PREFACE. XXI 



In this doggrel, Bald is the owner of the book ; we 

 have no right to improve him into iESelbald ; Cild is, 

 probably, the scribe ; some will contend, the author. 

 In classical Latin no doubt would exist, conscribere 

 would at once denote the composing of the work : 

 but in these later dciys, when millions of foreigners 

 learnt the Latin language as a means of interchange of 

 thoughts, occasionally intruding their own "Gothic words, 

 all such niceties of the ear went for nothing ; Cild 

 might well be the mere penman. But then the mar- 

 ginal tokens, and private memoranda, show that the 

 work so written had passed either through the hands 

 of the author, which from the use of private marks 

 is probable, or through those of another leech, who was 

 able to discover the sources of the authors information. 

 Bald anywise may have been the author himself 



Let us give a few touches to the, as yet, bare outline q[\^_ 

 of the penman Cild. The famous Durham book is a 

 charming work of ancient Saxon art ; those who cannot 

 inspect the original may see a copy of a piece of the 

 ornamentation in the Gospel of St. Matthew, edited 

 by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, and published by the 

 Surtees society. According to an entry of a later age 

 in the book itself, not of doubtful authenticity, this 

 exquisite piece of pattern work, which is a part of 

 the writing, was the performance of EadfriS, bishop 

 of Lindisfarne, who occupied that see from 698 to 721. 

 It is of Irish tone, and like many other dignitaries this 

 prelate had, very likely, completed his Christian educa- 

 tion in the Isle of Saints. Cild was certainly not of the 

 make and metal of a bishop, for the words " conscribere 

 " iussit " forbid it ; Dunstan forefend ! It would be 

 somewhat speculative to say, that in JSTorthumbria, 

 A.D. 700, the art of writing was at a higher premium 

 than afterwards. I will not venture to say it, but 

 proceed upon surer data. One of the poems in the 

 Exeter book, of uncertain date, but before the end 



