Boethius de Consolatione, the Universal History of Orosius, Baeda’s Ecclesiastical History, and Pope Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis.  But the fact that AElfred still has recourse to Roman originals, marks the stage of civilisation as yet mainly imitative; while the interesting passages intercalated by the king himself show that the beginnings of a really native prose literature were already taking shape in English hands.

The chief monument of this truly Anglo-Saxon literature, begun and completed by English writers in the English tongue alone, is the Chronicle.  That invaluable document, the oldest history of any Teutonic race in its own language, was probably first compiled at the court of AElfred.  Its earlier part consists of mere royal genealogies of the first West Saxon kings, together with a few traditions of the colonisation, and some excerpts from Baeda.  But with the reign of AEthelwulf, AElfred’s father, it becomes comparatively copious, though its records still remain dry and matter-of-fact, a bare statement of facts, without comment or emotional display.  The following extract, giving the account of AElfred’s death, will show its meagre nature.  The passage has been modernised as little as is consistent with its intelligibility at the present day:—­

An. 901.  Here died AElfred AEthulfing [AEthelwulfing—­the son of AEthelwulf], six nights ere All Hallow Mass.  He was king over all English-kin, bar that deal that was under Danish weald [dominion]; and he held that kingdom three half-years less than thirty winters.  There came Eadward his son to the rule.  And there seized AEthelwold aetheling, his father’s brother’s son, the ham [villa] at Winburne [Wimbourne], and at Tweoxneam [Christchurch], by the king’s unthank and his witan’s [without leave from the king].  There rode the king with his fyrd till he reached Badbury against Winburne.  And AEthelwold sat within the ham, with the men that to him had bowed, and he had forwrought [obstructed] all the gates in, and said that he would either there live or there lie.  Thereupon rode the aetheling on night away, and sought the [Danish] host in Northumbria, and they took him for king and bowed to him.  And the king bade ride after him, but they could not outride him.  Then beset man the woman that he had erst taken without the king’s leave, and against the bishop’s word, for that she was ere that hallowed a nun.  And on this ilk year forth-fared AEthelred (he was ealdorman on Devon) four weeks ere AElfred king.

During the Augustan age the Chronicle grows less full, but contains several fine war-songs, of the genuine old English type, full of savagery in sentiment, and abrupt or broken in manner, but marked by the same wild poetry and harsh inversions as the older heathen ballads.  Amongst them stand the lines on the fight of Brunanburh, whose exordium is quoted above.  Its close forms one of the finest passages in old English verse:—­