Footnote 36:  From Alfred’s Boethius.

Footnote 37:  It is not certain that the translation of Bede is the work of Alfred.

Footnote 38:  See Translations from Old English Poetry.  Only a brief account of the fight is given in the Chronicle.  The song known as “The Battle of Maldon,” or “Byrhtnoth’s Death,” is recorded in another manuscript.

Footnote 39:  This is an admirable little book, containing the cream of Anglo-Saxon poetry, in free translations, with notes.  Translations from Old English Prose is a companion volume.

Footnote 40:  For full titles and publishers of general reference books, and for a list of inexpensive texts and helps, see General Bibliography at the end of this book.

Footnote 41:  The chief object of these questions is not to serve as a review, or to prepare for examination, but rather to set the student thinking for himself about what he has read.  A few questions of an advanced nature are inserted which call for special study and research in interesting fields.

Footnote 42:  A Romance language is one whose basis is Latin,—­not the classic language of literature, but a vulgar or popular Latin spoken in the military camps and provinces.  Thus Italian, Spanish, and French were originally different dialects of the vulgar Latin, slightly modified by the mingling of the Roman soldiers with the natives of the conquered provinces.

Footnote 43:  See p. 51.

Footnote 44:  It is interesting to note that all the chroniclers of the period, whether of English or Norman birth, unite in admiration of the great figures of English history, as it was then understood.  Brutus, Arthur, Hengist, Horsa, Edward the Confessor, and William of Normandy are all alike set down as English heroes.  In a French poem of the thirteenth century, for instance, we read that “there is no land in the world where so many good kings and saints have lived as in the isle of the English ... such as the strong and brave Arthur, Edmund, and Cnut.”  This national poem, celebrating the English Edward, was written in French by a Norman monk of Westminster Abbey, and its first heroes are a Celt, a Saxon, and a Dane.  (See Jusserand, Literary History of the English People, I, 112 ff.)

Footnote 45:  English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer.

Footnote 46:  Anselm was an Italian by birth, but wrote his famous work while holding the see of Canterbury.

Footnote 47:  During the Roman occupancy of Britain occurred a curious mingling of Celtic and Roman traditions.  The Welsh began to associate their national hero Arthur with Roman ancestors; hence the story of Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas, the first king of Britain, as related by Geoffrey and Layamon.

Footnote 48:  Probably a Latin copy of Bede.

Footnote 49:  Wace’s translation of Geoffrey.