The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

73

Or, in Holmsdale, Surry: hence the proverb—

"This is Holmsdale,
Never conquer'd, never shall."

74

The pirates of Armorica, now Bretagne; so called, because they abode day and night in their ships; from lid, a ship, and wiccian, to watch or abide day and night.

75

So I understand the word. Gibson, from Wheloc, says—"in aetatis vigore;" a fact contradicted by the statement of almost every historian. Names of places seldom occur in old MSS. with capital initials.

76

i.e. the feast of the Holy Innocents; a festival of great antiquity.

77

i.e. the secular clergy, who observed no rule; opposed to the regulars, or monks.

78

i.e. the secular clergy, who observed no rule; opposed to the regulars, or monks.

79

The following passage from Cotton Tiberius B iv., relating to the accession of Edward the Martyr, should be added here—

In his days,
On account of his youth,
The opponents of God
Broke through God's laws;
Alfhere alderman,
And others many;
And marr'd monastic rules;
Minsters they razed,
And monks drove away,
And put God's laws to flight—
Laws that King Edgar
Commanded the holy
Saint Ethelwold bishop
Firmly to settle—
Widows they stript
Oft and at random.
Many breaches of right
And many bad laws
Have arisen since;
And after-times
Prove only worse.
Then too was Oslac
The mighty earl
Hunted from England's shores.

80

Florence of Worcester mentions three synods this year; Kyrtlinege, Calne, and Ambresbyrig.

81

Vid. "Hist. Eliens." ii. 6. He was a great benefactor to the church of Ely.

82

This was probably the veteran historian of that name, who was killed in the severe encounter with the Danes at Alton (Aethelingadene) in the year 1001.

83

i.e. at Canterbury. He was chosen or nominated before, by King Ethelred and his council, at Amesbury: vid. an. 994. This notice of his consecration, which is confirmed by Florence of Worcester, is now first admitted into the text on the authority of three MSS.

84

Not the present district so-called, but all that north of the Sea of Severn, as opposed to West-Wales, another name for Cornwall.

85

See a more full and circumstantial account of these events, with some variation of names, in Florence of Worcester.

86

The successor of Elfeah, or Alphege, in the see of Winchester, on the translation of the latter to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury.

87

This passage, though very important, is rather confused, from the Variations in the MSS.; so that it is difficult to ascertain the exact proportion of ships and armour which each person was to furnish. "Vid. Flor." an. 1008.

88

These expressions in the present tense afford a strong proof that the original records of these transactions are nearly coeval with the transactions themselves. Later MSS. use the past tense.

89

i.e. the Chiltern Hills; from which the south-eastern part of Oxfordshire is called the Chiltern district.

90

"Leofruna abbatissa".—Flor. The insertion of this quotation from Florence of Worcester is important, as it confirms the reading adopted in the text. The abbreviation "abbt", instead of "abb", seems to mark the abbess. She was the last abbess of St. Mildred's in the Isle of Thanet; not Canterbury, as Harpsfield and Lambard say.