1888. ] 135 
[Law. 
the Anglo-Saxon Conquest, except such inductions as we may form from 
change of language. 
I will, therefore, examine the claims of Gildas. He is reputed to have 
heen a Welsh monk who wrote about 520 A.D.; and his youth would have 
been nearly contemporaneous with the Saxon invasions. The book is in 
Latin and bears the title of ‘“‘De Excidio Britannize ;’ and covers about 
fifty or sixty pages of a small duodecimo volume. It is composed of two 
parts, distinct in their nature; the first containing the history of. the in- 
vasions; the second, a long, rambling account of remarkable events 
which occur in the Biblical narrative. The style is most singular. It is 
not a mere dry narrative of events like most of the so-called Chronicles, 
interspersed with naive and quaint remarks; but it has a distinct lyrical 
tone and manner, with a kind of rhythmical flow of the sentences ; indeed, 
it reads like a prose chant. It commences with a description of the 
wickedness of the Britons, ascribing to them all manner of sins. After 
the departure of the Roman armies they fall into divisions and civil 
wars. The Picts attack them, and upon their doleful complaints to the 
Romans, the Romans return, drive out after many battles the Picts, and 
to secure them from further attacks, build the great wall. Upon their 
departure the Picts recommence their attacks. The Britons send again 
for the Romans, who, after conquering the Picts, build another and larger 
wall from sea to sea, protected by large castles erected upon it. But this 
does not prevent the Picts from entering and commencing fresh attacks, 
harrying and destroying the whole country. The Romans returning to 
their frantic appeals a deaf answer, Vortigern, one of their kings, calls in 
the Saxons, and here occurs the well-known tale of Vortigern and Ro- 
wena. The Saxons, from being merely auxiliaries, quickly take advantage 
of the weakness of their allies and proceed to subjugate them ; and, being 
joined by numbers of their kinsfolk from across the sea, gradually conquer 
the whole of Britain. 
This is the account found in almost all the English histories as the reli- 
able account of the Saxon Conquest. Historians desirous of forming a 
connected account, naturally do not like to acknowledge ignorance of the 
most important event and revolution in the annals of the country ; no less 
than a complete change in its language and probably a partial change in 
the blood of the people, certainly of that of the ruling class. 
But to archeologists who require proof, Gildas has always appeared 
a most unhistorical writer and of no authenticity. Several facts which 
lie patent in his book have always struck them as entirely inconsistent 
with a contemporary author such as he claims to be ; and first, his pecu- 
liar style, which is utterly unlike what a contemporary historian would 
use, It appears much more like a poem turned into prose than a dry 
narrative of facts. And second, from his notorious errors in history, in 
which he narrates as contemporaneous, events which had occurred long 
before ; for instance, his describing the civil wars of Maxentius and Con- 
stantine as occurring about that time when they occurred nearly a cen- 
