Feudal Statistics 



the nth cent, being notably different from those of Saxon 

 England), being compiled from Beda, and presumably embody- 

 ing divers local memoranda : the existence of such for 

 Northumbria, 732-801, can easily be demonstrated by drawing The 

 out the provincial entries from the Northern Annals (praised Anna.'s of 

 for Symeon of Durham*), and by comparison with the National ^ a 

 Chronicle, the consistent and more complete notices in the 

 former (or rather its original, or originals), evidently having 

 furnished the more slender items in the latter. Tt is not easy 

 to see why the "Sacred College" (p. 180) should have wrought 

 essentially heathen pedigrees for the A. S. kings in the 

 Chronicle ; it is still less easy to understand why the statements 

 of contemporary historians are usually* confirmed by records, Chroni- 

 nor how the works of Matth. Paris and divers others con- clers - 

 taining matter extremely hostile to Pontifical authority could 

 escape the censorship of said College it, it may be repeated, 

 is difficult, but not impossible of explanation to one having a 

 source of authority "the pure bosom, etc. "(p. x) unhappily 

 denied to ordinary mankind. 



As to English events in Britain prior to the time of Beda, 

 it may be remarked that learning reached the North from Introduc- 

 Ireland c. 565, a few years after the reputed landing of the 

 ist King of Northumbria, prior to which, let it be supposed, j n the 

 Runic letters would not be unknown in England : a chronology North. 

 of the authentic Kings of his province, is appended to a copy Royal 

 of Bede (the writing praised for the 8th cent.), and traditional 

 predecessors of the royal houses might well be handed down 

 in the verse of Scalds (even, if not in writing), their authen- 

 ticity of course not being alleged. 



In the vol. under note the Suevi appear as a Slavic tribe Gothic and 

 (p. 138), a Gothic or semi-Gothic one (p. 193), where also, Germanic > 

 as of the " Sacae or Goths of the Euxine and Baltic, the 

 Gotbones of Tacitus," so that it would appear that Goths and 

 Sclavs were all one ; without, however, attempting to deter- 

 mine whether the author's authority on the ethnology of the 

 Suevi derives from inspiration, or exhumation, it may be stated 

 that Gothic and Germanic are often used (not in Ancient 

 Britain, etc.) as terms interchangeable, but perhaps the most 

 convenient modus is to include Scandinavians, Angles, Saxons 

 and Deutschen under the term Germani (the Germania of 

 Tacitus is of course not the present German Empire, and 



* No particular accuracy for dates, net correctness in matters 

 statistical, is here suggested. 



8 



