•If. 



DISCOVERY 



England's "Peaceful Pene- 

 tration " of Germany in the 

 Middle Ages 



By L. A. WiUoughby, Ph.D., D.Lit. 



Ltelunr In German In Iht Univertili; 0/ Shr/fleld 



It has long been a matter of controversy with scholars 

 to what extent German language and literature in the 

 eighth and ninth centuries were indebted to Anglo- 

 Saxon influence. A most important contribution 

 to the subject, invaluable to the historian and the 

 linguist alike, was published recently.* The essay is 

 from the pen of the veteran " Germanist " Wilhelm 

 Braune of Heidelberg, who with Hermann Paul, 

 Eduard Sievers, and Friedrich Kluge, form a stalwart 

 band of Jiinggrammatikcr (alas ! no longer young), 

 a term used to distinguish them from the older school 

 of Grimm and Lachmann and the great pioneers of last 

 century. A life-long student of Old High German 

 Language and Literature, he is famous in the modern 

 language schools throughout the Old and New World 

 as the author of the standard Grammar and Dictionary 

 of Old High German. These have made him the 

 greatest li\-ing authority on the oldest periods of 

 German, and it is only fit and proper that he should 

 be the author of one of the most interesting philological 

 discoveries of modern times. 



It is well known that the conversion of Germany 

 was undertaken by a native of Devonshire, the Anglo- 

 Saxon Wynfrith, famous in the annals of the Church 

 as St. Boniface. In a.d. 719 he was commissioned by 

 Pope Gregory II to the heathen nations of Germany, 

 and laboured unceasingly as a missionary for thirty 

 years. The founder of cathedrals and bishoprics. 

 Archbishop and Primate of all Germany, Wynfrith 

 resigned dignities and honours that he might devote 

 himself the more effectively to his great mission. In 

 754, whilst holding an open-air confirmation service in 

 Friesland, the " Apostle of Germany " won the martyr's 

 crown. His remains were eventually brought back to 

 Germany, and buried in the celebrated monastery of 

 Fulda, which he himself had founded. 



The Anglo-Saxon mission in Germany, however, 

 began even earlier. Its extreme limits date from 

 the landing of Wilfrid in Friesland in 67S to the installa- 

 tion of Willehad as Bishop of Bremen in 787.2 The 

 anxiety of the English for their German brethren may 

 be explained very largely to the fact that they still 



> Beitrdge zur Geschichle d. deut. Sprache u. LiUralur, 191 8, 

 vol. xxiii, pp. 361 et seq. 



* See Kirchenseschichte Deulschlands. vol. i, pp. 448-594, by 

 A. Hauck; also Deutschland und England in ihren kirchlichcn 

 Beziehungen, by the same author. 



considered the latter (or at least the Saxons) to be of 

 the same stock as themselves. Boniface, in urging 

 his countrymen to undertake missionary work among 

 the Germans, reminds them that they arc people " of 

 their own flesh and blood," and in the eighth century 

 the Saxons in Germany were known in England as 

 " -Mtsaxones." 



The EngUsh mission reached its height with the 

 intense activity of Wynfrith in Middle Germany. 

 English priests came over, not in dozens, but 

 literally in hundreds, and of the newly instituted 

 benefices in Thuringia, Hesse, and East Franconia, 

 most were held by EngUshmen. 



But their activity extended also to the South, and 

 a great religious revival was instituted by Boniface in 

 Bavaria under the auspices of Duke Odilo, with the 

 result that many English monks were inmates of 

 Bavarian and Alemanic monasteries. It is no wonder, 

 therefore, that this great influx of Anglo-Saxon priests, 

 with their superior " Kultur," should have influenced 

 the intellectual life of the Germans in all directions. 

 It made itself evident at once in the introduction of 

 the Anglo-Irish Script, which maintained itself until 

 the ninth century. It was naturally not to be expected 

 that the monks would further the national heathen 

 literature, but that the religious literature of Germany, 

 and especially Old Saxon poetry, w-as largely written 

 under Anglo-Saxon inspiration is now an accepted fact. 

 To w^hat extent Old High German hterature itself 

 stands indebted to Anglo-Saxon poetry is still a moot 

 question ; the most extravagant claims have been 

 made, but without meeting with general acceptance. 

 But part, at least, of the Vocabidaritts St. Galli, the 

 famous dictionary of the monastery St. Galli in 

 Switzerland, dating from the middle of the eighth cen- 

 tury, can be proved to have been based on an .\nglo- 

 Sa.xon model, w^hilst the Baseler Recepte show an ad- 

 mixture of Anglo-Saxon forms. Even the vocabulary of 

 the Old High German translation of Tatian's Harmony 

 of the Gospels contains no fewer than two hundred and 

 eighty words which do not occur in other High German 

 Sources, but are peculiar to Anglo-Saxon or Low 

 German districts.' 



Thus whilst the certain examples of the influence of 

 Anglo-Saxon on literary German are restricted to a 

 few solitary instances, j^et Anglo-Sa.xon phraseology cer- 

 tainly influenced most powerfully the h\ang spoken lan- 

 guage. The English missionaries, in their efforts to ex- 

 pound the new doctrines, had to coin many new words and 

 expressions (when they naturally turned to such terms 

 as were famihar to them in their ow-n tongue), or place 

 a fresh interpretation upon the old. Now there existed 

 already before the advent of Wynfrith an older stratum 



1 This translation was written in the monastery founded by 

 Wynfrith at Fulda. 



