invasion are taken; especially the threefold division into
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These migrations were so large and numerous that
the original country of the Angles was left a desert. The distribution of
the three divisions over the different parts of England was also Beda's.

The work of this important writer--the great luminary of early England--is
the _Historia Ecclesiastica_, a title which prepares us for a great
preponderance of the ecclesiastical over the secular history.

Now Beda's date was the middle of the eighth century.

And his locality was the monastery of Wearmouth, in the county of Durham.

Both of these facts must be borne in mind when we consider the value of his
authority, i.e., his means of knowing, as determined by the conditions of
time and place.

Christianity was introduced among the Anglo-Saxons of Kent A.D. 597. For
the times between them and A.D. 740, we have in Mr. Kemble's _Codex
Diplomaticus_ eighty-five charters, all in Latin, and most of them of
uncertain authenticity. They are chiefly grants of different kings of Kent,
Wessex, the Hwiccas, Mercia, and Northumberland, a few being of Bishops.

[3] Gildas was a _British_ ecclesiastic, as Beda was an _English_ one. His
locality was North Wales: his time earlier than Beda's by perhaps one
hundred years.

He states that he was born the year of the _pugna Badonica_, currently
called the _Battle of Bath_.

Now a chronological table called _Annales Cambrenses_, places that event
within one hundred years of the supposed landing of Hengist.

But there is no reason for believing this to be a cotemporary entry. Hence,
all that can be safely said of Gildas is that he was about as far removed
from the seat of the Germanic invasions, in locality, as Beda, whilst in
point of time he was nearer.

As a writer he is far inferior, being pre-eminently verbose, vague, and
indefinite.

_Gildas_, as far as he states facts at all, gives the _British_ account of
the conquest.

No other documents have come down to our time.

Beda's own authorities--as we learn from his introduction--were certain of
the most learned bishops and abbots of his cotemporaries, of whom he sought
special information as to the antiquities of their own establishments. Of
cotemporary writers, in the way of authority, there is no mention.

For the times between the "accredited date of Hengist and Horsa's landing
(A.D. 449) and A.D. 597 (a period of about one hundred and fi