THE DIALECTS OF NORTHUMBRIA; TILL A.D. 1000


In Professor Earle's excellent manual on Anglo-Saxon Literature,
chapter V is entirely occupied with "the Anglian Period," and begins
thus:--"While Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning,
there was, in the Anglian region of Northumbria, a development of
religious and intellectual life which makes it natural to regard the
whole brilliant period from the later seventh to the early ninth
century as the Anglian Period.... Anglia became for a century the
light-spot of European history; and we here recognise the first great
stage in the revival of learning, and the first movement towards the
establishment of public order in things temporal and spiritual."

Unfortunately for the student of English, though perhaps fortunately
for the historian, the most important book belonging to this period
was written in Latin. This was the _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum_, or the Church History of the Anglian People. The
writer was Beda, better known as "the Venerable Bede," who was born
near Wearmouth (Durham) in 672, and lived for the greater part of his
life at Jarrow, where he died in 735. He wrote several other works,
also in Latin, most of which Professor Earle enumerates. It is said of
Beda himself that he was "learned in our native songs," and it is
probable that he wrote many things in his native Northumbrian or
Durham dialect; but they have all perished, with the exception of one
precious fragment of five lines, printed by Dr Sweet (at p. 149) from
the St Gall MS. No. 254, of the ninth century. It is usually called
Beda's Death-song, and is here given: