemann, "Ueber die vie de St. Auban in Bezug auf Quelle," &c. Rom. St. iv. 543-626; ed. by Atkinson, 1876). The Vision of Tnudgal, an Anglo-Norman fragment, is preserved in MS. 312, Trinity College, Dublin; the MS. is of the 14th century; the author seems to belong to the 13th (La vision de Tondale, ed. by Friedel and Kuno Meyer, 1906). In this category we may add the life of Hugh of Lincoln, 13th century (Hist. Lit. xxiii. 436; Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1888, p. v; Wolter, Bibl. Anglo-Norm., ii. 115). Other lives of saints were recognized to be Anglo-Norman by Paul Meyer when examining the MSS. of the Welbeck library (Rom. xxxii. 637 and Hist. Lit. xxxiii. 338-378).

Lyric Poetry.—The only extant songs of any importance are the seventy-one Ballads of Gower (Stengel, Gower's Minnesang, 1886). The remaining songs are mostly of a religious character. Most of them have been discovered and published by Paul Meyer (Bulletin de la Soc. Anc. Textes, 1889; Not. et Extr. xxxiv; Rom. xiii. 518, t. xiv. 370; xv. p. 254, &c.). Although so few have come down to us such songs must have been numerous at one time, owing to the constant intercourse between English, French and Provencals of all classes. An interesting passage in Piers Plowman furnishes us with a proof of the extent to which these songs penetrated into England. We read of:

"... dykers and deluers that doth here dedes ille, And dryuen forth the longe day with 'Deu, vous saue, Dame Emme!'" (Prologue, 223 f.)

One of the finest productions of Anglo-Norman lyric poetry written in the end of the 13th century, is the Plainte d'amour (Vising, Goeteborg, 1905; Romania xiii. 507, xv. 292 and xxix. 4), and we may mention, merely as literary curiosities, various works of a lyrical character written in two languages, Latin and French, or English and French, or even in three languages, Latin, English and French. In Early English Lyrics (Oxford, 1907) we have a poem in which a lover sends to his mistress a love-greeting composed in three languages, and his learned friend replies in the same style (De amico ad amicam, Responcio, viii and ix).

Satire.—The popularity enjoyed by the Roman de Renart and the Anglo-Norman version of the Riote du Monde (Z.f. rom. Phil. viii. 275-289) in England is proof enough that the French spirit of satire was keenly appreciated. The clergy and the fair sex presented the most attractive target for the shots of the satirists. However, an Englishman raised his voice in favour of the ladies in a poem entitled La Bonte des dames (Meyer, Rom. xv. 315-339), and Nicole Bozon, after having represented "Pride" as a feminine being whom he supposes to be the daughter of Lucifer, and after having fiercely attacked the women of his day in the Char d'Orgueil (Rom. xiii. 516), also composed a Bounte des femmes (P. Meyer, op. cit. 33) in which he covers them with praise, commending their courtesy, their humility, their openness and the care with which they bring up their children. A few pieces of political satire show us French and English exchanging amenities on their mutual shortcomings. The Roman des Francais, by Andre de Coutances, was written on the continent, and cannot be quoted as Anglo-Norman although it was composed before 1204 (cf. Gaston Paris: Trois versions rimees de l'evangile de Nicodeme, Soc. Anc. Textes, 1885), it is a very spirited reply to French authors who had attacked the English.

Dramatic Literature.—This must have had a considerable influence on the development of the sacred drama in England, but none of the French plays acted in England in the 12th and 13th centuries has been preserved. Adam, which is generally considered to be an Anglo-Norman mystery of the 12th century, was probably written in France at the beginning of the 13th century (Romania xxxii. 637), and the so-called Anglo-Norman Resurrection belongs also to continental French. It is necessary to state that the earliest English moralities seem to have been imitations of the French ones.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Apart from the works already mentioned see generally: Scheibner, "Ueber die Herrschaft der frz. Sprache in England" (Annaberg, Progr. der Koeniglichen Realschule, 1880, 38 f.); Groeber, Grundr. der romanischen Philologie, ii. iii. (Strassburg, 1902); G. Paris, La Litt. fr. au moyen age (1905); Esquisse historique de la litt. fr. au moyen age (1907); La Litt. norm, avani l'annexion 912-1204 (Paris, 1899); "L'Esprit normand en Angleterre," La Poesie au moyen age (2nd series 45-74, Paris, 1906); Thomas Wright, Biographia britannica literaria (Anglo-Norman period, London, 1846); Ten Brink, Geschichte der englischen Litteratur (Berlin, 1877, i. 2); J.J. Jusserand, Hist. litt. du peuple anglais (2nd ed. 1895, vol. i.); W.H. Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (London, 1906); Johan Vising, Franska Spraket i England (Goeteborg, 1900, 1901, 1902).

(L. BR.)

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ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. It is usual to speak of "the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"; it would be more correct to say that there are four Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. It is true that these all grow out of a common stock, that in some even of their later entries two or more of them use common materials; but the same may be said of several groups of medieval chronicles, which no one dreams of treating as single chronicles. Of this fourfold Chronicle there are seven MSS. in existence; C.C.C. Cant. 173 (A); Cott. Tib. A vi. (B); Cott. Tib. B i. (C); Cott. Tib. B iv. (D); Bodl. Laud. Misc. 636 (E); Cott. Domitian A viii. (F); Cott. Otho B xi. (G). Of these G is now a mere fragment, and it is known to have been a transcript of A. F is bilingual, the entries being given both in Saxon and Latin. It is interesting as a stage in the transition from the vernacular to the Latin chronicle; but it has little independent value, being a mere epitome, made at Canterbury in the 11th or 12th century, of a chronicle akin to E. B, as far as it goes (to 977), is identical with C, both having been copied from a common original, but A, C, D, E have every right to be treated as independent chronicles. The relations between the four vary very greatly in different parts, and the neglect of this consideration has led to much error and confusion. The common stock, out of which all grow, extends to 892. The present writer sees no reason to doubt that the idea of a national, as opposed to earlier local chronicles, was inspired by Alfred, who may even have dictated, or at least revised, the entries relating to his own campaigns; while for the earlier parts pre-existing materials, both oral and written, were utilized. Among the latter the chronological epitome appended to Bede's Ecclesiastical History may be specially mentioned. But even this common stock exists in two different recensions, in A, B, C, on the one hand, and D, E on the other. The main points of difference are that in D, E (1) a series of northern annals have been incorporated; (2) the Bede entries are taken, not from the brief epitome, but from the main body of the Eccl. Hist. The inference is that, shortly after the compiling of this Alfredian chronicle, a copy of it was sent to some northern monastery, probably Ripon, where it was expanded in the way indicated. Copies of this northernized Chronicle afterwards found their way to the south. The impulse given by Alfred was continued under Edward, and we have what may be called an official continuation of the history of the Danish wars, which, in B, C, D extends to 915, and in A to 924. After 915 B, C insert as a separate document a short register of Mercian affairs during the same period (902-924), which might be called the acts of AEthelflaed, the famous "Lady of the Mercians," while D has incorporated it, not very skilfully, with the official continuation. Neither of these documents exists in E. From 925 to 975 all the chronicles are very fragmentary; a few obits, three or four poems, among them the famous ballad on the battle of Brunanburh, make up the meagre tale of their common materials, which each has tried to supplement in its own way. A has inserted a number of Winchester entries, which prove that A is a Winchester book. And this local and scrappy character it retains to 1001, where it practically ends. At some subsequent time it was transferred bodily to Canterbury, where it received numerous interpolations in the earlier part, and a few later local entries which finally tail off into the Latin acts of Lanfranc. A may therefore be dismissed. C has added to the common stock one or two Abingdon entries, with which place the history of C is closely connected; while D and E have a second group of northern annals 901-966, E being however much more fragmentary than D, omitting, or not having access to, much both of the common and of the northern material which is found in D. From 983 to 1018 C, D and E are practically identical, and give a connected history of the Danish struggles under AEthelred II. This section was probably composed at Canterbury. From 1018 the relations of C, D, E become too complicated to be expressed by any formula; sometimes all three agree together, sometimes all three are independent; in other places each pair in turn agree against the third. It may be noted that C is strongly anti-Godwinist, while E is equally pro-Godwinist, D occupying an intermediate position. C extends to 1066, where it ends abruptly, and probably mutilated. D ends at 1079 and is certainly mutilated. In its later history D is associated with some place in the diocese of Worcester, probably Evesham. In its present form D is a comparatively late MS., none of it probably much earlier, and some of it later, than 1100. In the case of entries in the earlier part of the chronicles, which are peculiar to D, we cannot exclude the possibility that they may be late interpolations. E is continued to 1154. In its present form it is unquestionably a Peterborough book. The earlier part is full of Peterborough interpolations, to which place many of the later entries also refer. But (apart from the interpolations) it is only the entries after 1121, where the first hand in the MS. ends, which were actually composed at Peterborough. The section 1023-1067 certainly, and possibly also the section 1068-1121, was composed at St. Augustine's, Canterbury; and the former is of extreme interest and value, the writer being in close contact with the events which he describes. The later parts of E show a great degeneration in language, and a querulous tone due to the sufferings of the native population under the harsh Norman rule; "but our debt to it is inestimable; and we can hardly measure what the loss to English history would have been, if it had not been written; or if, having been written, it had, like so many another English chronicle, been lost."

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The above account is based on the introduction in vol. ii. of the Rev. C. Plummer's edition of Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Clarendon Press, 1892, 1899); to which the student may be referred for detailed arguments. The editio princeps of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was by Abraham Wheloc, professor of Arabic at Cambridge, where the work was printed (1643-1644). It was based mainly on the MS. called G above, and is the chief source of our knowledge of that MS. which perished, all but three leaves, in the Cottonian fire of 1723. Edmund Gibson of Queen's College, Oxford, afterwards bishop of London, published an edition in 1692. He used Wheloc's edition, and E, with collations or transcripts of B and F. Both Wheloc and Gibson give Latin translations. In 1823 appeared an edition by Dr. Ingram, of Trinity College, Oxford, with an English translation. Besides A, B, E, F, Ingram used C and D for the first time. But both he and Gibson made the fatal error of trying to combine the disparate materials contained in the various chronicles in a single text. An improvement in this respect is seen in the edition made by Richard Price (d. 1833) for the first (and only) volume of Monumenta Historica Britannica (folio 1848). There is still, however, too much conflation, and owing to the plan of the volume, the edition only extends to 1066. A translation is appended. In 1861 appeared Benjamin Thorpe's six-text edition in the Rolls Series. Though not free from defects, this edition is absolutely indispensable for the study of the chronicles and the mutual relations of the different MSS. A second volume contains the translation. In 1865 the Clarendon Press published Two Saxon Chronicles (A and E) Parallel, with supplementary extracts from the others, by the Rev. John Earle. This edition has no translation, but in the notes and introduction a very considerable advance was made. On this edition is partly based the later edition by the Rev. C. Plummer, already cited above. In addition to the translations contained in the editions already mentioned, the following have been issued separately. The first translation into modern English was by Miss Anna Gurney, privately printed in 1819. This was largely based on Gibson's edition, and was in turn the basis of Dr. Giles' translation, published in 1847, and often reprinted. The best translation is that by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, in his series of Church Historians of England (1853). Up to the Conquest it is a revision of the translation contained in Mon. Hist. Brit. From that point it is an independent translation.

(C. PL.)



ANGLO-SAXON LAW. 1. The body of legal rules and customs which obtained in England before the Norman conquest constitutes, with the Scandinavian laws, the most genuine expression of Teutonic legal thought. While the so-called "barbaric laws" (leges barbarorum) of the continent, not excepting those compiled in the territory now called Germany, were largely the product of Roman influence, the continuity of Roman life was almost completely broken in the island, and even the Church, the direct heir of Roman tradition, did not carry on a continuous existence: Canterbury was not a see formed in a Roman province in the same sense as Tours or Reims. One of the striking expressions of this Teutonism is presented by the language in which the Anglo-Saxon laws were written. They are uniformly worded in English, while continental laws, apart from the Scandinavian, are all in Latin. The English dialect in which the Anglo-Saxon laws have been handed down to us is in most cases a common speech derived from West Saxon—naturally enough as Wessex became the predominant English state, and the court of its kings the principal literary centre from which most of the compilers and scribes derived their dialect and spelling. Traces of Kentish speech may be detected, however, in the Textus Roffensis, the MS. of the Kentish laws, and Northumbrian dialectical peculiarities are also noticeable on some occasions, while Danish words occur only as technical terms. At the conquest, Latin takes the place of English in the compilations made to meet the demand for Anglo-Saxon law texts as still applied in practice.

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2. It is easy to group the Anglo-Saxon laws according to the manner of their publication. They would fall into three divisions: (1) laws and collections of laws promulgated by public authority; (2) statements of custom; (3) private compilations of legal rules and enactments. To the first division belong the laws of the Kentish kings, AEthelberht, Hlothhere and Eadric, Withraed; those of Ine of Wessex, of Alfred, Edward the Elder, AEthelstan,[1] Edmund, Edgar, AEthelred and Canute; the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum and the so-called treaty between Edward and Guthrum. The second division is formed by the convention between the English and the Welsh Dunsaetas, the law of the Northumbrian priests, the customs of the North people, the fragments of local custumals entered in Domesday Book. The third division would consist of the collections of the so-called Pseudo-leges Canuti, the laws of Edward the Confessor, of Henry I., and the great compilation of the Quadripartitus, then of a number of short notices and extracts like the fragments on the "wedding of a wife," on oaths, on ordeals, on the king's peace, on rural customs (Rectitudines singularum personarum), the treatises on the reeve (gerefa) and on the judge (dema), formulae of oaths, notions as to wergeld, &c. A fourth group might be made of the charters, as they are based on Old English private and public law and supply us with most important materials in regard to it. Looking somewhat deeper at the sources from which Old English law was derived, we shall have to modify our classification to some extent, as the external forms of publication, although important from the point of view of historical criticism, are not sufficient standards as to the juridical character of the various kinds of material. Direct statements of law would fall under the following heads, from the point of view of their legal origins: i. customary rules followed by divers communities capable of formulating law; ii. enactments of authorities, especially of kings; iii. private arrangements made under recognized legal rules. The first would comprise, besides most of the statements of custom included in the second division according to the first classification, a great many of the rules entered in collections promulgated by kings; most of the paragraphs of AEthelberht's, Hlothhere's, and Eadric's and Ine's laws, are popular legal customs that have received the stamp of royal authority by their insertion in official codes. On the other hand, from Withraed's and Alfred's laws downwards, the element of enactment by central authority becomes more and more prominent. The kings endeavour, with the help of secular and clerical witan, to introduce new rules and to break the power of long-standing customs (e.g. the precepts about the keeping of holidays, the enactments of Edmund restricting private vengeance, and the solidarity of kindreds as to feuds, and the like). There are, however, no outward signs enabling us to distinguish conclusively between both categories of laws in the codes, nor is it possible to draw a line between permanent laws and personal ordinances of single sovereigns, as has been attempted in the case of Frankish legislation.

[Footnote 1: The Judicia civitatis Lundoniae are a gild statute confirmed by King AEthelstan.]

3. Even in the course of a general survey of the legal lore at our disposal, one cannot help being struck by peculiarities in the distribution of legal subjects. Matters which seem to us of primary importance and occupy a wide place in our law-books are almost entirely absent in Anglo-Saxon laws or relegated to the background. While it is impossible to give here anything like a complete or exact survey of the field—a task rendered almost impossible by the arbitrary manner in which paragraphs are divided, by the difficulty of making Old English enactments fit into modern rubrics, and by the necessity of counting several times certain paragraphs bearing on different subjects—a brief statistical analysis of the contents of royal codes and laws may be found instructive.

We find roughly 419 paragraphs devoted to criminal law and procedure as against 91 concerned with questions of private law and civil procedure. Of the criminal law clauses, as many as 238 are taken up with tariffs of fines, while 80 treat of capital and corporal punishment, outlawry and confiscation, and 101 include rules of procedure. On the private law side 18 clauses apply to rights of property and possession, 13 to succession and family law, 37 to contracts, including marriage when treated as an act of sale; 18 touch on civil procedure. A subject which attracted special attention was the law of status, and no less than 107 paragraphs contain disposition dictated by the wish to discriminate between the classes of society. Questions of public law and administration are discussed in 217 clauses, while 197 concern the Church in one way or another, apart from purely ecclesiastical collections. In the public law division it is chiefly the power, interests and privileges of the king that are dealt with, in roughly 93 paragraphs, while local administration comes in for 39 and purely economic and fiscal matter for 13 clauses. Police regulations are very much to the fore and occupy no less than 72 clauses of the royal legislation. As to church matters, the most prolific group is formed by general precepts based on religious and moral considerations, roughly 115, while secular privileges conferred on the Church hold about 62, and questions of organization some 20 clauses.

The statistical contrasts are especially sharp and characteristic when we take into account the chronological sequence in the elaboration of laws. Practically the entire code of AEthelberht, for instance, is a tariff of fines for crimes, and the same subject continues to occupy a great place in the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, Ine and Alfred, whereas it appears only occasionally in the treaties with the Danes, the laws of Withraed, Edward the Elder, AEthelstan, Edgar, Edmund and AEthelred. It reappears in some strength in the code of Canute, but the latter is chiefly a recapitulation of former enactments. The system of "compositions" or fines, paid in many cases with the help of kinsmen, finds its natural place in the ancient, tribal period of English history and loses its vitality later on in consequence of the growth of central power and of the scattering of maegths. Royalty and the Church, when they acquire the lead in social life, work out a new penal system based on outlawry, death penalties and corporal punishments, which make their first appearance in the legislation of Withraed and culminate in that of AEthelred and Canute.

As regards status, the most elaborate enactments fall into the period preceding the Danish settlements. After the treaties with the Danes, the tendency is to simplify distinctions on the lines of an opposition between twelvehynd-men and twyhynd-men, paving the way towards the feudal distinction between the free and the unfree. In the arrangements of the commonwealth the clauses treating of royal privileges are more or less evenly distributed over all reigns, but the systematic development of police functions, especially in regard to responsibility for crimes, the catching of thieves, the suppression of lawlessness, is mainly the object of 10th and 11th century legislation. The reign of AEthelred, which witnessed the greatest national humiliation and the greatest crime in English history, is also marked by the most lavish expressions of religious feeling and the most frequent appeals to morality. This sketch would, of course, have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. But, imperfect as such statistics may be, they give us at any rate some insight into the direction of governmental legislation.

4. The next question to be approached concerns the pedigree of Anglo-Saxon law and the latter's natural affinities. What is its position in the legal history of Germanic nations? How far has it been influenced by non-Germanic elements, especially by Roman and Canon law? The oldest Anglo-Saxon codes, especially the Kentish and the West Saxon ones, disclose a close relationship to the barbaric laws of Lower Germany—those of Saxons, Frisians, Thuringians. We find a division of social ranks which reminds us of the threefold gradation of Lower Germany (edelings, frilings, lazzen-eorls, ceorls, laets), and not of the twofold Frankish one (ingenui Franci, Romani), nor of the minute differentiation of the Upper Germans and Lombards. In subsequent history there is a good deal of resemblance between the capitularies' legislation of Charlemagne and his successors on one hand, the acts of Alfred, Edward the Elder, AEthelstan and Edgar on the other, a resemblance called forth less by direct borrowing of Frankish institutions than by the similarity of political problems and condition. Frankish law becomes a powerful modifying element in English legal history after the Conquest, when it was introduced wholesale in royal and in feudal courts. The Scandinavian invasions brought in many northern legal customs, especially in the districts thickly populated with Danes. The Domesday survey of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Norfolk, &c., shows remarkable deviations in local organization and justice (lagmen, sokes), and great peculiarities as to status (socmen, freemen), while from laws and a few charters we can perceive some influence on criminal law (nidings-vaerk), special usages as to fines (lahslit), the keeping of peace, attestation and sureties of acts (faestermen), &c. But, on the whole, the introduction of Danish and Norse elements, apart from local cases, was more important owing to the conflicts and compromises it called forth and its social results,—than on account of any distinct trail of Scandinavian views in English law. The Scandinavian newcomers coalesced easily and quickly with the native population.

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The direct influence of Roman law was not great during the Saxon period: we notice neither the transmission of important legal doctrines, chiefly through the medium of Visigothic codes, nor the continuous stream of Roman tradition in local usage. But indirectly Roman law did exert a by no means insignificant influence through the medium of the Church, which, for all its insular character, was still permeated with Roman ideas and forms of culture. The Old English "books" are derived in a roundabout way from Roman models, and the tribal law of real property was deeply modified by the introduction of individualistic notions as to ownership, donations, wills, rights of women, &c. Yet in this respect also the Norman Conquest increased the store of Roman conceptions by breaking the national isolation of the English Church and opening the way for closer intercourse with France and Italy.

5. It would be useless to attempt to trace in a brief sketch the history of the legal principles embodied in the documents of Anglo-Saxon law. But it may be of some value to give an outline of a few particularly characteristic subjects.

(a) The Anglo-Saxon legal system cannot be understood unless one realizes the fundamental opposition between folk-right and privilege. Folk-right is the aggregate of rules, formulated or latent but susceptible of formulation, which can be appealed to as the expression of the juridical consciousness of the people at large or of the communities of which it is composed. It is tribal in its origin, and differentiated, not according to boundaries between states, but on national and provincial lines. There may be the folk-right of West and East Saxons, of East Angles, of Kentish men, Mercians, Northumbrians, Danes, Welshmen, and these main folk-right divisions remain even when tribal kingdoms disappear and the people is concentrated in one or two realms. The chief centres for the formulation and application of folk-right were in the 10th and 11th centuries the shire-moots, while the witan of the realm generally placed themselves on the higher ground of State expediency, although occasionally using folk-right ideas. The older law of real property, of succession, of contracts, the customary tariffs of fines, were mainly regulated by folk-right; the reeves employed by the king and great men were supposed to take care of local and rural affairs according to folk-right. The law had to be declared and applied by the people itself in its communities, while the spokesmen of the people were neither democratic majorities nor individual experts, but a few leading men—the twelve eldest thanes or some similar quorum. Folk-right could, however, be broken or modified by special law or special grant, and the fountain of such privileges was the royal power. Alterations and exceptions were, as a matter of fact, suggested by the interested parties themselves, and chiefly by the Church. Thus a privileged land-tenure was created—bookland; the rules as to the succession of kinsmen were set at nought by concession of testamentary power and confirmations of grants and wills; special exemptions from the jurisdiction of the hundreds and special privileges as to levying fines were conferred. In process of time the rights originating in royal grants of privilege overbalanced, as it were, folk-right in many respects, and became themselves the starting-point of a new legal system—the feudal one.

(b) Another feature of vital importance in the history of Anglo-Saxon law is its tendency towards the preservation of peace. Society is constantly struggling to ensure the main condition of its existence—peace. Already in AEthelberht's legislation we find characteristic fines inflicted for breach of the peace of householders of different ranks—the ceorl, the eorl, and the king himself appearing as the most exalted among them. Peace is considered not so much a state of equilibrium and friendly relations between parties, but rather as the rule of a third within a certain region—a house, an estate, a kingdom. This leads on one side to the recognition of private authorities—the father's in his family, the master's as to servants, the lord's as to his personal or territorial dependents. On the other hand, the tendency to maintain peace naturally takes its course towards the strongest ruler, the king, and we witness in Anglo-Saxon law the gradual evolution of more and more stringent and complete rules in respect of the king's peace and its infringements.

(c) The more ancient documents of Anglo-Saxon law show us the individual not merely as the subject and citizen of a certain commonwealth, but also as a member of some group, all the fellows of which are closely allied in claims and responsibilities. The most elementary of these groups is the maegth, the association of agnatic and cognatic relations. Personal protection and revenge, oaths, marriage, wardship, succession, supervision over settlement, and good behaviour, are regulated by the law of kinship. A man's actions are considered not as exertions of his individual will, but as acts of the kindred, and all the fellows of the maegth are held responsible for them. What began as a natural alliance was used later as a means of enforcing responsibility and keeping lawless individuals in order. When the association of kinsmen failed, the voluntary associations—guilds—appeared as substitutes. The gild brothers associated in mutual defence and support, and they had to share in the payment of fines. The township and the hundred came also in for certain forms of collective responsibility, because they presented groups of people associated in their economic and legal interests.

(d) In course of time the natural associations get loosened and intermixed, and this calls forth the elaborate police legislation of the later Anglo-Saxon kings. Regulations are issued about the sale of cattle in the presence of witnesses. Enactments about the pursuit of thieves, and the calling in of warrantors to justify sales of chattels, are other expressions of the difficulties attending peaceful intercourse. Personal surety appears as a complement of and substitute for collective responsibility. The hlaford and his hiredmen are an institution not only of private patronage, but also of police supervision for the sake of laying hands on malefactors and suspected persons. The landrica assumes the same part in a territorial district. Ultimately the laws of the 10th and 11th centuries show the beginnings of the frankpledge associations, which came to act so important a part in the local police and administration of the feudal age.

The points mentioned are not many, but, apart from their intrinsic importance in any system of law, they are, as it were, made prominent by the documents themselves, as they are constantly referred to in the latter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Editions: Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (1903, 1906) is indispensable, and leaves nothing to be desired as to the constitution of the texts. The translations and notes are, of course, to be considered in the light of an instructive, but not final, commentary. R. Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1858) is still valuable on account of its handiness and the fulness of its glossary. B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (1840) is not very trustworthy. Domesday Book, i. ii. (Rec. Comm.); Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, i.-vi. ed. J.M. Kemble (1839-1848); Cartularium Saxonicum (up to 940), ed. W. de Gray Birch (1885-1893); J. Earle, Land Charters (Oxford, 1888); Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicanum; Facsimiles of Ancient Charters, edited by the Ordnance Survey and by the British Museum; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils of Great Britain, i.-iii. (Oxford, 1869-1878).

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Modern works.—Konrad Maurer, Ueber Angelsachsische Rechtsverhaltnisse, Kritische Ueberschau (Munich, 1853 ff.), still the best account of the history of Anglo-Saxon law; Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law, by H. Adams, H.C. Lodge, J.L. Laughlin and E. Young (1876); J.M. Kemble, Saxons in England; F. Palgrave, History of the English Commonwealth; Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, i.; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, i.; H. Brunner, Zur Rechtsgeschichte der romisch-germanischen Urkunde (1880); Sir F. Pollock, The King's Peace (Oxford Lectures); F. Seebohm; The English Village Community; Ibid. Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law; Marquardsen, Haft und Burgschaft im Angelsachsischen Recht; Jastrow, "Ueber die Strafrechtliche Stellung der Sklaven," Gierke's Untersuchungen, i.; Steenstrup, Normannerne, iv.; F.W. Maitland, Domesday and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897); H.M. Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (1905); P. Vinogradoff, "Folcland" in the English Historical Review, 1893; "Romanistische Einflusse im Angelsaechsischen Recht: Das Buchland" in the Melanges Fitting, 1907; "The Transfer of Land in Old English Law" in the Harvard Law Review, 1907.

(P. Vi.)



ANGLO-SAXONS. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is commonly applied to that period of English history, language and literature which preceded the Norman Conquest. It goes back to the time of King Alfred, who seems to have frequently used the title rex Anglorum Saxonum or rex Angul-Saxonum. The origin of this title is not quite clear. It is generally believed to have arisen from the final union of the various kingdoms under Alfred in 886. Bede (Hist. Eccl. i. 15) states that the people of the more northern kingdoms (East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, &c.) belonged to the Angli, while those of Essex, Sussex and Wessex were sprung from the Saxons (q.v.), and those of Kent and southern Hampshire from the Jutes (q.v.). Other early writers, however, do not observe these distinctions, and neither in language nor in custom do we find evidence of any appreciable differences between the two former groups, though in custom Kent presents most remarkable contrasts with the other kingdoms. Still more curious is the fact that West Saxon writers regularly speak of their own nation as a part of the Angelcyn and of their language as Englisc, while the West Saxon royal family claimed to be of the same stock as that of Bernicia. On the other hand, it is by no means impossible that the distinction drawn by Bede was based solely on the names Essex (East Seaxan), East Anglia, &c. We need not doubt that the Angli and the Saxons were different nations originally; but from the evidence at our disposal it seems likely that they had practically coalesced in very early times, perhaps even before the invasion. At all events the term Angli Saxones seems to have first come into use on the continent, where we find it, nearly a century before Alfred's time, in the writings of Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon). There can be little doubt, however, that there it was used to distinguish the Teutonic inhabitants of Britain from the Old Saxons of the continent.

See W.H. Stevenson, Asser's Life of King Alfred (Oxford, 1904, pp. 148 ff.); H. Munro Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907); also BRITAIN, Anglo-Saxon.

(H.M.C.)



ANGOLA, the general name of the Portuguese possessions on the west coast of Africa south of the equator. With the exception of the enclave of Kabinda (q.v.) the province lies wholly south of the river Congo. Bounded on the W. by the Atlantic Ocean, it extends along the coast from the southern bank of the Congo (6 deg. S., 12 deg. E.) to the mouth of the Kunene river (17 deg. 18' S., 11 deg. 50' E.). The coast-line is some 900 m. long. On the north the Congo forms for 80 m. the boundary separating Angola from the Congo Free State. The frontier thence (in 5 deg. 52' S.) goes due east to the Kwango river. The eastern boundary—dividing the Portuguese possessions from the Congo State and Barotseland (N.W. Rhodesia)—is a highly irregular line. On the south Angola borders German South-West Africa, the frontier being drawn somewhat S. of the 17th degree of S. latitude. The area of the province is about 480,000 sq. m. The population is estimated (1906) at 4,119,000.

The name Angola (a Portuguese corruption of the Bantu word Ngola) is sometimes confined to the 105 m. of coast, with its hinterland, between the mouths of the rivers Dande and Kwanza, forming the central portion of the Portuguese dominions in West Africa; in a looser manner Angola is used to designate all the western coast of Africa south of the Congo in the possession of Portugal; but the name is now officially applied to the whole of the province. Angola is divided into five districts: four on the coast, the fifth, Lunda, wholly inland, being the N.E. part of the province. Lunda is part of the old Bantu kingdom of Muata Yanvo, divided by international agreement between Portugal and the Congo Free State.

The coast divisions of Angola are Congo on the N. (from the river Congo to the river Loje), corresponding roughly with the limits of the "kingdom of Congo" (see History below); Loanda, which includes Angola in the most restricted sense mentioned above; Benguella and Mossamedes to the south. Mossamedes is again divided into two portions—the coast region and the hinterland, known as Huilla.

Physical Features.—The coast is for the most part flat, with occasional low cliffs and bluffs of red sandstone. There is but one deep inlet of the sea—Great Fish Bay (or Bahia dos Tigres), a little north of the Portuguese-German frontier. Farther north are Port Alexander, Little Fish Bay and Lobito Bay, while shallower bays are numerous. Lobito Bay has water sufficient to allow large ships to unload close inshore. The coast plain extends inland for a distance varying from 30 to 100 m. This region is in general sparsely watered and somewhat sterile. The approach to the great central plateau of Africa is marked by a series of irregular terraces. This intermediate mountain belt is covered with luxuriant vegetation. Water is fairly abundant, though in the dry season obtainable only by digging in the sandy beds of the rivers. The plateau has an altitude ranging from 4000 to 6000 ft. It consists of well-watered, wide, rolling plains, and low hills with scanty vegetation. In the east the tableland falls away to the basins of the Congo and Zambezi, to the south it merges into a barren sandy desert. A large number of rivers make their way westward to the sea; they rise, mostly, in the mountain belt, and are unimportant, the only two of any size being the Kwanza and the Kunene, separately noticed. The mountain chains which form the edge of the plateau, or diversify its surface, run generally parallel to the coast, as Tala Mugongo (4400 ft.), Chella and Vissecua (5250 ft. to 6500 ft.). In the district of Benguella are the highest points of the province, viz. Loviti (7780 ft.), in 12 deg. 5' S., and Mt. Elonga (7550 ft.). South of the Kwanza is the volcanic mountain Caculo-Cabaza (3300 ft.). From the tableland the Kwango and many other streams flow north to join the Kasai (one of the largest affluents of the Congo), which in its upper course forms for fully 300 m. the boundary between Angola and the Congo State. In the south-east part of the province the rivers belong either to the Zambezi system, or, like the Okavango, drain to Lake Ngami.

Geology.—The rock formations of Angola are met with in three distinct regions: (1) the littoral zone, (2) the median zone formed by a series of hills more or less parallel with the coast, (3) the central plateau. The central plateau consists of ancient crystalline rocks with granites overlain by unfossiliferous sandstones and conglomerates considered to be of Palaeozoic age. The outcrops are largely hidden under laterite. The median zone is composed largely of crystalline rocks with granites and some Palaeozoic unfossiliferous rocks. The littoral zone contains the only fossiliferous strata. These are of Tertiary and Cretaceous ages, the latter rocks resting on a reddish sandstone of older date. The Cretaceous rocks of the Dombe Grande region (near Benguella) are of Albian age and belong to the Acanthoceras mamillari zone. The beds containing Schloenbachia inflata are referable to the Gault. Rocks of Tertiary age are met with at Dombe Grande, Mossamedes and near Loanda. The sandstones with gypsum, copper and sulphur of Dombe are doubtfully considered to be of Triassic age. Recent eruptive rocks, mainly basalts, form a line of hills almost bare of vegetation between Benguella and Mossamedes. Nepheline basalts and liparites occur at Dombe Grande. The presence of gum copal in considerable quantities in the superficial rocks is characteristic of certain regions.

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Climate.—With the exception of the district of Mossamedes, the coast plains are unsuited to Europeans. In the interior, above 3300 ft., the temperature and rainfall, together with malaria, decrease. The plateau climate is healthy and invigorating. The mean annual temperature at Sao Salvador do Congo is 72.5 deg. F.; at Loanda, 74.3 deg.; and at Caconda, 67.2 deg.. The climate is greatly influenced by the prevailing winds, which arc W., S.W. and S.S.W. Two seasons are distinguished—the cool, from June to September; and the rainy, from October to May. The heaviest rainfall occurs in April, and is accompanied by violent storms.

Flora and Fauna.—Both flora and fauna are those characteristic of the greater part of tropical Africa. As far south as Benguella the coast region is rich in oil-palms and mangroves. In the northern part of the province are dense forests. In the south towards the Kunene are regions of dense thorn scrub. Rubber vines and trees are abundant, but in some districts their number has been considerably reduced by the ruthless methods adopted by native collectors of rubber. The species most common are various root rubbers, notably the Carpodinus chylorrhiza. This species and other varieties of carpodinus are very widely distributed. Landolphias are also found. The coffee, cotton and Guinea pepper plants are indigenous, and the tobacco plant flourishes in several districts. Among the trees are several which yield excellent timber, such as the tacula (Pterocarpus tinctorius), which grows to an immense size, its wood being blood-red in colour, and the Angola mahogany. The bark of the musuemba (Albizzia coriaria) is largely used in the tanning of leather. The mulundo bears a fruit about the size of a cricket ball covered with a hard green shell and containing scarlet pips like a pomegranate. The fauna includes the lion, leopard, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, buffalo, zebra, kudu and many other kinds of antelope, wild pig, ostrich and crocodile. Among fish are the barbel, bream and African yellow fish.

Inhabitants.—The great majority of the inhabitants are of Bantu-Negro stock with some admixture in the Congo district with the pure negro type. In the south-east are various tribes of Bushmen. The best-known of the Bantu-Negro tribes are the Ba-Kongo (Ba-Fiot), who dwell chiefly in the north, and the Abunda (Mbunda, Ba-Bundo), who occupy the central part of the province, which takes its name from the Ngola tribe of Abunda. Another of these tribes, the Bangala, living on the west bank of the upper Kwango, must not be confounded with the Bangala of the middle Congo. In the Abunda is a considerable strain of Portuguese blood. The Ba-Lunda inhabit the Lunda district. Along the upper Kunene and in other districts of the plateau are settlements of Boers, the Boer population being about 2000. In the coast towns the majority of the white inhabitants are Portuguese. The Mushi-Kongo and other divisions of the Ba-Kongo retain curious traces of the Christianity professed by them in the 16th and 17th centuries and possibly later. Crucifixes are used as potent fetish charms or as symbols of power passing down from chief to chief; whilst every native has a "Santu" or Christian name and is dubbed dom or dona. Fetishism is the prevailing religion throughout the province. The dwelling-places of the natives are usually small huts of the simplest construction, used chiefly as sleeping apartments; the day is spent in an open space in front of the hut protected from the sun by a roof of palm or other leaves.

Chief Towns.—The chief towns are Sao Paulo de Loanda, the capital, Kabinda, Benguella and Mossamedes (q.v.). Lobito, a little north of Benguella, is a town which dates from 1905 and owes its existence to the bay of the same name having been chosen as the sea terminus of a railway to the far interior. Noki is on the southern bank of the Congo at the head of navigation from the sea, and close to the Congo Free State frontier. It is available for ships of large tonnage, and through it passes the Portuguese portion of the trade of the lower Congo. Ambriz—the only seaport of consequence in the Congo district of the province—is at the mouth of the Loje river, about 70 m. N. of Loanda. Novo Redondo and Egito are small ports between Loanda and Benguella. Port Alexander is in the district of Mossamedes and S. of the town of that name.

In the interior Humpata, about 95 m. from Mossamedes, is the chief centre of the Boer settlers; otherwise there are none but native towns containing from 1000 to 3000 inhabitants and often enclosed by a ring of sycamore trees. Ambaca and Malanje are the chief places in the fertile agricultural district of the middle Kwanza, S.E. of Loanda, with which they are in railway communication. Sao Salvador (pop. 1500) is the name given by the Portuguese to Bonza Congo, the chief town of the "kingdom of Congo." It stands 1840 ft. above sea-level and is about 160 m. inland and 100 S.E. of the river port of Noki, in 6 deg. 15' S. Of the cathedral and other stone buildings erected in the 16th century, there exist but scanty ruins. The city walls were destroyed in the closing years of the 19th century and the stone used to build government offices. There is a fort, built about 1850, and a small military force is at the disposal of the Portuguese resident. Bembe and Encoje are smaller towns in the Congo district south of Sao Salvador. Bihe, the capital of the plateau district of the same name forming the hinterland of Benguella, is a large caravan centre. Kangomba, the residence of the king of Bihe, is a large town. Caconda is in the hill country S.E. of Benguella.

Agriculture and Trade.—Angola is rich in both agricultural and mineral resources. Amongst the cultivated products are mealies and manioc, the sugar-cane and cotton, coffee and tobacco plants. The chief exports are coffee, rubber, wax, palm kernels and palm-oil, cattle and hides and dried or salt fish. Gold dust, cotton, ivory and gum are also exported. The chief imports are food-stuffs, cotton and woollen goods and hardware. Considerable quantities of coal come from South Wales. Oxen, introduced from Europe and from South Africa, flourish. There are sugar factories, where rum is also distilled and a few other manufactures, but the prosperity of the province depends on the "jungle" products obtained through the natives and from the plantations owned by Portuguese and worked by indentured labour, the labourers being generally "recruited" from the far interior. The trade of the province, which had grown from about L800,000 in 1870 to about L3,000,000 in 1905, is largely with Portugal and in Portuguese bottoms. Between 1893 and 1904 the percentage of Portuguese as compared with foreign goods entering the province increased from 43 to 201%, a result due to the preferential duties in force.

The minerals found include thick beds of copper at Bembe, and deposits on the M'Brije and the Cuvo and in various places in the southern part of the province; iron at Ociras (on the Lucalla affluent of the Kwanza) and in Bailundo; petroleum and asphalt in Dande and Quinzao; gold in Lombije and Cassinga; and mineral salt in Quissama. The native blacksmiths are held in great repute.

Communications.—There is a regular steamship communication between Portugal, England and Germany, and Loanda, which port is within sixteen days' steam of Lisbon. There is also a regular service between Cape Town, Lobito and Lisbon and Southampton. The Portuguese line is subsidized by the government. The railway from Loanda to Ambaca and Malanje is known as the Royal Trans-African railway. It is of metre gauge, was begun in 1887 and is some 300 m. long. It was intended to carry the line across the continent to Mozambique, but when the line reached Ambaca (225 m.) in 1894 that scheme was abandoned. The railway had created a record in being the most expensive built in tropical Africa—L8942 per mile. A railway from Lobito Bay, 25 m.N. of Benguella, begun in 1904, runs towards the Congo-Rhodesia frontier. It is of standard African gauge (3 ft. 6 in.) and is worked by an English company. It is intended to serve the Katanga copper mines. Besides these two main railways, there are other short lines linking the seaports to their hinterland. Apart from the railways, communication is by ancient caravan routes and by ox-wagon tracks in the southern district. Riding-oxen are also used. The province is well supplied with telegraphic communication and is connected with Europe by submarine cables.

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Government and Revenue.—The administration of the province is carried on under a governor-general, resident at Loanda, who acts under the direction of the ministry of the colonies at Lisbon. At the head of each district is a local governor. Legislative powers, save those delegated to the governor-general, are exercised by the home government. Revenue is raised chiefly from customs, excise duties and direct taxation. The revenue (in 1904-1905 about L350,000) is generally insufficient to meet expenditure (in 1904-1905 over L490,000)—the balance being met by a grant from the mother country. Part of the extra expenditure is, however, on railways and other reproductive works.

History.—The Portuguese established themselves on the west coast of Africa towards the close of the 15th century. The river Congo was discovered by Diogo Cam or Cao in 1482. He erected a stone pillar at the mouth of the river, which accordingly took the title of Rio de Padrao, and established friendly relations with the natives, who reported that the country was subject to a great monarch, Mwani Congo or lord of Congo, resident at Bonza Congo. The Portuguese were not long in making themselves influential in the country. Goncalo de Sousa was despatched on a formal embassy in 1490; and the first missionaries entered the country in his train. The king was soon afterwards baptized and Christianity was nominally established as the national religion. In 1534 a cathedral was founded at Bonza Congo (renamed Sao Salvador), and in 1560 the Jesuits arrived with Paulo Diaz de Novaes. Of the prosperity of the country the Portuguese have left the most glowing and indeed incredible accounts. It was, however, about this time ravaged by cannibal invaders (Bangala) from the interior, and Portuguese influence gradually declined. The attention of the Portuguese was, moreover, now turned more particularly to the southern districts of Angola. In 1627 the bishop's seat was removed to Sao Paulo de Loanda and Sao Salvador declined in importance. In the 18th century, in spite of hindrances from Holland and France, steps were taken towards re-establishing Portuguese authority in the northern regions; in 1758 a settlement was formed at Encoje; from 1784 to 1789 the Portuguese carried on a war against the natives of Mussolo (the district immediately south of Ambriz); in 1791 they built a fort at Quincollo on the Loje, and for a time they worked the mines of Bembe. Until, however, the "scramble for Africa" began in 1884, they possessed no fort or settlement on the coast to the north of Ambriz, which was first occupied in 1855. At Sao Salvador, however, the Portuguese continued to exercise influence. The last of the native princes who had real authority was a potentate known as Dom Pedro V. He was placed on the throne in 1855 with the help of a Portuguese force, and reigned over thirty years. In 1888 a Portuguese resident was stationed at Salvador, and the kings of Congo became pensioners of the government.

Angola proper, and the whole coast-line of what now constitutes the province of that name, was discovered by Diogo Cam during 1482 and the three following years. The first governor sent to Angola was Paulo Diaz, a grandson of Bartholomew Diaz, who reduced to submission the region south of the Kwanza nearly as far as Benguella. The city of Loanda was founded in 1576, Benguella in 1617. From that date the sovereignty of Portugal over the coast-line, from its present southern limit as far north as Ambriz (7 deg. 50' S.) has been undisputed save between 1640 and 1648, during which time the Dutch attempted to expel the Portuguese and held possession of the ports. Whilst the economic development of the country was not entirely neglected and many useful food products were introduced, the prosperity of the province was very largely dependent on the slave trade with Brazil, which was not legally abolished until 1830 and in fact continued for many years subsequently.

In 1884 Great Britain, which up to that time had steadily refused to acknowledge that Portugal possessed territorial rights north of Ambriz, concluded a treaty recognizing Portuguese sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo; but the treaty, meeting with opposition in England and Germany, was not ratified. Agreements concluded with the Congo Free State, Germany and France in 1885-1886 (modified in details by subsequent arrangements) fixed the limits of the province, except in the S.E., where the frontier between Barotseland (N.W. Rhodesia) and Angola was determined by an Anglo-Portuguese agreement of 1891 and the arbitration award of the king of Italy in 1905 (see AFRICA: History). Up to the end of the 19th century the hold of Portugal over the interior of the province was slight, though its influence extended to the Congo and Zambezi basins. The abolition of the external slave trade proved very injurious to the trade of the seaports, but from 1860 onward the agricultural resources of the country were developed with increasing energy, a work in which Brazilian merchants took the lead. After the definite partition of Africa among the European powers, Portugal applied herself with some seriousness to exploit Angola and her other African possessions. Nevertheless, in comparison with its natural wealth the development of the country has been slow. Slavery and the slave trade continued to flourish in the interior in the early years of the 20th century, despite the prohibitions of the Portuguese government. The extension of authority over the inland tribes proceeded very slowly and was not accomplished without occasional reverses. Thus in September 1904 a Portuguese column lost over 300 men killed, including 114 Europeans, in an encounter with the Kunahamas on the Kunene, not far from the German frontier. The Kunahamas are a wild, raiding tribe and were probably largely influenced by the revolt of their southern neighbours, the Hereros, against the Germans. In 1905 and again in 1907 there was renewed fighting in the same region.

AUTHORITIES.—E. de Vasconcellos, As Colonias Portuguesas (Lisbon, 1896-1897); J.J. Monteiro, Angola and the River Congo (2 vols. London, 1875); Viscount de Paiva Manso, Historia do Congo.... (Documentos) (Lisbon, 1877); A Report of the Kingdom of Congo (London, 1881), an English translation, with notes by Margarite Hutchinson, of Filippo Pigafetta's Relatione del Reame di Congo (Rome, 1591), a book founded on the statements and writings of Duarte Lopez; Rev. Thos. Lewis, "The Ancient Kingdom of Kongo" in Geographical Journal, vol. xix. and vol. xxxi. (London, 1902 and 1908); The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Angola and the Adjoining Regions (London, 1901), a volume of the Hakluyt Society, edited by E.G. Ravenstein, who gives in appendices the history of the country from its discovery to the end of the 17th century; J.C. Feo Cardozo, Memorias contendo ... a historia dos governadores e capitaens generaes de Angola, desde 1575 ate 1825 (Paris, 1825); H.W. Nevinson, A Modern Slavery (London, 1906), an examination of the system of indentured labour and its recruitment; Ornithologie d'Angola, by J.V. Barboza du Bocage (Lisbon, 1881); "Geologie des Colonies portugaises en Afrique," by P. Choffat, in Com. d. service geol. du Portugal. See also the annual reports on the Trade of Angola, issued by the British Foreign Office.



ANGORA, or ENGURI. (1) A city of Turkey (anc. Ancyra) in Asia, capital of the vilayet of the same name, situated upon a steep, rocky hill, which rises 500 ft. above the plain, on the left bank of the Enguri Su, a tributary of the Sakaria (Sangarius), about 220 m. E.S.E. of Constantinople. The hill is crowned by the ruins of the old citadel, which add to the picturesqueness of the view; but the town is not well built, its streets being narrow and many of its houses constructed of sun-dried mud bricks; there are, however, many fine remains of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine architecture, the most remarkable being the temple of Rome and Augustus, on the walls of which is the famous Monumentum Ancyranum (see ANCYRA). Ancyra was the centre of the Tectosages, one of the three Gaulish tribes which settled in Galatia in the 3rd century B.C., and became the capital of the Roman province of Galatia when it was formally constituted in 25 B.C. During the Byzantine period, throughout which it occupied a position of great importance, it was captured by Persians and Arabs; then it fell into the hands of the Seljuk Turks, was held for eighteen years by the Latin Crusaders, and finally passed to the Ottoman Turks in 1360. In 1402 a great battle was fought in the vicinity of Angora, in which the Turkish sultan Bayezid was defeated and made prisoner by the Tatar conqueror Timur. In 1415 it was recovered by the Turks under Mahommed I., and since that period has belonged to the Ottoman empire. In 1832 it was taken by the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha. Angora is connected with Constantinople by railway, and exports wool, mohair, grain and yellow berries. Mohair cloth is manufactured, and the town is noted for its honey and fruit. From 1639 to 1768 there was an agency of the Levant Company here; there is now a British consul. Pop. estimated at 28,000 (Moslems, 18,000; Christians, largely Roman Catholic Armenians, about 9400; Jews, 400).