that the poor Britains, being harass'd by
those Roman Conquerours with continual Wars,
could neither have leisure nor thought for the
penning of a Regular History: and that afterwards
their Back-Friends, the Saxons, were (for a good
while) an Illiterate Generation; and minded nothing
but Killing and taking Possession. So that
'tis a wonder that even so much remains of the
Story of those Times as the sorry Fragments of
Gildas; who appears to have written in such a
Consternation, that what he has left us looks more
like the Declamation of an Orator, hired to expose
the miserable Wretches, than any Historical Account
of their Sufferings."

Palgrave asserts that reading and writing were no
longer mysteries after the pagan age, but were still
acquirements almost wholly confined to the clergy.

The word "clericus" or "clerk," became synonymous
with penman, the sense in which it is still most
usually employed. If a man could write, or even
read, his knowledge was considered as proof presumptive
that he was in holy orders. If kings and great
men had occasion to authenticate any document, they
subscribed the "sign" of the cross opposite to the place
where the "clerk" had written their name. Hence
we say, to sign a deed or a letter.

Books (MSS.) were extremely rare amongst the