Beacon Lights of History, Volume 08 | Page 3

of his people and nation in the
Middle Ages. As a man of military genius he yields to many of the
kings of England, to say nothing of the heroes of ancient and modern
times.
When he was born, A.D. 849, the Saxons had occupied Britain, or
England, about four hundred years, having conquered it from the old
Celtic inhabitants soon after the Romans had retired to defend their
own imperial capital from the Goths. Like the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
Burgundians, Lombards, and Heruli, the Saxons belonged to the same
Teutonic race, whose remotest origin can be traced to Central
Asia,--kindred, indeed, to the early inhabitants of Italy and Greece,
whom we call Indo-European, or Aryan. These Saxons--one of the
fiercest tribes of the Teutonic barbarians;--lived, before the invasion of
Britain, in that part of Europe which we now call Schleswig, in the
heart of the peninsula which parts the Baltic from the northern seas;
also in those parts of Germany which now belong to Hanover and
Oldenburg. It does not appear from the best authorities that these
tribes--called Engle, Saxon, and Jute--wandered about seeking a
precarious living, but they were settled in villages, in the government
of which we trace the germs of the subsequent social and political
institutions of England. The social centre was the homestead of the
oetheling or corl, distinguished from his fellow-villagers by his greater
wealth and nobler blood, and held by them in hereditary reverence.
From him and his brother-oethelings the leaders of a warlike expedition
were chosen. He alone was armed with spear and sword, and his long
hair floated in the wind. He was bound to protect his kinsmen from
wrong and injustice. The land which inclosed the village, whether
reserved for pasture, wood, or tillage, was undivided, and every free
villager had the right of turning his cattle and swine upon it, and also of
sharing in the division of the harvest. The basis of the life was
agricultural. Our Saxon ancestors in Germany did not subsist
exclusively by hunting or fishing, although these pursuits were not

neglected. They were as skilful with the plough and mattock as they
were in steering a boat or hunting a deer or pursuing a whale. They
were coarse in their pleasures, but religious in their turn of mind;
Pagans, indeed, but worshipping the powers of Nature with poetic ardor.
They were born warriors, and their passion for the sea led to
adventurous enterprise. Before the close of the third century their boats,
driven by fifty oars, had been seen in the British waters; and after the
Romans had left the Britons to defend themselves against the Scots and
Picts, the harassed rulers of the land invoked the aid of these Saxon
pirates, and, headed by two ealdormen,--Hengist and Horsa,--they
landed on the Isle of Thanet in the year 449.
These two chieftains are the earliest traditionary heroes of the Saxons
in England. Their mercenary work was soon done, and after it was done
they had no idea of retiring to their own villages in Germany. They cast
their greedy eyes on richer pastures and more fruitful fields.
Brother-pirates flocked from the Elbe and Rhine to their settlement in
Thanet. In forty-five years after Hengist and Horsa landed, Cerdic with
a more formidable band had taken possession of a large part of the
southern coast, and pushed his way to Winchester and founded the
kingdom of Wessex. But the work of conquest was slow. It took
seventy years for the Saxons to become masters of Kent, Sussex,
Hampshire, Essex, and Wessex.
A stout resistance to the invading Saxons had been made by the native
Britons, headed by Arthur,--a legendary hero, who is thought to have
lived near the close of the fifth century. His deeds and those of the
knights of the Round Table form the subject of one of the most
interesting romances of the Middle Ages, probably written in the
brightest age of chivalry, and by a monk very ignorant of history, since
he gives many Norman names to his characters. But all the valor of the
Celtic hero and his chivalrous followers was of no avail before the
fierce and persistent attacks of a hardier race, bent on the possession of
a fairer land than their own.
We know but little of the details of the various conflicts until Britain
was finally won by these predatory tribes of barbarians. The stubborn

resistance of the Britons led to their final retreat or complete
extermination, and with their disappearance also perished what
remained of the Roman civilization. The resistance of the Britons was
much more obstinate than that of any of the other provinces of the
Empire; but, as the forces arrayed against them were comparatively
small, the work of conquest was slow. "It took thirty