rates
and farmers of Sleswick and East Anglia. Thus, in later days, a rich
vernacular literature grew up with many distinct branches. But, in the
earlier period, the use of a civilised idiom for all purposes connected
with the higher civilisation introduced by the missionaries was
absolutely necessary; and so we find the codes of laws, the penitentials
of the Church, the charters, and the prose literature generally, almost
all written at first in Latin alone. Gradually, as the English tongue
grew fuller, we find it creeping into use for one after another of these
purposes; but to the last an educated Anglo-Saxon could express himself
far more accurately and philosophically in the cultivated tongue of Rome
than in the rough dialect of his Teutonic countrymen. We have only to
contrast the bald and meagre style of the "English Chronicle," written
in the mother-tongue, with the fulness and ease of Baeda's
"Ecclesiastical History," written two centuries earlier in Latin, in
order to see how great an advantage the rough Northumbrians of the early
Christian period obtained in the gift of an old and polished instrument
for conveying to one another their higher thoughts.

Of this new literature (which began with the Latin biography of Wilfrith
by AEddi or Eddius, and the Latin verses of Ealdhelm) the great
representative is, in fact, Baeda, whose life has already been
sufficiently described in an earlier chapter. Living at Jarrow, a
Benedictine monastery of the strictest type, in close connection with
Rome, and supplied with Roman works in abundance, Baeda had thoroughly
imbibed the spirit of the southern culture, and his books reflect for us
a true picture of the English barbarian toned down and almost
obliterated in all distinctive features by receptivity for Italian
civilisation. The Northumbrian kingdom had just passed its prime in his
days; and he was able to record the early history of the English Church
and People with something like Roman breadth of view. His scientific
knowledge was up to that of his contemporaries abroad; while his
somewhat childish tales of miracles and visions, though they often
betray traces of the old heathen spirit, were not below the average
level of European thought in his own day. Altogether, Baeda may be taken
as a fair specimen of the Romanised Englishman, alike in his strength
and in his weakness. The samples of his historical style already given
will suffice for illustration of his Latin wo