BOOK I
EARLY ENGLAND
449-1071


AUTHORITIES FOR BOOK I
449-1071


For the conquest of Britain by the English our authorities are scant and
imperfect. The only extant British account is the "Epistola" of Gildas, a
work written probably about A.D. 560. The style of Gildas is diffuse and
inflated, but his book is of great value in the light it throws on the
state of the island at that time, and above all as the one record of the
conquest which we have from the side of the conquered. The English
conquerors, on the other hand, have left jottings of their conquest of
Kent, Sussex, and Wessex in the curious annals which form the opening of
the compilation now known as the "English" or "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,"
annals which are undoubtedly historic, though with a slight mythical
intermixture. For the history of the English conquest of mid-Britain or
the Eastern Coast we possess no written materials from either side; and a
fragment of the Annals of Northumbria embodied in the later compilation
("Historia Britonum") which bears the name of Nennius alone throws light
on the conquest of the North.

From these inadequate materials however Dr. Guest has succeeded by a
wonderful combination of historical and archæological knowledge in
constructing a narrative of the conquest of Southern and South-Western
Britain which must serve as the starting-point for all future enquirers.